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Old 05-11-2017, 11:56 PM   #21
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Once they're tunnel boring, it probably makes the most sense to dig it all than to stop partway and need to go back later and finish it.
That could be the case. We'll find out more Monday.
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Old 05-12-2017, 06:02 AM   #22
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Can anyone clarify where the tunnel starts / ends? The City's final recommended map is pretty crappy in terms of the shading/gradients of green all looking the same.
They don't know yet. It will surfac somewhere just north of 16th ave. The other end? They haven't decided on a final route yet. If the arena goes ahead, I'm sure it will be on 12th. They then have to decide if that will be surface or underground station there. If underground, do they continue under the Elbow? If there is no arena, it may even go on 10th, probably at surface. It's all undecided as of yet.
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Old 05-12-2017, 08:07 AM   #23
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Apparently it is the case that buses would keep going downtown, in which case I'm not sure it makes sense to bother crossing the river for now - might as well spend to extend deeper in SE where most of the line's ridership lives.
I think for the North Line to be viable in small expansion chunks they need to spend the Billion now on the tunneling. Then you can add the rest in 200-300 million dollar chunks. Otherwise the Capital commitment to do the North line starts at a billion dollars to get to 16th avenue and goes up from there.
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Old 05-12-2017, 04:59 PM   #24
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Storage and maintenance facility is in the south. Whatever phase 1 is has to get to the storage and maintenance facility.
The other big reason is probably that much of the ROW already exists in the south, while most of the north still requires expropriation. In fact, I'd bet phase 2 will be the Shepard to Seton stretch mainly because all they will need to do is lay track.
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Old 05-12-2017, 05:04 PM   #25
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I thought one of the interesting things about the announcement was Mac Logan's reference to 2026 and the Olympics. It was one of the first subtle nods I can recall from administration that the City may be pursuing the Olympics as one way to accelerate investment in city infrastructure
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Old 05-12-2017, 05:35 PM   #26
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They don't know yet. It will surfac somewhere just north of 16th ave. The other end? They haven't decided on a final route yet. If the arena goes ahead, I'm sure it will be on 12th. They then have to decide if that will be surface or underground station there. If underground, do they continue under the Elbow? If there is no arena, it may even go on 10th, probably at surface. It's all undecided as of yet.
Yes. If you look at the map, there is a yellowed area that says "TBD" in the Beltline section.

It is important to note that this is a recommendation at this point. The vertical and horizontal alignments are still to be determined by council, as well as the phasing. You may see some wiggling one way or the other, new funding, etc.

Overall though, if this is close to what the first phase looks like, then I'm glad. It may be disappointing to see the track mileage of the eventual built-out Green Line be reduced to this, but this is a much, much better outcome than scrimping and saving on the central sections and losing out long-term on quality of service, speed, safety and street-level neighbourhood quality. As others have said, the proposed northern and southern termini set the stage for relatively easy expansion as new funding becomes available (possibly even while the first phase is under construction or even starts).

Shepard will be just fine for feeder buses for awhile, which will radiate largely south along 52nd Street. If they build the 16th Avenue station right in terms of bus loops and station access, it will be a little trickier in the north but doable.

If this arrangement holds, I could see the next logical expansions being to McKnight, then Beddington, then North Pointe in the north. For the south, it could be Mackenzie Towne, then Auburn Bay, then Seton.
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Old 05-12-2017, 05:41 PM   #27
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Why build the South leg first? The north: 1) Has existing ridership 2) Center Street is saturated with buses at Peak hours and can't be increased significantly.

Weren't they talking about rewarding ridership first before commuting to unproven areas first?

I live someone close to the ultimate end of the North leg, and I agree with the plan.

The south leg probably has allot more potential for short term ridership growth on the overall transit network, simply because of the quality of the center street rapid bus route.
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Old 05-12-2017, 07:17 PM   #28
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They can take over the land in the NE corner of Center & 16th. I've never seen anyone go into that dental office . But it would kind of suck to come all the way down from the North to get dropped off there. Commute times would actually increase for anyone coming from the North.
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Old 05-12-2017, 08:02 PM   #29
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They can take over the land in the NE corner of Center & 16th. I've never seen anyone go into that dental office . But it would kind of suck to come all the way down from the North to get dropped off there. Commute times would actually increase for anyone coming from the North.
One of the interesting elements to this is that the land at the SE intersection of 16th Avenue and Centre Street was acquired as part of the 16th Avenue widening/improvement project in 2006-2008 for the extra lane and right hand turn lane. Then before the Green Line alignment was chosen (official plans at the time had it in the Nose Creek valley), the City put the land up for sale again and sold it (not sure who bought it). Now they might need it again for the Green Line station access, bus loop, etc.

The lack of a comprehensive long-term transit plan, and particularly that original Nose Creek plan was damaging in many ways, and this is one example.

Actually that whole 16th Avenue project should have included bus only lanes or some other measure for the soon-to-be-implemented north crosstown BRT. Again though, it was one of the last projects in a previous era of transportation projects where the various City departments (roads, transit, land use planning) were silo-ed and didn't come up with a better plan that took into account each other's long term needs.
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Old 05-13-2017, 09:20 AM   #30
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Any mention of the timeline for this project?

*edit- nevermind I should have read the article before asking.

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If approved by council, construction on the 20-kilometre track would start in 2020.
Related selfish follow-up question: anyone know when this project goes to tender?

Last edited by Red Slinger; 05-13-2017 at 09:24 AM.
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Old 05-13-2017, 09:25 AM   #31
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Complete by 2026.
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Old 05-13-2017, 09:33 AM   #32
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Complete by 2026.
This is why so many people had such reactions in the 'EVs will take over the world' thread.

One rail line, as part of a system that has been in place and growing for decades, will make one major expansion - correction: one part of one major expansion - and it will take 9 years. The total line will probably take 12 to 15 years to complete, maybe more.

Yet some people think it is realistic to hope that automated EVs will change how we live entirely, replacing 250 million cars, changing how and where we work, how cities are designed, and how we make choices about our lives, in 13 years.
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Old 05-13-2017, 02:11 PM   #33
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If the city will have the tunnel boring machine, wouldn't it make sense to complete the whole route underground, and add in the northern stations as the budget permits? It just seems like a waste, from a laymen's perspective, not to. It seems better than adding surface tracks, safety barriers, stations, etc later.
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Old 05-13-2017, 02:31 PM   #34
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If the city will have the tunnel boring machine, wouldn't it make sense to complete the whole route underground, and add in the northern stations as the budget permits? It just seems like a waste, from a laymen's perspective, not to. It seems better than adding surface tracks, safety barriers, stations, etc later.
Operating a TBM is most of the cost. You don't want to bore more than you have to.
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Old 05-13-2017, 03:37 PM   #35
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Operating a TBM is most of the cost. You don't want to bore more than you have to.


Oh okay. I thought once it was transported here, assembled, etc that to just keep it running all the way up to North Pointe wouldn't contribute the most to the cost of the project. That's unfortunate.
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Old 05-13-2017, 06:11 PM   #36
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The other big reason is probably that much of the ROW already exists in the south, while most of the north still requires expropriation. In fact, I'd bet phase 2 will be the Shepard to Seton stretch mainly because all they will need to do is lay track.
I agree which is why I believe that the NC line will never be built for this generation if Phase 1 goes ahead as proposed.

Some are optimistic about the city getting additional funding but given the nature of mega-projects, I would err on the side of pessimism. I would expect any funding would be swallowed up by costs overruns and where near the end, the city will be scrimping everywhere just to finish the SE line and there would be no more appetite from the Calgary taxpayer and higher level governments for another giant rail infrastructure project. And because the NC line essentially doesn't exist in any form, there wouldn't even be a sunk cost argument where you might as well spend the money to finish it.
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Old 05-14-2017, 07:28 PM   #37
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I agree which is why I believe that the NC line will never be built for this generation if Phase 1 goes ahead as proposed.

Some are optimistic about the city getting additional funding but given the nature of mega-projects, I would err on the side of pessimism. I would expect any funding would be swallowed up by costs overruns and where near the end, the city will be scrimping everywhere just to finish the SE line and there would be no more appetite from the Calgary taxpayer and higher level governments for another giant rail infrastructure project. And because the NC line essentially doesn't exist in any form, there wouldn't even be a sunk cost argument where you might as well spend the money to finish it.
If Phase 1 goes ahead as recommended, what it does is makes for several (2, 3, or 4) nicely sized expansion projects to finish the line to North Pointe. They'd be a few hundred million apiece, take 2-3 years each, and each hit sweet spots geographically (McKnight, Beddington and North Pointe, for example) that add value/payoff.

At that scale, it is much easier to find and get inventive with funding. It's also easier to make the case politically, say in the next election cycle, for mayoral or councilor candidates. Also, after the line reaches Shepard in the southeast and 16th Avenue in the north, I think people will treat it like two separate lines and that extensions won't compete with each other as much and may happen concurrently, just like when the northwest and south ends of the red line were extended concurrently in the early 2000s. As a political exercise, it was important to marry the two sides of the Green Line together so that the central section could be done right and also wouldn't be the expensive hurdle associated with either side of the line, blocking either from getting done. It was also important to flesh out the concept of the north central line going up Centre Street instead of Nose Creek.

For the north central line, I think strong Ward 4 and Ward 3 councilors/candidates will make the difference as to when it gets fully built out. That it even got to this stage (building out the tunnel section to 16th Avenue) is a miracle and a big win given that most of the northern councilors are very weak on transit, and that Sean Chu is the worst councilor Calgary has seen in decades.

Not sure about that taxpayer appetite thing. Transit projects have had widespread support among Calgarians for decades. The NDP has been pretty wishy washy on the funding of this project (I think it's partly a timing thing, they want to fund it heading into 2019), but the federal Liberals have shown clear signals and willingness to increase the funding package to cities for transit infrastructure.
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Old 05-14-2017, 08:15 PM   #38
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Great questions posed by Ward 3 candidate Jyoti Gondek.

https://m.facebook.com/notes/jyoti-g...8040770810916/

The General thesis being - why let a maintenance facility drive a $4.5b decision?Have options in the North for a maintenance facility been exhausted? Ridership should be strongest factor. North can be built less expensively to its full length and potentially still could enable improved BRT in the SE (to build ridership, which is much lower currently than the north).
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Old 05-14-2017, 08:23 PM   #39
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Great questions posed by Ward 3 candidate Jyoti Gondek.

https://m.facebook.com/notes/jyoti-g...8040770810916/

The General thesis being - why let a maintenance facility drive a $4.5b decision?Have options in the North for a maintenance facility been exhausted? Ridership should be strongest factor. North can be built less expensively to its full length and potentially still could enable improved BRT in the SE (to build ridership, which is much lower currently than the north).
That link is requiring a facebook login, so I didn't see it... Does it say that the north leg would have higher ridership than the south? I'm a southie, so I know what it's like down here during rush hour, and it seems a bit lopsided to build a third leg in the north before a second one in the south. The SE is ridiculous. Deerfoot is a gong show. I know it's bad up north as well, but I kind of think that the south and north legs would probably be close to equal in ridership, so all things being equal, the south needs a second line before the north needs a third.

Hope I didn't just set off a north/south civic war.
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Old 05-14-2017, 09:11 PM   #40
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That link is requiring a facebook login, so I didn't see it... Does it say that the north leg would have higher ridership than the south? I'm a southie, so I know what it's like down here during rush hour, and it seems a bit lopsided to build a third leg in the north before a second one in the south. The SE is ridiculous. Deerfoot is a gong show. I know it's bad up north as well, but I kind of think that the south and north legs would probably be close to equal in ridership, so all things being equal, the south needs a second line before the north needs a third.

Hope I didn't just set off a north/south civic war.
I don't think the point is really about traffic or potential riders, but existing Transit ridership - which is WAY higher in the North Central than the SE. It's easy for the line to be successful because the Transit ridership along Centre Street is proven - it's the highest ridership Bus corridor in the City.
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