NC LRT Advocacy Group

[frinkprof]

Yeah I'll probably be going as well.

[Beltliner]

Hey, kids! Anyone out there looking for a really good argument for the Centre Street Metro? Went up to Cardel Place late this afternoon for the Northern Hills Transit Showcase, and door to door the journey took 92 minutes--of which 33 minutes consisted of crawling down Sixth Avenue from West Sixth to Centre on the 301.

To be fair, the return trip door to door only took 56 minutes. Just goes to show that BRT works really well when there isn't any traffic.

[DarkKeyo]

I got caught in the same traffic on the 301 up to Cardel place. Interestingly, one of the reasons the they told me for not selecting (for now) a route along Centre St is that it is already well-served by Transit. Other reasons included the cost of the subway, in particular the cost of getting it up the hill. They also want to make TOD nodes along the Nose Hill creek route, as opposed to "developed" areas like Centre St and Edmonton Trail (which was also a route they apparently considered; it would involve less tunneling, as it would join the Nose Hill creek route when Edmonton Trail ends, and would be cheaper to get up the hill.) Apparently rezoning and densifying the Centre St corridor wasn't big on their list. I don't think I remembered to mention that possibility to them.

[ksnaden]

I went to the open house tonight. It was great to see that there was a bit of a turn out and that the Transit Employees were actively engaging the group. The planned layout for the north of 96th Avenue LRT alignment was nothing new – something that we’ve all seen online, although it was interesting to see some more accurate drawings with vMax and other variables indicated. I asked about a Centre Street alignment and I was told that although that would be one of the best options, the costs of doing it would be exponentially too high in addition to land acquisitions, infrastructure etc. In terms of a Centre Street route, with so many intersections, it would be a traffic nightmare to have it running at grade. He said that the Nose Hill alignment would be extensively served by feeder routes.

I look forward to attending the next open house in the summer.

[frinkprof]

Must have missed you Beltliner, and obviously don't know what you look like DarkKeyo and ksnaden. I left around 6:50. I spoke briefly with Tony Tam from transit about the Centre Street route, and another guy who worked on the scheduling end of things, and both of them actually said they personally preferred the Centre Street route, of course before costs are taken into account.

I also got talking with an engineer from the MMM Group (who bought up CND, who had done a number of previous transit corridor studies), and apparently there is currently a study of the North LRT route under way. They are looking at Centre Street, Edmonton Trail, as well as the Nose Creek corridor. He seemed higher on the Edmonton Trail routing as opposed to the Centre Street routing, which is certainly something to consider.

Apparently there will be some upcoming open houses and information sessions specifically dealing with the routing of the NC LRT, so I think "we" (not really sure if this is a formal group or not) should prepare for those.

[Highroller]

I live near Cardel place and had a few minutes to pop in. I snapped some pictures with the iPhone - sorry if they are a bit blurry. I haven't noticed these in my recent lurking here!

[YYCguys]

Welcome Highroller, to the SSP forum and thanks for posting those pics! What's your take on the proposal?

[Highroller]

Originally Posted by YYCguys

Welcome Highroller, to the SSP forum and thanks for posting those pics! What's your take on the proposal?

Thanks! I went to the open house as I have used the 301 since it started. I am a 5 minute walk to the northern-most stop (and one of the people who requested that stop be put in as it wasn't there originally!).

My purpose was to give feedback on the 301 service - I leave the core starting from the SW shortly after 4 pm before the gridlock through downtown. The only real delay on those trips are south of McKnight Blvd, where you have a 3-5 light cycle delay. My first thought was they should build a bus-only lane on the east side of Center St. through the green space so that buses could jump ahead of waiting traffic. But, it would be a lot cheaper to just try another section of HOV lane northbound during the rush hour. What else could they do besides building actual BRT-only roads?

As far as the future NCLRT, I'm more concerned about what happens when all these routes meet downtown! The routing choices to 96 Ave all have pros and cons. Whichever is chosen, it should be a quick journey without traffic interference. If they go down Nose Creek, perhaps a 301-like service can be left in place down Center Street.

[outoftheice]

Glad to see that there were quite a few forumers who were able to make it out to the open house. By the sounds of it, a route up Centre Street is still under consideration and the biggest drawback seems to be cost alone. I feel that we picked the right time to start a discussion about this topic. I have registered a domain name;

http://www.growsmart.ca

Over the next month I plan on working towards creating a website that promotes the vision that the people here share for the North Central LRT. I've never worked on a website before so I'm sure it'll be slow going to begin with but by the middle of summer I hope to have something that will look good enough to go public with. Once the website is complete, my next step will be to start a letter writing campaign to seek endorsements from community groups and organizations such as the Calgary Downtown Association and the Calgary Chamber of Commerce. Hopefully a few of these groups will sign off on the vision. By the fall I'm hoping that the website will be polished enough that it can be used to present our vision to Council, the media and the citizens of Calgary with the backing of key community groups. So keep your fingers crossed, we'll see how this works out, but keep the discussions coming! Cheers.

[Bassic Lab]

Another item to think on would be commuter rail to Airdre and points north. With it running in the Nose Creek ROW there would be even less incentive to locate the NC LRT there. Sure you wouldn't have four stations on the line but two within the city would not hurt. One at 96th Ave with a link to whatever serves the airport. The second somewhere around McKnight. That would more than adequately serve all the people that live on Deerfoot while allowing the NC LRT to actually serve North Central Calgary.

[srperrycgy]

I posted the map from a few pages back on my website and received a response:

Yesterday, I have browsed the "future map", I found out that you have changed the future North LRT alignment that is obviously NOT parallel with Deerfoot Trail anymore, and it has combined with the Future SE Line and known as route 203. Actually I am currently living close to the Centre Street North area, and if this alignment is real, me and many of my neighbors will benefit a lot with this adjustment.

There is some support out there.

[outoftheice]

I'm happy to bring some life back into this thread I started months ago. I wish it hadn't taken me so long to finally build my website to advocate for the North Central LRT, however I ended up overseas this summer with work and didn't have the time I was hoping for. However it is finally done, and just in time too it seems as there is once again some interest in a Centre Street LRT alignment being shown in the Calgary Transit Thread. I posted this in that thread as well... hopefully it will attract a wider range of forum members to the issue. My thanks goes to members 'srperrycgy' and 'beltliner' for their contributions.

I would welcome feedback and suggestions from the members of this forum as I aim to polish the website in the next few weeks. After that, I would like to begin contacting community groups that would be affected by constructing the North Central LRT along Centre Street and get some feedback (and hopefully some words of support) from them as well. If the response from the community is positive, I would like to move on to contacting the politicians that would be involved in the process and again ask for feedback and ideally some written endorsements of the concept. If it starts to look like there might be some support for the ideas explored on the website from both the community groups and the politicians, the final step would be to start appealing to the people of Calgary through either the media or other means. I hope that I have done justice to the idea of putting an LRT line up Centre Street. Hopefully we might actually see this thing get built one day!

http://www.growsmart.ca

[frinkprof]

^Looks pretty good so far. I'll try to give it a more thorough look toward the weekend and suggest some improvements. I think it's good to try to get some community support since at the moment it could be seen as just a small group of "outsiders" advocating this idea (of course some of the people interested so far do live in the area, but a lot of us do not).

[Northski]

To rehash some old arguments:

1. A route length of 13km for Center Street alignment versus 20km for the nose creek alignment would significantly increases ridership for Center street alignment.
2. Having the NE line and the NC line interlined would cause headaches on 7th ave even if the NW-south line is moved into the Stephen ave subway. This would necessitate the west-nc/ne line to be put in a downtown subway earlier.
3. Having the route central to the catchment area would significantly increased ridership.

Shorter trip times and a bigger catchment area would easily double ridership easily justifying the increased cost for the Center street alignment.

[Wooster]

I haven't had a close look, but good idea.

[Koolfire]

Originally Posted by Northski

To rehash some old arguments:

1. A route length of 13km for Center Street alignment versus 20km for the nose creek alignment would significantly increases ridership for Center street alignment.
2. Having the NE line and the NC line interlined would cause headaches on 7th ave even if the NW-south line is moved into the Stephen ave subway. This would necessitate the west-nc/ne line to be put in a downtown subway earlier.
3. Having the route central to the catchment area would significantly increased ridership.

Shorter trip times and a bigger catchment area would easily double ridership easily justifying the increased cost for the Center street alignment.

You could add new alignment doesn't endanger Nose Creek envoirnment. Second old alignment takes away green space.

[YYCguys]

Originally Posted by Koolfire

You could add new alignment doesn't endanger Nose Creek envoirnment. Second old alignment takes away green space.

It was quite a lengthy but very well though out and informative read. I do believe he mentioned the green space arguement. I am looking forward to refinements in the document such as the addition of route maps and station locations. I like pictures!

[Policy Wonk]

I like the Nose Creek alignment - there is nothing of value along Nose Creek south of Laycock Park, it is a sea of warehouses built in the early 70's - bulldoze it all and build from scratch.

[Riise]

Originally Posted by Policy Wonk

I like the Nose Creek alignment - there is nothing of value along Nose Creek south of Laycock Park, it is a sea of warehouses built in the early 70's - bulldoze it all and build from scratch.

I can see what you mean about the redevelopment potential and agree that a rapid transit line could spur transit-oriented redevelopment (TOR). However, I think that with commuter rail becoming a serious consideration for Calgary we could spur the TOR by providing the commuter rail as the rapid transit through an RER or London Overground model.

[outoftheice]

Originally Posted by Policy Wonk

I like the Nose Creek alignment - there is nothing of value along Nose Creek south of Laycock Park, it is a sea of warehouses built in the early 70's - bulldoze it all and build from scratch.

Why not do both? From what I've seen, all the proposals for a regional heavy-rail network in Calgary show the regional rail network following Nose Creek up to Airdrie. Put the LRT underground up Centre Street to spur development there and when the regional rail network is built, they have the opportunity to 'build from scratch' along Nose Creek. Otherwise in 50 years, Calgary could potentially have an LRT, regional heavy rail, and highspeed rail network that follows the exact same path along Nose Creek. That's a bit of over-kill in my mind.