Green Line LRT - $4.6 Billion Project

[milomilo]

They could have built BRT on centre st by now, since that document was released (all the BRT infrastructure we have in this city was approved after that).

Lol at that map. Who in their right mind can see that and say that the SE is where rail should go, and the north can wait for decades?

[Mazrim]

Originally Posted by milomilo

Who in their right mind can see that and say that the SE is where rail should go, and the north can wait for decades?

Probably Shane Keating, who many years back rejected an infrastructure priority list from city staff because the SE LRT was too far down. He told them to move it up, despite the list being made on growth and current demand and not wants. I wish I could find an article about this...I remember reading about it quite a bit but my searching the internet the last couple days hasn't dug up anything.

On the other side of things, there's also that issue about where to put a maintenance yard in the North.

[outoftheice]

Originally Posted by milomilo

They could have built BRT on centre st by now, since that document was released (all the BRT infrastructure we have in this city was approved after that).

Lol at that map. Who in their right mind can see that and say that the SE is where rail should go, and the north can wait for decades?

It's been an on-going debate at City Hall and comes down to how the City of Calgary should prioritize transit investment. One side argues investment should be made in areas of the city that lack good rapid transit options to try and maximize the number of people who will switch from driving to transit. This build it and they'll come mentality is what made Calgary's initial LRT investment so successful and a major argument into pushing Green Line to the southeast first as it will halve the current travel times to downtown on transit and make it comparable to driving.

The flip side of the argument is the one milomilo makes which is essentially that investment should be made in areas where transit is already a success to help build even greater ridership. This prioritizes investing in the north central corridor for Green Line. So it comes down to what we want as a city? Offering a large improvement in transit service in areas that are deficient in the hopes of getting a bunch more people out of their cars because driving is their only option or make capacity increases via LRT to already successful transit corridors in hopes of switching even more users to transit who are only driving because the busses are full.

I honestly don't know which side of the argument is the right one but in supporting sending Green Line to the south east first, City Council has embraced the side of the argument that has traditionally been held in Calgary and has proved extremely successful in our city to date.

[craner]

Did they ever consider running the NC LRT up 4th St. W ?
Seems like a much more feasible road to reduce lane capacity on. You could just build underpasses at the major intersections (16th, McKnight, 64th, etc.) and it could link-up with the preserved Center St. ROW where 4th & Center intersect in Huntington Hills.

[accord1999]

I wouldn't agree that "Build in and they will come" has been the traditional practice for the CTrain. There's a document released by Transit talking about the CTrain and its first 25 years of service. For their lessons learned, I say that points 2 and 5 clearly support the NC, as it has the "rock solid ridership" and the corridor concept developed with the busiest remaining bus corridor left in Calgary.

https://www.calgarytransit.com/sites...rb_revised.pdf



They also noted how prior to rail, express bus services using similar routes were put into place first.

I honestly don't know which side of the argument is the right one

Perhaps my greatest problem with the Green Line is that we never had a proper debate/engagement on which direction should get priority. It was avoided when we first thought we had enough money to build both in a single phase and then the Green Line team was allowed to make that decision on the hope they would find more money to continue. For the most expensive project in Calgary history, and one whose full-line cost now exceeds even the 2026 Olympics, I think we should a debate.

[accord1999]

Originally Posted by craner

Did they ever consider running the NC LRT up 4th St. W ?
Seems like a much more feasible road to reduce lane capacity on. You could just build underpasses at the major intersections (16th, McKnight, 64th, etc.) and it could link-up with the preserved Center St. ROW where 4th & Center intersect in Huntington Hills.

It was looked at back in 2013-2014 but was discarded early on with Nose Creek as they focused primarily on Centre Street and Edmonton Trail. This was how they scored it:



If you've got time, you can read their study at section 4.10 here:

https://pub-calgary.escribemeetings....&lang=English#

[Policy Wonk]

Originally Posted by craner

Did they ever consider running the NC LRT up 4th St. W ?

The original Calgary North ASP refers to a 4th Street LRT. This is the document that broke my parents' hearts after buying a house just off Centre Street.

[jawagord]

Originally Posted by accord1999

I wouldn't agree that "Build in and they will come" has been the traditional practice for the CTrain. There's a document released by Transit talking about the CTrain and its first 25 years of service. For their lessons learned, I say that points 2 and 5 clearly support the NC, as it has the "rock solid ridership" and the corridor concept developed with the busiest remaining bus corridor left in Calgary.

https://www.calgarytransit.com/sites...rb_revised.pdf



They also noted how prior to rail, express bus services using similar routes were put into place first.




Perhaps my greatest problem with the Green Line is that we never had a proper debate/engagement on which direction should get priority. It was avoided when we first thought we had enough money to build both in a single phase and then the Green Line team was allowed to make that decision on the hope they would find more money to continue. For the most expensive project in Calgary history, and one whose full-line cost now exceeds even the 2026 Olympics, I think we should a debate.

You seemed to have skipped over the “rock solid” cost estimate part of Point 2 along with using proven technology, keeping costs low etc.

Where is the “rock solid” cost estimate for a center street line, in a tunnel or at grade there isn’t one, it’s a financial fail from the get go for a city the size of Calgary.

That leaves us with the SE line which is financially viable, it doesn’t have proven bus ridership but does have good forecast ridership and the potential to get 1000’s of cars off of Deerfoot which to me is a far better result for Calgary than moving people from bus to train as a “reward” for using transit. Build the SE line to the South hospital for $3.5 billion, build the Center street line later when the city lines up the $6 billion dollars for a tunnel system.

[Corndogger]

Originally Posted by jawagord

You seemed to have skipped over the “rock solid” cost estimate part of Point 2 along with using proven technology, keeping costs low etc.

Where is the “rock solid” cost estimate for a center street line, in a tunnel or at grade there isn’t one, it’s a financial fail from the get go for a city the size of Calgary.

That leaves us with the SE line which is financially viable, it doesn’t have proven bus ridership but does have good forecast ridership and the potential to get 1000’s of cars off of Deerfoot which to me is a far better result for Calgary than moving people from bus to train as a “reward” for using transit. Build the SE line to the South hospital for $3.5 billion, build the Center street line later when the city lines up the $6 billion dollars for a tunnel system.

If increasing transit usage is the goal then the SE line makes a lot of sense. Transferring people from buses to trains while increasing operating costs makes no sense. But what is the real objective of the Green Line? For people such as Druh and Nenshi I don't think it has anything to do with transit ridership. For me that alone is reason enough to build the entire SE line first. If it can be done for $3.5 billion I say we use the other billion or so to finally put the trains below ground through downtown. That will give us a lot more options for future lines not to mention open up 7th Avenue for some major renewal.

[accord1999]

Originally Posted by jawagord

You seemed to have skipped over the “rock solid” cost estimate part of Point 2 along with using proven technology, keeping costs low etc.

Where is the “rock solid” cost estimate for a center street line, in a tunnel or at grade there isn’t one, it’s a financial fail from the get go for a city the size of Calgary.

That leaves us with the SE line which is financially viable, it doesn’t have proven bus ridership but does have good forecast ridership and the potential to get 1000’s of cars off of Deerfoot

Originally Posted by Corndogger

If increasing transit usage is the goal then the SE line makes a lot of sense. Transferring people from buses to trains while increasing operating costs makes no sense.

Those are valid reasons for building the SE LRT. Are they more valid than the reasons for the NC? The City not properly publicly providing details of the scoring is why there is still this argument today.

And I question whether the SE line is truly financially viable (on an operating basis). In the article that I've posted a couple of times, it's clear that the Mayor is concerned about how expensive Green Line Stage 1 will be to operate. The irony of transit is that it is incredibly expensive (for governments) to replace private cars with transit.

Nenshi said the city's investing in transit service to places in Calgary that don't currently have good service, or they have no service at all, which means the city will have to come up with new cash to pad the line – especially in the southeast.

"When we built the West LRT, it actually had very little impact on our operating budget because we replaced buses that were more expensive on a per-rider basis," said Nenshi. "The BRTs, we'll be able to absorb, it's not a problem ... council is going to have to find significant money between now and 2026 to operate the Green Line."

https://web.archive.org/web/20180313...sh-nenshi.html

How would the NC alternative, 96th Ave to 4th St SE do? We don't know since the City never bothered to give details about ridership and operating cost but I'd expect it to do better simply because you replace vast numbers of buses. The 2015 report on the Green Line also expected that LRT will increase ridership in the NC as much as it would in the SE, approximately 27K more people in each area using transit for work for 2039.



Note the end paragraph, the NC corridor is at capacity. This is repeated again and again as a reason for building the Green Line and using LRT.

Build the SE line to the South hospital for $3.5 billion, build the Center street line later when the city lines up the $6 billion dollars for a tunnel system.

Originally Posted by Corndogger

For me that alone is reason enough to build the entire SE line first. If it can be done for $3.5 billion I say we use the other billion or so to finally put the trains below ground through downtown. That will give us a lot more options for future lines not to mention open up 7th Avenue for some major renewal.

I think it would cost more than that. 4th Street to Shepard is already around $2.4B, not including LRVs. The estimate for Shepard to Seton was upwards of $1B and even only going as far as the 7th Av/2 St station should push it well over $4B.

[YYCguys]

Does the $4.5 billion include the cars and maintenance garage(s)?

[jawagord]

Originally Posted by accord1999

Those are valid reasons for building the SE LRT. Are they more valid than the reasons for the NC? The City not properly publicly providing details of the scoring is why there is still this argument today.

And I question whether the SE line is truly financially viable (on an operating basis). In the article that I've posted a couple of times, it's clear that the Mayor is concerned about how expensive Green Line Stage 1 will be to operate. The irony of transit is that it is incredibly expensive (for governments) to replace private cars with transit.



https://web.archive.org/web/20180313...sh-nenshi.html

How would the NC alternative, 96th Ave to 4th St SE do? We don't know since the City never bothered to give details about ridership and operating cost but I'd expect it to do better simply because you replace vast numbers of buses. The 2015 report on the Green Line also expected that LRT will increase ridership in the NC as much as it would in the SE, approximately 27K more people in each area using transit for work for 2039.



Note the end paragraph, the NC corridor is at capacity. This is repeated again and again as a reason for building the Green Line and using LRT.





I think it would cost more than that. 4th Street to Shepard is already around $2.4B, not including LRVs. The estimate for Shepard to Seton was upwards of $1B and even only going as far as the 7th Av/2 St station should push it well over $4B.

Certainly the delays in the project could push costs of the SE line up - but remember councillors are crossing their fingers that competitive bidding is going to bring the costs down on the SE line

I wouldn’t quote anything Nenshi says about the green line costs, he is the reason we are in this budget mess. His plan depends on not being upfront about the operating cost of the phase 1 and the ultimate costs of the total build out. Has anyone seen stated what dismal ridership we can expect on the 0.8km of 16ave to downtown of the current phase 1?

You can say the NC line operating cost will be offset by reduction in buses (provided we build it far enough out) but it is a disingenuous comparison to the SE line because the net increase in ridership is not going to be the same. For the NC line the net gain in ridership is smaller because we are mostly shifting existing transit users from the bus system to the LRT system.

With the SE line the net ridership add is much greater because we are shifting people from cars to LRT. More transit riders does mean more operating costs/subsidy, but then that’s the point of public transit to get more people riding it, right?

[milomilo]

Originally Posted by outoftheice

It's been an on-going debate at City Hall and comes down to how the City of Calgary should prioritize transit investment. One side argues investment should be made in areas of the city that lack good rapid transit options to try and maximize the number of people who will switch from driving to transit. This build it and they'll come mentality is what made Calgary's initial LRT investment so successful and a major argument into pushing Green Line to the southeast first as it will halve the current travel times to downtown on transit and make it comparable to driving.

The flip side of the argument is the one milomilo makes which is essentially that investment should be made in areas where transit is already a success to help build even greater ridership. This prioritizes investing in the north central corridor for Green Line. So it comes down to what we want as a city? Offering a large improvement in transit service in areas that are deficient in the hopes of getting a bunch more people out of their cars because driving is their only option or make capacity increases via LRT to already successful transit corridors in hopes of switching even more users to transit who are only driving because the busses are full.

I honestly don't know which side of the argument is the right one but in supporting sending Green Line to the south east first, City Council has embraced the side of the argument that has traditionally been held in Calgary and has proved extremely successful in our city to date.

It doesn't have to be an either/or. To the areas of the city that currently have really bad transit options (the SE) build better transit - put in a few bus overpasses and you could improve the bus route massively. And for the places that have good buses but have filled them up (the north - great!) build better transit. Ideally, that would be rail of some sort, but if we can't afford that next step and have to build a compromised bus on rails that still won't reach the north until past 2030, what's the point? Just improve the buses. If we're planning on taking away car lanes anyway, just put in bus lanes. That will take no time at all.

But of course, we are not making these decisions on sound reasoning, we are basing them on historical ideas and politicking. The people were promised 40km of LRT, and by god that's what they'll be getting, even if it takes 30 years to build, bankrupts our transit operations and doesn't provide much better (and possibly worse) service than buses would.

[milomilo]

Originally Posted by jawagord

Build the SE line to the South hospital for $3.5 billion, build the Center street line later when the city lines up the $6 billion dollars for a tunnel system.

This cost estimate cannot be correct. The current estimate is ~$4.5B between 16 Ave and Sheperd. The only piece of that you could realistically slice off to only serve the SE is the surface section along centre, the bridge and the the Eau Claire station. That might save you a billion, but then you still have to build the rest of the line to the SE.

[milomilo]

Originally Posted by Corndogger

If increasing transit usage is the goal then the SE line makes a lot of sense. Transferring people from buses to trains while increasing operating costs makes no sense. But what is the real objective of the Green Line? For people such as Druh and Nenshi I don't think it has anything to do with transit ridership. For me that alone is reason enough to build the entire SE line first. If it can be done for $3.5 billion I say we use the other billion or so to finally put the trains below ground through downtown. That will give us a lot more options for future lines not to mention open up 7th Avenue for some major renewal.

That's a made up number. Otherwise I somewhat agree, although you'd get similar benefit for much less cost by upgrading buses. Once ridership is established - the buses are as packed as they are on centre st, that infrastructure can be repurposed for rail.

[jawagord]

Originally Posted by milomilo

This cost estimate cannot be correct. The current estimate is ~$4.5B between 16 Ave and Sheperd. The only piece of that you could realistically slice off to only serve the SE is the surface section along centre, the bridge and the the Eau Claire station. That might save you a billion, but then you still have to build the rest of the line to the SE.

Apologies for re-posting but you do it as our former manager of transportation planning suggested for SE LRT alone (or a north-south BRT) but that would be quite the embarrassing comedown for our mayor and council.

1. There is no reason to connect the north and southeast sections of the Green Line, as the number of people riding from the north to the south will be very low. It is not like the existing south and northwest C-Train lines that connect those living in the south to major employment and student hubs like the University of Calgary and SAIT, in addition to downtown.

2. If you don't connect the north and southeast lines, you don't need a tunnel. Each line can terminate downtown at grade and people can walk a few blocks to connect to other BRT and LRT lines, as needed. This happens in cities around the world and would enhance pedestrian activity in the downtown.

3. If you don't build the tunnel, the funds saved could be used to complete the entire, originally proposed north and southeast legs as BRT routes, and perhaps the southeast leg as an LRT, because it is the cheaper line, per kilometre, and would be easier to build than the north line.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calga...gers-1.5247339

[milomilo]

"Walking a few blocks" (quite a few) - dumping passengers somewhere in Victoria Park wasteland is not an acceptable outcome. If that ends up being what is built there really is no point of building LRT, as buses would actually be able to drop passengers off somewhere useful.

His claim that this happens in cities everywhere is misleading. It is not recommended practise to have lines terminate far away from a useful destination, and where it does happen it is viewed as a failure.

[accord1999]

Originally Posted by jawagord

I wouldn’t quote anything Nenshi says about the green line costs, he is the reason we are in this budget mess.

He's using the estimated net operating costs provided by the Green Line team. I would expect that those numbers would be as positive as possible.

Has anyone seen stated what dismal ridership we can expect on the 0.8km of 16ave to downtown of the current phase 1?

They've estimated 11,000 extra trips if the 16th Avenue Station is built, which is pretty significant considering all of Stage 1 is only 60,000-65,000 (though I wouldn't be surprised if it's also optimistic):

Ridership: Connecting to 16 Avenue results in 11,000 trips on opening day and provides critical connection to east/west routes like MAX Orange.

https://engage.calgary.ca/greenline

With the SE line the net ridership add is much greater because we are shifting people from cars to LRT. More transit riders does mean more operating costs/subsidy, but then that’s the point of public transit to get more people riding it, right?

But we don't know that the SE will increase in ridership more than the NC; in my previous post I've shown the 2015 report forecast the NC and SE to have similar increase in number of new riders taking transit for work. The City has not provided anything more up-to-date.

Apologies for re-posting but you do it as our former manager of transportation planning suggested for SE LRT alone (or a north-south BRT) but that would be quite the embarrassing comedown for our mayor and council.

But in that same article, another transit expert/consultant says:

So by splitting limited funding for the north and southeast LRT services today, neither line will be fully successful."

He recommends that "if it is determined LRT service is really desired, rather than BRT, do the complete line with the highest ridership demand — the north corridor."

And McKendrick also notes:

"LRT lines built to date (south, northeast, northwest and west) all replaced bus services that had very good ridership and experienced increasing delays due to operating in mixed traffic. The reason for building LRT along these corridors was to primarily address the need for greater capacity, reduce operating costs and provide faster, more attractive service.

[jawagord]

Originally Posted by accord1999

He's using the estimated net operating costs provided by the Green Line team. I would expect that those numbers would be as positive as possible.


They've estimated 11,000 extra trips if the 16th Avenue Station is built, which is pretty significant considering all of Stage 1 is only 60,000-65,000 (though I wouldn't be surprised if it's also optimistic):



https://engage.calgary.ca/greenline


But we don't know that the SE will increase in ridership more than the NC; in my previous post I've shown the 2015 report forecast the NC and SE to have similar increase in number of new riders taking transit for work. The City has not provided anything more up-to-date.


But in that same article, another transit expert/consultant says:



And McKendrick also notes:

or this quote:

"Yes there are urban development opportunities, but the lines won't have the ridership to attract new urban development. And in the north, the proposed LRT service will not improve on the current bus services — it may even be worse."

It's all rather moot, the City is sure to continue bringing us the worst of both lines, instead of choosing one to build out fully or doing BRT to both areas.

[accord1999]

Originally Posted by jawagord

It's all rather moot, the City is sure to continue bringing us the worst of both lines, instead of choosing one to build out fully or doing BRT to both areas.

No argument from me on this point.