This has been an interesting thread the last few days!
My take on the green line is that by combining the north and south legs, the city has forced a situation whereby the city has to bite the bullet on a major decision on transit funding. This is because:
1) All agree that the functionality of the lines lie in extending them fully into the suburbs from day one (thus avoiding the core stub system that Edmonton endured for 20 years).
2) Common wisdom is the downtown portion on 2nd street should be buried.
3) Sending the north line from an underground terminus at eu Clair, across the river on the centre street bridge, and then up a steep embankment along increasingly congested rights of way seems to make the tunnel option to 16th (though much more expensive) an appealing move.
4) The low floor streetcar type line seems to be a losing argument- on this thread at least.
To me, it seems like crunch time on a Calgary decision to fund a "big dig" in transit, vs building a system to meet current need in small chunks, with frequent need to upgrade.
Last edited by PPAR; Mar 15, 2014 at 3:04 PM.
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