Calgary Public Transit - Discussion

[Wormius]

Is it possible Farkas ends up reversing Chu's screw up by inavertently advocating for scuttling the southern portion and having the north central route completed instead?

[Wormius]

What is the point of those old business guys coming out against the Green Line? What skin to they have in this game? Does Stantec have some axe to grind?

[accord1999]

Originally Posted by Wormius

What is the point of those old business guys coming out against the Green Line? What skin to they have in this game? Does Stantec have some axe to grind?

They could just be concerned about the financial capability of Calgary to complete a project that might well exceed $10B (which was originally budgeted at less than $5B and is already at $8B), especially in a time of economic stagnation and belt-tightening from the Province.

[Roughneck]

They should have opponents ride the LRT through downtown on a snow day and see if they are still thinking ‘they definitely made the right decision not building this properly through downtown’ before letting people who supposedly represent the business community try to suggest options the business community opposed during the years of consultations for the project.

[accord1999]

Originally Posted by Roughneck

They should have opponents ride the LRT through downtown on a snow day and see if they are still thinking ‘they definitely made the right decision not building this properly through downtown’

Despite all the disadvantages of the 7th Avenue transit mall, it still has enough capacity to handle more than 300K trips per day, double Edmonton.

And I think the recent news release after the meeting makes it clear that building the full tunnel as initially envisioned will take so much money that the project will not have enough left to also reach Shepard.

Based on our analysis and what we’ve heard we will be continuing to evaluate how to build the Green Line through the Downtown and Beltline. This means we will be investigating ways to shorten the tunnel and bring as much to surface as possible.

https://newsroom.calgary.ca/green-line-stage-1-update/

[Fuzz]

My plan, which the city has made stupid policies so it won't happen, is that you tunnel out of the bluff, somewhere around the elevation of the centre street bridge, cross the river by bridge, perhaps an at grade station at Eau Claire to save money, then a short DT underground tunnel.

But the city has decided they don't want any more bridges mucking up the beautiful view, and that that area of Princes Island park is sacrosanct as some natural area, despite the river shifting all over the place in the past, and that section being mostly made by previous actions. Not much truly natural about it, so I have no problem with a bridge pillar there.

This achieves a few things. If you keep the bridge near Centre Street, it isn't much of an intrusion, and avoids most of Prince's Island. It also allows you to keep the portal in the bluff much higher, reducing the depth of the tunnel, and making the 9th ave underground station more feasible. You can put the underground portal downtown somewhere around 3rd ave, keeping it away from the river flooding. Perhaps an elevated station at Sien Lok would work as well. So this shortens the underground segments drastically and removes the river crossing which was always going to be tricky going from the high elevation all the way down. It takes out transitions between rock types because the bluff and above is all going to be loosely consolidated till. If you really wanted to go cheap you could skip the bluff tunnel and run at grade up centre street, maybe doing cut and cover at 16th ave.

[Roughneck]

Originally Posted by accord1999

Despite all the disadvantages of the 7th Avenue transit mall, it still has enough capacity to handle more than 300K trips per day, double Edmonton.

I’d rather not use Edmonton as our benchmark. It has about half as much capacity as it could have if one of the lines were underground, and less service interruption to boot.

[timun]

Originally Posted by Wormius

What is the point of those old business guys coming out against the Green Line? What skin to they have in this game? Does Stantec have some axe to grind?

The Stantec guy in question, Barry Lester, was a structural engineer who specialized in bridges. So of course, to him, the best option is to build an elevated line: a big, long bridge.

He's the same guy who has advocated for building a freeway at 50th Ave S (with a bridge across River Park) and building a bridge across Edworthy Park to connect Sarcee Tr to 16th Ave & Shaganappi, plans that died on the drawing board a long time ago. He was also pretty heavily involved as an advocate against the southwest ring road project as it is now, because he advocated for (drumroll)... a giant bridge across the Weaselhead instead of bypassing it.

Originally Posted by Fuzz

My plan, which the city has made stupid policies so it won't happen, is that you tunnel out of the bluff, somewhere around the elevation of the centre street bridge, cross the river by bridge, perhaps an at grade station at Eau Claire to save money, then a short DT underground tunnel.

But the city has decided they don't want any more bridges mucking up the beautiful view, and that that area of Princes Island park is sacrosanct as some natural area, despite the river shifting all over the place in the past, and that section being mostly made by previous actions. Not much truly natural about it, so I have no problem with a bridge pillar there.

...

Hear, hear! I was very disappointed they tied the idea of a bridge across the river to the elevated option and kiboshed it for those reasons. It would make the proposed 9th Ave station in Crescent Heights much more feasible and would reduce a lot of cost.

[Roughneck]

IIRC the elevated option was needed for a bridge because otherwise the slope of the track would be too steep to go from underground to a bridge in such a short span through downtown.

[Fuzz]

Originally Posted by Roughneck

IIRC the elevated option was needed for a bridge because otherwise the slope of the track would be too steep to go from underground to a bridge in such a short span through downtown.

I don't really believe that. The LRT line up 10th is a decent grade. Yes, you may lose one avenue crossing downtown, though not sure about that. There is a enough distance between the river, and say, 4th ave you could get to depth.

[timun]

If you insisted that there be a station at Eau Claire, I suppose it would be difficult to manage. The bridge only has to be high enough to clear Memorial Drive.

Until someone does a more detailed analysis I'll chalk that up to the same rumour mill that made repeated assertions that the old U2 trains wouldn't be able to make it up to Sunalta Station because the grade was too steep. Obviously that wasn't true in the slightest.

[GirlySports]

Anyone know if transit is free on Canada Day? The city is encouraging people not to drive downtown.

[Rando]

Originally Posted by GirlySports

Anyone know if transit is free on Canada Day?.

Google says no.

The city is encouraging people not to drive downtown

How are they doing that?

[GirlySports]

Originally Posted by Rando

Google says no.

How are they doing that?

https://www.google.com/amp/s/globaln...gary-2019/amp/

Due to increased traffic to the downtown core, the City of Calgary is encouraging people to walk, bike or take transit to the downtown area on July 1. To help facilitate this, the city says bike racks have been added in “various locations.”

[Fuzz]

Due to technical challenges, that plan must change.
"We believe that the risks of going underneath the river with the tunnel that we were looking at and the station construction we were looking at are too great," transportation general manager Michael Thompson told CBC News.
Instead, the city will resurrect a discarded idea to build a bridge across the Bow. That would connect the Green Line from Crescent Heights into a tunnel under downtown.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calga...idge-1.5195297


Oh look, they have caught on!

[getbak]

If they do make that change (which I was never overly opposed to, if they can make it work), I hope they resurrect the 8/9th Ave N station too. As someone who lives near 8th Ave, that was my one annoyance with the full tunnel design.

[Fuzz]

Originally Posted by getbak

If they do make that change (which I was never overly opposed to, if they can make it work), I hope they resurrect the 8/9th Ave N station too. As someone who lives near 8th Ave, that was my one annoyance with the full tunnel design.

Meh, they should just give you guys a zip line. Cheaper than a train station, and more fun.

[getbak]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

Meh, they should just give you guys a zip line. Cheaper than a train station, and more fun.

Sure, that would help with getting down the hill. Not so much with getting back up (unless they did a return line from the top of The Bow).


Although, really my concern is more with going north to the airport. I wouldn't want to walk all the way to 16th Ave with luggage, but I'd consider going to 8th.

[Wormius]

2 things -



1) How did the planners for the Green Line not anticipate the tunnel under the Bow River being such a problem that they are now considering to, or decided already, to kibosh it at the last minute?



2) Is tunneling under a river really that big of a deal? There are lot of places with tunnels running beneath bodies of water. What is so different about our situation? Doesn't every tunnel construction face similar risks of flooding and variations in the topology? I mean, around the world there are some very deep train station platforms. I don't know about 7 stories, but it would make for a unique experience at least.

[Mass_nerder]

Originally Posted by Wormius

2 things -



1) How did the planners for the Green Line not anticipate the tunnel under the Bow River being such a problem that they are now considering to, or decided already, to kibosh it at the last minute?



2) Is tunneling under a river really that big of a deal? There are lot of places with tunnels running beneath bodies of water. What is so different about our situation? Doesn't every tunnel construction face similar risks of flooding and variations in the topology? I mean, around the world there are some very deep train station platforms. I don't know about 7 stories, but it would make for a unique experience at least.

The distance under the river is relatively short, and they don't have a lot of space to work with on either side, so I'm guessing going deep isn't an option (I don't know what the max slope a train can run on is, but I would imagine it's fairly shallow).