[You Need A Thneed]

Originally Posted by Policy Wonk

Could you please make at least a token effort to familiarize yourself with the proposal in question?

Thanks, that pretty much makes my point I think.

Yes, the city owns most of the land in the valley, that's fine. The line could avoid using the CP right of way for the most part, if they wanted to. However, let's compare some options:

Option 1 - Do not use CP ROW at all, but stay close to it

Would require a new bridge on 8th ave over the LRT line
would require a new bridge on 16th Ave over the LRT line in both directions
likely require golf course modifications
would require a new bridge on 32nd ave over the new LRT line
would have to purchase some industrial properties between 32nd and McKnight
would require a new bridge on McKnight over the LRT line
would have to purchase industrial land between Mcknight and Laycock park
new bridge over Nose Creek by Laycock Park
would require a new bridge on 64th Ave over the LRT line
would require some realigning of the Nose Creek pathway in some spots
may require some modifications to the Beddington Trail bridges
would require new bridge over West Nose Creek
Likely require some realignment of West Nose Creek

Option 1A - Follow Nose Creek

Still requires all of the same new bridges as option 1
Might avoid some industrial land purchase.
Topography might make construction more difficult, would have to avoid building in flood plain of the creek.


Option 2 - Elevate the whole thing, or at least enough to avoid building new bridges under existing roads.

Option 3 - Build off of the CP right of way, except for under existing roads

Option 4 - Build entire line in CP right of way.

CP might say no to the city buying any right of way anyway. Looking at it, any high speed rail line would require the use of the same bridges under existing roads. There's no way that the LRT AND two new high speed tracks are going to fit in that space. Either way, the LRT would have to be the westernmost set of tracks, which might mean that the city would have to build new underpasses under all the existing roads anyway.

So, even if the city doesn't buy any CP ROW, they would still have to buy some land, and build 8 new bridge structures, most of which would have traffic delay costs on top of construction costs.

The city might want to build a flyover that would get the tracks over the Westbound lanes of memorial too - this would be the only way to avoid a really sharp corner at Nose creek if they would go under. This would be the case for all options.