Quote:
Originally Posted by Dado
A tunnel could have been done so that it went under the intersection, thus smoothing out the curve of the crossing of 17th as well so you wouldn't exactly be setting a precedent.
But I can't figure out why there's a tunnel or trenched section there anyway. Is 69th really that major a road? That strikes me as a far worse precedent than extending a tunnel to keep the grades gentler. Surely it would have been easier to keep the line on the north side of the road and just go across 69th at grade (at which point the issue of a grade separation at Christie Park Gate becomes a moot point), especially since, to my understanding, any future westward extension will be on the north side anyway (so now path dependency has forced a future expenditure for yet another tunnel).
Even if they determined that they really needed a grade separation at 69th, keeping the line on the north side would have allowed for it to be entirely trenched with just bridges at Christie Park Gate and 69th.
The costly design choice at this end of the line was crossing under 17th and forcing the creation of a tunnel at all. I cannot see what is being gained by having the 69th Street station on the south side of 17th. About the only thing it does is saves a pedestrian crossings of 17th for people going to/from any of the institutions or parkades on the south side of 17th... that seems quite a bit of money to spend on removing a need for pedestrian crossings. And even there, if that was the goal, the crossing of 17th could have been accomplished much further east, like before Sarcee Trail when 17th begins its bypass and, using the same rationale of reducing pedestrian crossings of 17th, arguably made for a better station location for Sirocco Station as well. That would have required shuffling 17th northwards, but that would likely still be cheaper than the tunnel.
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69th will be more major 20 years from now, when the surrounding communities are built out. If the LRT was built at-grade, then there would be no possibility of a grade separation there. I don't think it's guaranteed that we'll need it, but that's far more path dependency than extending the tunnel a short distance would be.
All of the supporting land uses, including the schools and the Westside rec centre are south of the intersection. North of 17th there is virtually nothing for the station. On the northeast corner are a bunch of McMansions with no pathway out to the LRT; the closest house to the train station is a 1.3 km walk (you have to go out Christie Estates Blvd). The condos on the northwest corner are a little better, but they're still million dollar, two-car-garage condos. And I'm not sure they were necessarily too keen to have a train station at their door; the 2007 alignment study lists "being too close to residential" as a problem with the north-of-17th alignment. (
page 3-15.)
Probably most importantly, the park n' ride and the bus loop are both south of 17th. All the buses west of Sarcee are routed to 69th St, so this will be significant. By my count, there are only 5 stations served by more bus routes (Crowfoot, Dalhousie, Brentwood, Chinook, Somerset). This is a station that will get a lot more feeder bus riders than millionaires on foot.
As far as your speculation that given the need for locating the station south of 17th, that rebuilding 2 km of roadway and doing lord knows what earthworks would "likely still be cheaper"...
I'm sure that the design-build team evaluated those options (or knew from experience what was ridiculous). And if they missed something, it's their loss. Or do you think that teams of engineers routinely do things that are gratuitously expensive for no gain whatsoever?
Personally, I'm happy that Transit is learning a little from the mistakes of the past and putting stations closer to the amenities they serve, rather than cheaping out and dumping them whereever.
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