Green Line LRT - $4.6 Billion Project

[milomilo]

I've just realised something else that makes the surface running even crappier. We have centre platforms. So the buses can't use the LRT stations as the bus doors are on the wrong side, but it's claimed will use the LRT lanes. So instead we will have the same number or more buses as today now sharing a single lane of traffic with cars to unload and offload passengers in the section with LRT tracks, only moving to the middle for a short section between stations. I really think the residents of the city are in the dark about how awful this solution will be.

[LOU]

FYI,

Bids for 78th and 69th Avenue SE are out for road improvements.

[Policy Wonk]

Originally Posted by milomilo

I really think the residents of the city are in the dark about how awful this solution will be.

Many of people I have talked to about it definitely don't understand that traffic lanes are being permanently eliminated as they suggest other road and bus improvements that could be added to the project.

As negative as I have always been about the Green Line I never thought we would end up with something that would completely fail at everything it was originally intended to do.

If we're building a Centre Street street car, go all in and build a Centre Street street car from the Calgary Tower, over the existing bridge to 64th Ave and do it as quickly as possible because the truncated Eau Claire to 16th Ave segment won't merely be useless but actually detrimental. If they're going to build this they have to build enough of it at once to get buses off Centre Street. If they can't accomplish that they need to forget the whole NCLRT segment for the time being.

[MalcolmTucker]

I have come to peace with the Centre St segment, but that is because I believe it will be replaced later if it turns out atrociously.

[CH Res]

I have followed this forum for a few months now. I would like to give my perspective on things.

1. The greenline is going to be built to 16th ave. during this initial iteration. The city is not concerned about ridership or value or any other transit metric. They need to get the foundation in place to ensure there is future growth of the system both north and south now. All other concerns or thoughts are not relevant. Any posturing is just that. They have already made sure that those speaking for only a south line will not have enough votes to carry the day.

2. Until recently I would take the 2, 3 or the 17 downtown during rush hour. The service was shockingly abysmal for what is supposed to be the highest transit corridor in Calgary. There is lots of room for improvement and there is tons of potential capacity for additional buses on Center Street. I experienced it every day.

3. I find it completely shocking that there are not riots when the city is contemplating removing 2 rush hour lanes from Center Street. The need to remove the 2 lanes is a complete result of city mismanagement of tax dollars and nothing else. 2 lanes are being sacrificed as a result of that mismanagement. With good management, those lanes would not be sacrificed. The city needs to find the money to tunnel. Running this along Center Street is complete amateur hour.

4. I find it hard to believe that the additional cost to tunnel to 16th ave. is not lower than the value to the city lost by repurposing 2 lanes on Center St.

5. All that said, as a home owner in Crescent Heights, I am happy that they are going to reduce traffic on Center Street to essentially nothing. I also assume that there will be a lot less traffic cutting through Crescent Heights so perhaps Crescent Heights can start feeling like a community rather than a highway on-ramp.

6. I am not happy for the businesses as parking on Center Street will disappear.

[MalcolmTucker]

Welcome!


Yeah, underground stations are really expensive, and so are tunnels. If they were more economical we would build a lot more of them.



As for the traffic lanes, 14th, 10th, Centre, and Edmonton Trail combined have less vehicles on them today than before Centre St bridge closed for the first time, and during the closure. The reduction in capacity will change flows but systems are remarkably adaptable. It will be a change but it would be cataclysmic.

[lucx]

Originally Posted by milomilo

I've just realised something else that makes the surface running even crappier. We have centre platforms. So the buses can't use the LRT stations as the bus doors are on the wrong side, but it's claimed will use the LRT lanes. So instead we will have the same number or more buses as today now sharing a single lane of traffic with cars to unload and offload passengers in the section with LRT tracks, only moving to the middle for a short section between stations. I really think the residents of the city are in the dark about how awful this solution will be.

9 Ave station is side-loading. Buses can load/unload on the north side of 16 Ave. Yes, Route 3 will probably use the single traffic lane.

[milomilo]

So these mythical bus users that will transfer now have the pleasure of crossing 16 Ave to add to this wonderful commute? Or, perhaps, they will just stay on the bus as would be the obvious thing to do.

[Corndogger]

Originally Posted by milomilo

So these mythical bus users that will transfer now have the pleasure of crossing 16 Ave to add to this wonderful commute? Or, perhaps, they will just stay on the bus as would be the obvious thing to do.

I can't see people coming from the far north transferring that close to their destination. They'll either stay on the bus or start driving.

[outoftheice]

Originally Posted by milomilo

Well, OK, but we'd be even better off with a project that actually has a positive return on investment. Which I would be confident the Green Line would have, if it was accounted properly. And if we are saying it's OK for Calgary to scam the system to get money for a bad project, that means it's acceptable that every other city does that also with poor projects. That would be no way to run a country, we'd run out of money as every project you build makes the country poorer.

Again, there is only a single light rail project in the entire country that offers a positive return on investment. The chances are very good that if you ran Calgary's previous LRT expansions through a similar evaluation none of them would show a positive return on investment either. You may not agree with the idea but ask yourself what our country would be like if none of our major cities had ever built mass transit projects because that's essentially what you're advocating for. Governments are not businesses nor should they be held to the same standard. Many times the public good trumps the economic return on investment and the public good is what we should be making sure governments consider when making investment decisions.

[outoftheice]

Originally Posted by Corndogger

I can't see people coming from the far north transferring that close to their destination. They'll either stay on the bus or start driving.

Those heading downtown will stay on the bus. No different than today except their journey time will be 10% faster. Those that are headed south to employment hubs like Quarry Park will transfer to the LRT at 16th

[lucx]

Originally Posted by milomilo

So these mythical bus users that will transfer now have the pleasure of crossing 16 Ave to add to this wonderful commute? Or, perhaps, they will just stay on the bus as would be the obvious thing to do.

The 16 Ave bus stop will probably be on the north corners. Express buses are then free to cross 16 Ave without impeding the single traffic lane. I'm not sure what your criticism of the Center load station is. If someone needs to go to Shepard they can transfer at 9 Ave station rather than cross at 16 Ave. Otherwise they stay on the bus to go downtown. It's a non issue.

[accord1999]

Originally Posted by outoftheice

Again, there is only a single light rail project in the entire country that offers a positive return on investment. The chances are very good that if you ran Calgary's previous LRT expansions through a similar evaluation none of them would show a positive return on investment either.

The original lines were a lot cheaper and basically built on a bare-bones budget, even accounting for inflation, purchasing power or GDP.



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

If the Green Line was still the original plan in 2015, 40 km from Panorama Hills to Seton with 100K+ riders/day for $4.5-$5B I think the return will be at 1:1. But the budgetary problems mirrors many other LRT projects in North America, the increasingly high cost of rail without the commensurate ridership to justify it.

[milomilo]

Originally Posted by outoftheice

Those heading downtown will stay on the bus. No different than today except their journey time will be 10% faster. Those that are headed south to employment hubs like Quarry Park will transfer to the LRT at 16th

Or, since the Green Line doesn't go to QP, they will just drive as they do today, like a normal person. As the idea of walking, then getting a bus, then an infrequent train, then a bus, then walking is not attractive to most people. The amount of people that will make that trip is not going to be significant.

[milomilo]

Originally Posted by outoftheice

Again, there is only a single light rail project in the entire country that offers a positive return on investment. The chances are very good that if you ran Calgary's previous LRT expansions through a similar evaluation none of them would show a positive return on investment either. You may not agree with the idea but ask yourself what our country would be like if none of our major cities had ever built mass transit projects because that's essentially what you're advocating for. Governments are not businesses nor should they be held to the same standard. Many times the public good trumps the economic return on investment and the public good is what we should be making sure governments consider when making investment decisions.

And again, the comparison to other LRTs is irrelevant and unscientific. Extremely dishonest, actually. It even says as much right in that steer report "each Business Case used different assumptions". The Green Line for sure missed a bunch of factors in their CBA, and it's likely the other independent studies did also, as well as using different timelines. Someone using this as an argument either does not understand this or does understand this and is deliberately lying.

Various public goods can be, and are, measured and estimated, but if the argument is that public transit has benefits that are too hard to capture, OK (though I have seen positive business cases for other projects, elsewhere, like HS2). But in that case you cannot use the inaccurate CBA as part of an argument. As in that case the choice with the best CBR would be to build nothing at all.

You actually have my position wrong, I do support public transit including the Green Line, though less so with the turbo-garbage on street section included. However I am disappointed that they have not bothered to do proper analysis of the costs and benefits, and I am actually shocked the federal government would fund something without one. When I make investments of much smaller amounts I do enough research to be sure there is a reasonable chance of a net positive rate of return.

[milomilo]

Originally Posted by lucx

The 16 Ave bus stop will probably be on the north corners. Express buses are then free to cross 16 Ave without impeding the single traffic lane. I'm not sure what your criticism of the Center load station is. If someone needs to go to Shepard they can transfer at 9 Ave station rather than cross at 16 Ave. Otherwise they stay on the bus to go downtown. It's a non issue.

It's an issue because we are ruining a road at great expense. Shepard is a wasteland, almost no-one is going to do a bus-train commute to there. So the section north of the river serves very little practical transit purpose (besides the true purpose, as stated by our mayor, to beachhead a shoddy line north of the river, to force future Calgary's hand).

It's OK to criticise projects which are otherwise good. It's frustrating to see this constant fawning all along the way. At first it was this fantastic value line serving all of Calgary for only $4.5B. Anyone that criticised it was wrong! Then it was cut in half, but it was still a fantastic line, "this was always the plan". Anyone that criticised this was wrong! Now it has been reduced in quality even further, so far that the original purpose has been totally lost, but still, it's a fantastic line, just as good as before, this was always the plan! Anyone that criticises it is wrong!

[MalcolmTucker]

Originally Posted by milomilo

Or, since the Green Line doesn't go to QP, they will just drive as they do today, like a normal person. As the idea of walking, then getting a bus, then an infrequent train, then a bus, then walking is not attractive to most people. The amount of people that will make that trip is not going to be significant.

The Green Line serves Quarry Park as well as the Red Line serves UCalgary - not centrally, and with much of the area outside the 600m radius, but still reasonably well. A 1 km radius captures all of the office development.

[MalcolmTucker]

The few transportation projects I have seen in Alberta with a consistently higher than 1 CBA is high speed rail between the cities, and the airport expansions. It doesn't mean others aren't good. Only building projects with high CBAs neglects the much which we can't measure well. Sure we could seek out to measure them, but the effort usually just keeps the same ranking, since the things we can measure are usually highly correlated to the things we can't measure well. Putting in a only of CBA above 1 step just will lead to more resources going to CBAs.

[MalcolmTucker]

Originally Posted by milomilo

It's an issue because we are ruining a road at great expense. Shepard is a wasteland, almost no-one is going to do a bus-train commute to there. So the section north of the river serves very little practical transit purpose (besides the true purpose, as stated by our mayor, to beachhead a shoddy line north of the river, to force future Calgary's hand).

It's OK to criticise projects which are otherwise good. It's frustrating to see this constant fawning all along the way. At first it was this fantastic value line serving all of Calgary for only $4.5B. Anyone that criticised it was wrong! Then it was cut in half, but it was still a fantastic line, "this was always the plan". Anyone that criticised this was wrong! Now it has been reduced in quality even further, so far that the original purpose has been totally lost, but still, it's a fantastic line, just as good as before, this was always the plan! Anyone that criticises it is wrong!

It isn't fawning -- thats the thing. It is that some of us take the information given in updates, think about it, and decide whether the changes given the new information are an appropriate response.

We know not everyone thinks like this. Some on this board think that the only BRT is that with exclusive lanes, and that solutions that respond to local conditions which achieve 95% of the travel time savings for 10% of the cost should be cast aside out of the worthy project camps. We know that some cannot synthesize that 16th Ave isn't a forced transfer station and never was.

Now was the Greenline process great, or even acceptable? No! Is the line as planned the result of politics slowly building support for a project over 25 years and now some are mad that a project that wasn't even considered before RouteAhead isn't being completed first? Yes! Did the city put the Greenline as a whole before other better projects? Yes.

But that doesn't mean it should be pushed over the side. It is still a worthwhile project.

[lucx]

Originally Posted by milomilo

It's OK to criticise projects which are otherwise good. It's frustrating to see this constant fawning all along the way.

Criticism is stronger when it passes scrutiny. The critique of a centre-loading station did not pass examination. A debate on the greater value of this project deserves strong evidence rather than revelations that are easily challenged.

Lastly, pro-Green Line is equally valid. It's OK to support the project as much as to oppose it. It's a disservice to the debate when support or opposition is equated to fawning. Opposition isn't wrong but when evidence is weak or untrue it deservedly gets challenged.