LRT fight finally over

[calculoso]

Beautiful. Spending $700 million and can't bother spending another 80-90 on a change that will have immediate and substantial impact.

Silly hall indeed. Too busy looking at the short term and not enough vision on the long term.

Do it right the first time instead of having to spend 3 times the amount fixing it later!

[COGENT]

Unfortunately I don't think it is possible to make 1,000,000 people happy.

I live in Sunalta so I am incredibly happy the city has focused on expansion rather than capacity. I will no longer have to make the choice of walking 45 min. to work or paying $20 a day for parking. However, I am sure in 2 years from now I will be complaining that the trains are too full. Is there a right answer? Of course there is, but it costs a butt load of money.

I have had the pleasure of using some of the most advanced public transportation systems in the world (Tokyo, NY, London, Paris... blah blah blah) and it's almost embarrassing to come back here. But, like some people have said, it is impossible to compare Calgary to any of these cities. So, rather than compare ourselves why isn't Calgary trying to do what worked for these major cities when they started their system?

[ken0042]

Originally Posted by calculoso

Beautiful. Spending $700 million and can't bother spending another 80-90 on a change that will have immediate and substantial impact.

Well, to be fair that is a 12% increase on the entire project just for one intersection.

I think the city is doing it wrong. Make the project the entire length, but to save money to build the underpasses they should skip some of the earlier stations. My mechanic is right by Westbrook mall, and in the morning when I drop off the car its about a 2 minute wait for a bus, and then a 10 minute ride downtown. Do we really need stations there right away? Get the line up and running, and start by servicing the people who have the longer commute.

[calculoso]

Originally Posted by ken0042

Well, to be fair that is a 12% increase on the entire project just for one intersection.

And instead they're going to look at moving the emergency services.. how much is that going to cost? $50 million?

[fredr123]

So, wait a sec. Were the NIMBY whiners right after all? I'm confused...

[Resolute 14]

"Winning" and being "right" aren't the same...

I don't think the Bow Trail situation will ever be as bad as 36th is, but I do think they will find that this compromise is suboptimal pretty fast.

[ken0042]

Originally Posted by calculoso

And instead they're going to look at moving the emergency services.. how much is that going to cost? $50 million?

I think you might be a little off there. It's hard to find exact costs, but the city of Guelph just approved a major new 36,000 sq ft fire hall at a cost of $12M. So that might be a better number to use.

As I said before, I also think that there should be few if any level crossings. But part of the problem is the NIMBYs already showed how opposed they were to elevated lines on one leg of the route, so I can see why the city doesn't want to propose them elsewhere and start the whole review process again. And as we all know it is much cheaper to build up than under ground.

Originally Posted by fredr123

So, wait a sec. Were the NIMBY whiners right after all? I'm confused...

No. I think the route as originally proposed was pretty good. Now they have created additional chaos where it didn't need to be before. Keep in mind they wanted it underground by their homes, and then once it was west of where they needed it to run, it no longer mattered to them.

[FurnaceFace]

Originally Posted by ken0042

My mechanic is right by Westbrook mall, and in the morning when I drop off the car its about a 2 minute wait for a bus, and then a 10 minute ride downtown. Do we really need stations there right away? Get the line up and running, and start by servicing the people who have the longer commute.

You either time it right, don't visit your mechanic in the winter (I'm curious who your mechanic is btw, I'd like to find a good one in the area), or it gets really full at Westbrook. I'm east of Westbrook - closer to the golf course and the bus frequently passes us by in the winter. I'd be fine without a Ctrain stop at 26th street IF it means the bus routes will not be affected. We desperately need more bus service or at minimum the accordion buses on routes 101 and 104 right now. Once the Bravo towers are finished I'm thinking I'll never get a bus.

[Incogneto]

INstead of comparing it to NY and Paris, look at cities like Munich and Prague. Those cities are just over 1M people, and have a FAR dominant transit system.

Invest the money for BOTH expansion and capacity now, and be happy about it for YEARS to come.

[cheevers]

Another city whose transit i really liked with similar amount of people was Brussels. I think it has between 1.3 to 1.7 million people, but the transit system is nice and easy to figure out, even as a tourist who didnt speak the language. Stops in most places and it seemed to cover most of the city. And the best part of it was it told you when a bloody train was coming. I know it seems crazy but transit drivers in european cities are expected to be on time, something you never get here.

[McMack]

Munich and Prague may have the same population, but the physical size and layouts of these cities bears no comparison to Calgary. The physical area of Calgary is 2.5 times the area of Munich, for example. The populations of those cities is also relatively stable and they have had the certainty and the time to do long range planning. Not only has the growth of Calgary been tomour like in its speed, it is also unpredicatble. Who would have predicted, during the doldrums of the '80s in Calgary, that the population would almost double within 20 years.

[HotHotHeat]

Throw Zurich into the mix as well. The difference between here and anywhere in Europe is that we love to live unsustainably...And we're incredibly good at it. More funding goes to those city's transit lines because a larger portion of the population uses them. In any of those cities listed above the solution might just as likely have been to close the road all together to put a transit rail system in place. In my opinion, Calgary is not even beginning to realize the mess it's creating for itself.

[Rhettzky]

Sorry, but I don't think comparing Calgary to any European city is a fair comparison. We have massive amounts of land at our disposal here, the next large city centre is over 300km away. Look at munich...



It's population takes up less than half of the land area that Calgary's does. Our Aunt from Greece recently came to Canada for her first visit and she was shocked that everyone she visited with had a large backyard. We drove down 22 to Elbow Falls and she couldn't believe all the open space. It's a completely different world over there. Look at all the towns surrounding Munich...



...what a freaking gong show!!

[killer_carlson]

in edmonton we see a nice underground downtown lrt system, but basically nothing other than that. The city is decades behind in expansion and only last election was there a counsellor who's platform was lrt expansion front and center. (finally).

Build it now, build it to last, and start planning where you will build more in the future.

[Rhettzky]

Originally Posted by killer_carlson

Build it now, build it to last, and start planning where you will build more in the future.

The city already had right-of-way secured for seven additional legs of LRT. Some of them seem mind-blowingly obscure right now because of how far out they are planned where-as others could be implemented for construction immediately if it weren't for the costs.

One leg that could even go before the SE line is the North LRT line along Deerfoot to Country Hills. I think this could go first if the high speed train between Calgary and Edmonton gets approved before the West LRT leg is completed. They share a few of the same corridors so it would make sense for the city to construct both lines at the same time. Plus I've seen conceptual plans for "Railtown" which would be the future hub for the high speed train and it has mentions to future LRT lines in it.

[Ironhorse]

Originally Posted by Got Miikka?

Hey, look at it this way: at least the new leg will be CONSISTENT in its crappiness versus the rest of the C-Train lines.

Quoted For Truth.

It is pathetic. Soon Calgary will have a place in the history books on how NOT to design a Light Rail public transit system.

[mykalberta]

Here is some interesting stats on what is considered the best public transit system and uban planning in all of Europe

2001 stats (Glasgow University study of the Munich MVV and Urban development)

Munic population = 2.9 mil.
Munic Density = 4320/Sq Km
53% single person dwellings
land area 5500Km 2
36% jobs downtown
German federal grant covers 80% Subway, 60% LRT (likely the reason for the large amount of Subway)

Planned investment of 700mil Cdn will only bring roughly 5% rise in ridership

Approx 1bil Canadian for budget of MVV

52% cost recovery

I agree, it would be fantasitic if we had this. But sometimes you have to work with what you have at the moment and then fix it later.

[simonsays]

One of the things I've never understood about Calgarys LRT is the stations. Now I do realize that a ton of them lie between major roads, but why do they all need to be monoliths. Anderson, Southland, Heritage, Chinook, Earlton could all be simple platforms a la 39th, Sunny Side or Lions Park. How much do these mega-stations add to the cost of construction? 10m per? How much do they add to the cost of maintanence?

[Ironhorse]

Originally Posted by simonsays

... but why do they all need to be monoliths. Anderson, Southland, Heritage, Chinook, Earlton could all be simple platforms a la 39th, Sunny Side or Lions Park..

The ones you list were part of the original line, partially as part of the proposal to get the Olympics IIRC, so some civic pride goes into these. I don't mind some nice architectural innovation, we don't need everything to look drab and boring.

[Rhettzky]

Originally Posted by simonsays

One of the things I've never understood about Calgarys LRT is the stations. Now I do realize that a ton of them lie between major roads, but why do they all need to be monoliths. Anderson, Southland, Heritage, Chinook, Earlton could all be simple platforms a la 39th, Sunny Side or Lions Park. How much do these mega-stations add to the cost of construction? 10m per? How much do they add to the cost of maintanence?

They have realized over the years that pedestrian traffic isn't the problem they conceived it would be with rail lines. So much so that there are plans to redevelop Anderson Station and turn it into a simple platform to create room for some buildings on that site.