Hey Gang!!
The recent discussion about the Skytrain expansion in Vancouver got me thinking... why not start a similar advocacy group here? When plans for the West LRT were announced, a group of citizens got together to form the Best-West-LRT group (
http://www.bestwestlrt.com/). Regardless of what people here think of their policies, they were able to influence the city enough to get some design changes made to the WestLRT plan. So a precedent for this kind of advocacy group already exists in Calgary. The timing seems to be right as well since the introduction of Plan It finally has the general public interested in long-term development and transit issues in Calgary.
Everybody on here seems to agree that the current plan to run the NC LRT up the Nose Creek Valley offers no real benefit other than to allow the LRT to reach northern suburbia at a low(er) cost. Multiple people have mentioned that a better option would be to extend the underground portion of the SE LRT up along Centre Street and promote increased density along the new transit corridor. This plan would nicely compliment the current vision of the Plan It Calgary document. Although I'm nothing more than an interested observer (my background is in aviation), I have seen some very intelligent posts by people on this forum who are obviously very knowledgeable in the field of mass transit and urban design. I'm sure that with a combined effort, the people from this forum could come up with an indepth proposal that could then be pushed publically for the city to accept. I think that this form of public advocacy is the only way that we'll see these plans change and unless a group steps forward soon with an alternative, I think we're doomed to see the status quo continue.
So what does everybody think? Is it realistic for us to work together to hammer together a proposal and then find a way to promote it in the public realm? Even if things don't come together in a formal way, it's my hope that this thread will be used to generate discussion and ideas about running the NC LRT underground up Centre Street.
Cheers,
outoftheice
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