Green Line LRT - $4.6 Billion Project

[milomilo]

Originally Posted by outoftheice

A couple points regarding going north of the river:

- 16th Ave station is projected to be the third busiest station in terms of ridership for Stage 1. (7th Ave is first, Shepard is second). If the point of building Green Line is to get people on to transit, you would be better off not building every station between Shepard and downtown than you would be not building to 16th Ave.

That's unsurprising, given that these are the termini of the route, where people are either ending their journey (downtown) or transferring to buses. This isn't as much of an issue in the south, where the journey continues for considerable distance and a transfer is forced, but in the north they are not forcing a transfer and the rest of the bus journey will be quick by bus. It would make the most sense for most to just stay on the bus. And this improved bus will be available to the actual ridership living near the 16 Ave station, so in absence of LRT they would still have improved transit.

And yes, the ridership stats back up the evidence that the stage 1 of the Green Line would be fairly pointless on its own, as it largely runs through low density wasteland. It needs to go further to be useful, and if we can't go north (and we can't, we're not going to have the money), we might as well go as far south as possible.

Originally Posted by outoftheice

- In terms of indefinitely delaying going north of the river and then revisiting in 10 years, what exactly do you think will change? Construction costs will continue to increase and the technical challenges will remain. So in ten years we'll most likely end up with the exact same plan as is currently being proposed. Why wait ten years to build the same thing at a higher cost?

Heads will have cooled and we can re-examine what the priorities are, free from the political stubbornness that is present now. If BRT is still jam packed, it will better justify building a tunneled route. If the BRT is not packed, well no need for LRT then.

Originally Posted by outoftheice

- The Centre St transit corridor is already at capacity in terms of bus service. It is the only place in the entire city of Calgary where residents are choosing to drive simply because they can't get on full buses. LRT capacity is desperately needed on Centre St, far more than is needed in south east Calgary. Building to 16th Ave now allows for incremental expansion up Centre St. Each expansion northbound takes pressure off the bus network and increases the number of people taking transit. Why would the city want to eliminate its ability to do that?

I agree and always have that the Green Line should have gone to the place that justifies and will make use of the increased capacity. The city disagrees, and has tilted the balance at every step to favour the south, but thought it could please both. The proposed implementation does not, however.

The last thing to say from me is that I think people are underestimating how bad Centre St will be. And now, by putting the 16 Ave station at surface we commit to having a surface crossing of 16 Ave. How can anybody that lives here think that is a good idea? Yes, cars are bad, but this will be an impediment to LRT too, especially when collisions happen. And remember we do have a "rapid transit" line running along 16 Ave too, which will be slowed by the increased traffic caused by this crossing.

Since, as I stated at the top of this post, the short section of the river is useless by itself, it's all gain and no cost to snip it in phase 1.

[milomilo]

Originally Posted by accord1999

The Stage 1 budget is now up to $5.5B . I think thanks to financing savings from the Governments of Canada and Alberta paying out their portion quicker than originally expected allowing the City to use the savings for construction costs, plus some financial trickery in how the City will now use its construction and financing streams.



I don't think without Gondek screaming about it, the City would have even bothered with the BRT improvements; but I think it's still an insignificant prize given the change from a tunnel to surface running to 16th Avenue. The BRT improvements will probably not even make up for the loss of total passenger capacity into Downtown from the north side.

Quoting accord from the Canada transit thread. Is this true? The budget is now $5.5B?

[milomilo]

And one last thing - this map is patently ridiculous. Anyone without good knowledge of Calgary's public transit would see this map and think Calgary was going to have a rapid transit network similar in scale to The Tube. But in reality, it's 2.5 LRT lines, a few short sections of segregated busway and the rest just nicer bus stops.

As if that Bowness "BRT" route could ever be anything approaching rapid transit running along Kensington, and Bowness Road.

[outoftheice]

I appreciate you taking the time to craft some thoughtful responses to my points. To counter a bit as well as continue thr discussion:

- What version of a tunnel do you foresee happening in 10 years? The technical challenges that forced a cut and cover approach through downtown means that even if we stopped downtown in stage 1, we will still be required to bridge the river going north. So in reality a tunnel will only exist for a few blocks under Centre St. Is protecting two lanes of traffic on a road that runs through the middle of an inner city community really so vital to Calgary's future that we should delay building Green Line to 16th Ave? Given Centre St carries less vehicular traffic today than it did in the 90s and traffic adapted just fine to the complete shut down of the Centre St bridge for over a year in 2001, I would argue no.

- It's fair to say that Calgarians are underestimating the impact surface LRT might have on Centre St but I will counter to say I think Calgarians are over-estimating it. This city has a 'carmageddon' view any time a single lane of traffic will be removed from our streets. The debate over the downtown cycle-tracks demonstrates that well. For me, I think 2 lanes of traffic on Centre St will be a huge improvement for the area. Consider that today the street is 4 lanes of bumper to bumper traffic for at least six hours a day. It is not a pleasant environment for street facing retail and trying to cross as a pedestrian crossings is sketchy at best. Once the LRT goes in, only 2 of those 4 lanes will be bumper to bumper traffic during rush hour periods. Given LRT service runs at 5-10 minute intervals, the other 2 lanes will be empty the majority of the time. Pedestrian safety increases in a big way because pedestrians will only have to cross 1 lane of traffic at a time with the LRT tracks acting as a separation.

- In terms of 16th Ave intersection, I too was sceptical at first about how it might impact traffic. It was then pointed out to me that a lot of the congestion at that intersection comes from two main causes... the time it takes to cycle through all the signalized left turn movements to get cars on to and off of Centre St south of 16th Ave and the need to alleviate the que of busses that develops on Centre St as they are currently running at max 90 second intervals during rush hour periods. Surface LRT may actually improve the status quo at that intersection. Consider that only having 2 lanes of traffic on Centre St means it's less of a collector road so signal priority can be shifted to east/west traffic flow on 16th. Again LRT service only runs at 5-10 minute intervals so the need to focus on signal priority for Centre St shifts.

- In answer to your question about the budget yes/no. Yes, the $5.5 billion figure is accurate but no, it isn't really a new development and instead it's just a change in perspective. If you'll recall the history of City of Calgary funding for Green Line they committed $52 million for 30 years to match the federal and provincial contributions. Because all three funding contributions run over multiple years it was then pointed out that the city needed to cover financing costs on top of construction costs. So Council allocated more money for the financing cost (I think it was $20 million for 23 years or something like that but can't recall off the top of my head). This additional money for financing was always reported separately until the decision was made recently to lump it in to the total project budget. That's why you're now starting to see the $5.5 billion figure. It's not because construction costs have gone up at all, it's simply because they merged two accounting columns into one.

- In terms of the rapid transit map, I think it's great*. Well it will be great. Very few cities in the world can rival London's tube system. Most cities rely heavily on bus transit to supplement their rail network and Calgary is no different. What is so important to having a map like this is demonstrating to the casual user what makes up the core of Calgary's transit network. It moves you to the right part of the city where you can then connect to the local bus network to complete your journey. Why I say it will be great is because when it comes to rapid transit I'm a big believer of function over form and Calgary currently has this flipped around. To me, rapid transit means I walk to a stop and whether it's bus or LRT I don't have to check my watch or consult a timetable because I know the next service is only minutes away and there's limited stops for me to reach my destination. To achieve that Calgary Transit needs to run their rapid transit network at 10 minute intervals max. Sadly we don't even accomplish this with Sunday LRT service, let alone the new max lines. I don't need a fancy transitway for my bus, I just need to know it will be showing up soon. If Calgary made it policy to run 5 - 10 minute intervals on all services appearing on this rapid transit map then I would say 100% it's great. Until we do, I agree the map is aspirational at best.

[accord1999]

So naturally like any red-blooded Western consumer, the City when it gets a bonus of reduced lifetime interest costs goes ahead to upsize its principle. It's fortunate that the Green Line had a few hundred million more present-day dollars to spend, otherwise more things would have needed to be cut.

[foolworm]

Tuned in to the Green Line webinar yesterday at noon. It was mostly just going over the stuff in the recent update, and a lot of questions were already covered in the material (i.e. people did not read up beforehand). If anyone missed it, there is a second stream scheduled for this evening; otherwise the link will take you to a replay.

[craner]

I watched the May 20th presentation and both Q&A sessions. Overall I thought the on-line presentations/Q&A were very well done despite the inevitable technical issues.

Some of my thoughts on the updated Green Line:

The Good
- I like the changes to the 2nd Ave. station downtown - incorporating the station and tunnel portal into the Eau Claire Market redevelopment.
- the 4th Street SE station is now closer to the new Event Centre with the 11th Ave. tunnel alignment at this location (was 10th Ave. before).
- The new renders of the bridge over the Bow gave a good idea of how they plan to minimize the impact of the bridge on PI Park.
- I’m hoping the overhead wire system on the bridge can be incorporated into the architecture of the bridge in a creative way.

The Bad
- Number one for me - I still maintain the surface running on Centre St. will be a disaster.
- It was worrisome that they kept mentioning “we are still very early on in the design process for segment 2 (Beltline/Downtown/Bridge/Centre St.) of stage 1” and “lots of further engagement with stakeholders is still required”.
- Where the bridge meets Centre St. there will be an at-grade crossing of southbound Centre St. rather than flying over into the median.
- the 7th Ave. station is on the north side of 7th which will put it further from the future Red Line tunnel on 8th Ave. - why not build the underground station south of 7th ?

[YYCguys]

Originally Posted by craner

Some of my thoughts on the updated Green Line:
The Bad...
...
- the 7th Ave. station is on the north side of 7th which will put it further from the future Red Line tunnel on 8th Ave. - why not build the underground station south of 7th ?

If the Red Line will tunnel under 8th avenue after leaving Vic Park station, then it seems that the Central Library’s Red Line portal architectural feature will be a moot point. Maybe the 8th Ave alignment is not preferred by the city anymore due to the recent large and thoughtful investment in the Library portal.

[milomilo]

Originally Posted by craner

- the 7th Ave. station is on the north side of 7th which will put it further from the future Red Line tunnel on 8th Ave. - why not build the underground station south of 7th ?

Probably because the city has little intention of ever building the tunnel, though I agree with your sentiment. If they include an underground connector to a future red line tunnel station that's OK, but if it involves returning to street level then that is trash.

[foolworm]

Originally Posted by craner

- Where the bridge meets Centre St. there will be an at-grade crossing of southbound Centre St. rather than flying over into the median.
- the 7th Ave. station is on the north side of 7th which will put it further from the future Red Line tunnel on 8th Ave. - why not build the underground station south of 7th ?

I thought the response on the transition to Centre St was reasonable. I asked why the LRT couldn't just run on the side partly for that reason too.

As for the 7 Ave station, it probably has to do with what's on either side of the road.

Originally Posted by milomilo

Probably because the city has little intention of ever building the tunnel, though I agree with your sentiment. If they include an underground connector to a future red line tunnel station that's OK, but if it involves returning to street level then that is trash.

I was wondering if the plan was to have a Red/Green interchange elsewhere as part of the congestion relief measures.

[Doug]

The dream that a 16th Ave station would be busy is laughable. First of all, riders will resist transferring from buses to ride the train for 5 mins. Second, there is no room for bus bays to facilitate a transfer. The City had similar delusions when it built the NW line to University and tried to facilitate transfers at a location too confined for bus bays. Due to rider backlash, it dropped the idea and maintained the bus routes from the far NW into dt.

With the new plan for a portal at Eau Claire Market, deferring the North section and building out to Seton makes far more sense. The minimal operable segmemt for the north is probably at least to McKnight.

[outoftheice]

Have you been down to Seton? The location of the terminus station is literally surrounded by dirt fields with a Superstore in the distance. How does building to dirt fields make more sense than building to 16th Ave which is surrounded by dense inner city neighbourhoods?

[MalcolmTucker]

Originally Posted by Doug

The dream that a 16th Ave station would be busy is laughable. First of all, riders will resist transferring from buses to ride the train for 5 mins. Second, there is no room for bus bays to facilitate a transfer. The City had similar delusions when it built the NW line to University and tried to facilitate transfers at a location too confined for bus bays. Due to rider backlash, it dropped the idea and maintained the bus routes from the far NW into dt.

With the new plan for a portal at Eau Claire Market, deferring the North section and building out to Seton makes far more sense. The minimal operable segmemt for the north is probably at least to McKnight.

The 16th Ave Station isn't for Green Line to Centre Street transfers primarily (there might be some), but for people going to and from destinations along MAX Orange where heading to the NE or NW LRT adds an extra transfer or would take a significant amount more time.



The minimal operable segment north wise that can remove most buses from Centre St is 40th, mostly since there is room for a transfer station there.



A transfer station can be built further south, all it would take is expensive expropriation. If we were willing to force everyone to transfer, as Ottawa has done.



Do I think what is proposed is the best option? No. Do I wonder why they can't just top up the budget and go underground to 16th? Yes. Do I think it is a really bad project and we should blow things up and violate our funding agreements and potentially kill the entire thing by doing too many changes? No!



I think a better contracting strategy could have delivered a better solution for less, but for some less than clear reasons, the city now has 3, maybe 4 different contracts proposed? (the two line segments, the LRVs, and the maintenance centre (not sure about whether that is included as part of one of the segments)). But we are stuck with this unless we want to delay at least 5, 6 years.

[outoftheice]

The city ended up rolling the maintenance facility into the segment 1 contract so down to 3 procurements now; segment 1, segment 2 and LRVs

[Doug]

Originally Posted by outoftheice

Have you been down to Seton? The location of the terminus station is literally surrounded by dirt fields with a Superstore in the distance. How does building to dirt fields make more sense than building to 16th Ave which is surrounded by dense inner city neighbourhoods?

One station to the north has plenty of destinations within walking distance: south health campus, rec center, high school but no room for park n ride or busy bays. The Setion station to the south serves that purpose.

[Doug]

Originally Posted by MalcolmTucker

The 16th Ave Station isn't for Green Line to Centre Street transfers primarily (there might be some), but for people going to and from destinations along MAX Orange where heading to the NE or NW LRT adds an extra transfer or would take a significant amount more time.



The minimal operable segment north wise that can remove most buses from Centre St is 40th, mostly since there is room for a transfer station there.



A transfer station can be built further south, all it would take is expensive expropriation. If we were willing to force everyone to transfer, as Ottawa has done.



Do I think what is proposed is the best option? No. Do I wonder why they can't just top up the budget and go underground to 16th? Yes. Do I think it is a really bad project and we should blow things up and violate our funding agreements and potentially kill the entire thing by doing too many changes? No!



I think a better contracting strategy could have delivered a better solution for less, but for some less than clear reasons, the city now has 3, maybe 4 different contracts proposed? (the two line segments, the LRVs, and the maintenance centre (not sure about whether that is included as part of one of the segments)). But we are stuck with this unless we want to delay at least 5, 6 years.

The Orange line is crosstown. Its purpose is not to move people into dt. It already connects the NW and NE lines. People coming from points west or east or north would be better to use Orange to transfer to the Blue or Red Lines in the rare cases they are heading DT. The even rarer case would be trips originating closer to Centre St but using Orange to travel a short distance to transer to a bus heading into dt.

Also, haven't the crosstown lines been failures, with ridership way below forecast?

[MalcolmTucker]

Orange Max has had problems with overcrowding, since it serves destinations which weren't connected conveniently before.

[PPAR]

Was the possibility of having the green line go underground one or two blocks south of 16th Ave, with an underground station at 16th considered?
It would make for a more comfortable transfer in the winter off the orange max and alleviate some traffic problems at the 16th and center street intersection as the train would not interfere with traffic.

[MalcolmTucker]

Originally Posted by PPAR

Was the possibility of having the green line go underground one or two blocks south of 16th Ave, with an underground station at 16th considered?
It would make for a more comfortable transfer in the winter off the orange max and alleviate some traffic problems at the 16th and center street intersection as the train would not interfere with traffic.

Considered, probably tbh. Evaluated extensively, probably not. It would be screened out as you end up with much of the cost (expensive underground station with circulation under an intersection) of just going underground from the end of the bridge (you save ~600 m of tunnel and maybe an air shaft/emergency exit), without much of the benefit in some peoples eyes (leaving the road as is).

[accord1999]

Originally Posted by PPAR

Was the possibility of having the green line go underground one or two blocks south of 16th Ave, with an underground station at 16th considered?
It would make for a more comfortable transfer in the winter off the orange max and alleviate some traffic problems at the 16th and center street intersection as the train would not interfere with traffic.

I would think it was, all 5 of the options for the river crossing looked at in 2016 had 16th Ave underground.

https://s3.ca-central-1.amazonaws.co...s-combined.pdf

But then, the planners weren't under the immense cost-cutting pressures that the planners are under today.