Quote:
Originally Posted by ssiguy
You don't have to take my word for it, just go ask Edmonton & Calgary. Both cities created their LRTs at roughly the same size and dollar amounts but Edmonton spent most of it's money on the downtown tunnel while Calgary stayed with the cheaper option of a downtown transit-only mall but allowed the savings to bring rapid transit to far more areas of the city and thousands more destination. Calgary clearly made the right decision as Edmonton's LRT has NEVER gotten even 50% of the riders as the CTrain.
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Calgary regrets their Downtown transit mall as the platform lengths are limited by the block lengths and thus they can only operate 4-car trains compared to Edmonton's longer platforms where 5-car trains can be operated. Traffic impacts are also considerable in Downtown Calgary due to the at-grade operation and this is also why the Green Line is being proposed to be tunneled, which will be much more expensive than the tunneled section of Edmonton's Capital Line.
Calgary's system has more ridership as it was expanded more due to greater levels of Provincial funding from the Ralph Klein PCs (as well as the 1988 Olympics) during the 1990s and 2000s whereas Edmonton's system received minimal Provincial funding in comparison over the same timeframe.