Edmonton Public Transit

[Coldrsx]

^250-8 billion

[feepa]

This project does more the eliminate a hairpin turn, it eliminates what some people call the dead end of gateway blvd. Gateway to what? Strathcona?

Although I'm usually in agreement about adding more lanes just brings more traffic, and then more congesting, this is one spot that gets my vote for improvement. This location also doesn't deserve the "public transit vs new roads" argument either

[mick]

I agree there needs to be work here to smooth out the approach and better integrate the south with the north side of the river. I am more concerned about a potentially very large physical barrier in a decently pedestrian friendly neighbourhood. Cut and cover under End of Steel and this has my vote. In my opinion, the extra cost is justified. For example, I cannot imagine anyone questioning the wisdom of the decision to take 98 ave under the leg grounds.

[S_B_Russell]

Use old rail lines for LRT, councillors urge
Cheaper to use abandoned railway than start anew, mayor says
Susan Ruttan, edmontonjournal.com
Published: 2:40 pm
EDMONTON - City councillors are pressing for use of old railway lines as possible routes for LRT expansion.

"We always tend to take the absolutely most expensive route (for light-rail transit)," Mayor Stephen Mandel said today during discussion of abandoned rail lines.

"I think there are great opportunities" with the rail lines," Mandel said. "We don't have to fight with citizens and roadways, (we can) build the thing and get it done."

He and Coun. Karen Leibovici urged transportation planners to look at abandoned lines as possible LRT routes, thereby saving millions of dollars by removing the need to expropriate high-priced land.

Their idea was endorsed by council's transportation and public works committee, which voted to ask administration for a report by June on using old rail lines for future LRT.

Current city policy is to use abandoned rail corridors to build a multiuse trail network across the city.

However, the city is now fast-tracking plans to expand the LRT system to the northeast, northwest and south. Planners are also drafting a proposal for a west-end LRT line and a southeast one into Mill Woods.

The route of the west-end line is particularly contentious. Planners have not yet announced the route, but it's likely to go through older neighbourhoods and raise objections.

Coun. Kim Krushell said use of old rail lines for LRT should now be seen as a higher priority than the multiuse trail system.

Brice Stephenson, head of transportation planning, pushed back a little, saying that LRT lines must first go where the prospective riders are. If there's a rail line there to use, it will be used, said Stephenson.

Krushell countered by saying that wherever an LRT line goes, developers are likely to build around that line. "If you build it, they'll come," she said.

When the LRT line into Clareview was first discussed 40 years ago, there was a belief that development would follow the line, city manager Al Maurer said. It took a long while for that to happen, he said.

Maurer is meeting next week with officials from the 24 municipalities around Edmonton to talk about regional LRT planning. The city's long-range plan is to have lines going into St. Albert, Fort Saskatchewan, Beaumont and other surrounding towns.

[email protected]




© Edmonton Journal 2008

[rapid_business]

Originally Posted by S_B_Russell

Use old rail lines for LRT, councillors urge
Cheaper to use abandoned railwBrice Stephenson, head of transportation planning, pushed back a little, saying that LRT lines must first go where the prospective riders are. If there's a rail line there to use, it will be used, said Stephenson.

Councilors who think they know anything about LRT...read the above statement please.

[MalcolmTucker]

Originally Posted by onishenko

Councilors who think they know anything about LRT...read the above statement please.

If you can build 3 times as much mileage by using old rail ROW you probably end up with just as good or better end result. You would have more opportunity for TOD too.

[Mikemike]

I actually think that the councillors are right in this case. For the near future LRT is driven by park&ride and bus transfers. The transfer/lot can be wherever is convenient to put a LRT line, including on an old rail ROW. Yes, the "ideal" route will have higher ridership, but I doubt that it would be proportional to the increased costs.

There are of course major destinations with no cheap options that must be served, like the first phase NLRT, and whole quadrants that have no available rail ROW, like west LRT, but for the money and the time I'd say the first routes should be the Cheaper old ROW options. As an example, why the heck does that concept plan show the st'Albert line going straight up st Albert trail? 142 is wide open, would be a fraction of the cost, and serve castle downs commuters too. I don't think serving the farmers market would be worth the multi-hundred-million-dollar premium. The ROW routes, where the ROW is actually abandoned, have by far the best TOD development potential as well.

Citing the existing North East LRT as an example of what not to do is disingenious. NELRT does very well at drawing riders (60% of perfection-model-best-ridership-in-the-western-world-CTrain) while serving a poorer, slower growth quadrant that has seen the loss of much local employment (packing plants) during a test period that saw no dense suburban growth anywhere in edmonton. Part of the Freight ROW is still active, and the abandoned part wasn't abandoned until the Line was in it's teens and the good times were long gone.

[rapid_business]

Originally Posted by kyle_olsen

If you can build 3 times as much mileage by using old rail ROW you probably end up with just as good or better end result. You would have more opportunity for TOD too.

And if the savings only provides the funds to build 1.25 times as many lines? I'd like to see which ROW's would be discussed, and then the cost difference of such.

NLRT to NAIT can't really go any other way. WLRT? Nope. SELRT perhaps, but we have yet to see any drawings.

[feepa]

Which rows would you use?

I think I've captured the important ones below -

[rapid_business]

thx.

NLRT - post-NAIT, you could tie into the blue line there.

SELRT - You could go south down gateway braching off from the U, jog east on Whitemud to 66th, and then go south.

WLRT - nope

SLRT extension - nope


- you also could add the pedestrian trail where the ROW came down to 104th at about 119th st. from yellowhead. But where are you going to go from there, right?

[feepa]

Originally Posted by onishenko

- you also could add the pedestrian trail where the ROW came down to 104th at about 119th st. from yellowhead. But where are you going to go from there, right?

That's the light blue line - and that could easily tie into 105 ave and then into churchill, or alternatively, some way magically bend out of corona...there is still a small row besides that TNP garbage on 109st... then use 104ave... and then a good reason to get rid of oliver square!

[basilbrush]

The High Level Bridge still seems like a natural despite currently being single track and reserved for future Intercity HSR. Perhaps a wider bridge deck and new tunnel could be engineered? Could have a two tiered Grandin Station. Use the CP ROW along Gateway/99th all the way to Argyll and then over to 91 street to tie in Millwoods and Summerside.

The 142 street line could be useful, but where do you tie it in to NAIT? You either have to tunnel under or fly over the CN freight lines at Yellowhead. If you are going to do that you may aswell do it somewhere useful - ie 97, 107, 113, or 127 street.

[rapid_business]

Originally Posted by feepa

That's the light blue line - and that could easily tie into 105 ave and then into churchill, or alternatively, some way magically bend out of corona...there is still a small row besides that TNP garbage on 109st... then use 104ave... and then a good reason to get rid of oliver square!

Sure, but you miss Royal Alex, NAIT, Edmonton Public, Vic Comp, Kingsway, etc.

Any ROW for the NLRT has to be done post-NAIT, IMO.

[Coldrsx]

Carpooling pays off for city
Jim Farrell, The Edmonton Journal
Published: 2:01 am
A cross-country organization that promotes carpooling among commuters declared Wednesday that Edmonton got more than its money's worth for the $80,000 it invested in the program last summer.

"Our surveys indicated that people in Edmonton are saving 1.5 million kilometres of vehicular travelling on an annual basis," the director of Trans Canada Carpool.ca said Wednesday. "At an estimated cost of 31 cents per kilometre for road repairs, policing and other costs, that's $470,000 in society savings," Anne Marie Thornton said in a telephone interview from her Vancouver Island office.

"And that doesn't include the costs of running the vehicles," she said.


Email to a friend

Printer friendly
Font:****"There are a lot of our tax dollars that go into roads and road repairs and infrastructure, parking, snow removal and filling potholes."

The program has operated for years in a number of cities in hopes of reducing traffic, cutting greenhouse gas emissions and money savings for participants.

The money the City of Edmonton invested helps fund the organization's website, Carpool.ca.

It pays for contacting companies and encouraging them to get employees to sign on.

"If you get people from the same company, you have already done half the work," said Aryn Machell, a transportation engineer with the city's transportation planning department.

In January, 1,198 Edmontonians were signed on as participants, says Thornton.

In Calgary, where the program has operated for five years, 3,200 people are on the rolls.

Most users have long commutes.

[email protected]




© The Edmonton Journal 2008

[rapid_business]

Glad to see this working. Are there designated carpool meeting places with permanent signage as there is in Calgary?

[JAH]

They have a designated carpool meeting place in Calgary? Is that liek a park n ride? I remember going to LA and seeing car pool lanes for the first time. That was interesting to see such a concept.

[newfangled]

So 1,198 as of january. 1,000 at the end of last november. 750 at the end of last october.

And from one of the old articles: "The city of Edmonton hopes to have 1,500 registered participants by next September."

I guess this looks like a success? But is carpool.ca still being promoted somewhere, or was the barrage of commercials last fall all she wrote?

[rapid_business]

Originally Posted by JAH

They have a designated carpool meeting place in Calgary? Is that liek a park n ride? I remember going to LA and seeing car pool lanes for the first time. That was interesting to see such a concept.

Saw a sign (permanent) and designated parking area on the south side of Airdrie a couple years ago. Seemed like a good idea.

@ Newfangled - hopefully this press release garners some interest... but yes, this needs to be marketed to inform the masses.

[mersar]

Originally Posted by onishenko

Saw a sign (permanent) and designated parking area on the south side of Airdrie a couple years ago. Seemed like a good idea.

I haven't seen any lots posted specifically like that, but I do know there are permanent signs up along some streets (32nd Avenue by U of C has a couple) advertising the site, and there is an informal parking area west of the city at Highway 1 and 22 that is used by carpoolers into the city.

I suspect that it was just a single barrage of commercials, every once in a while one of the papers seems to run a story and theres a flury of activity and then nothing for a while again.

[newfangled]

Originally Posted by onishenko

@ Newfangled - hopefully this press release garners some interest... but yes, this needs to be marketed to inform the masses.

Yeah, not to be too grumpy, but I do have to wonder how much this is really working?

1200 people in a metro area of 1M? How many of those people are actually new carpoolers, and how many of them were already carpooling and just signed up to the website because they heard about it?

Oh, and why do they force you to register just to search for carpools? It seems like a really artificial way to pump the numbers. But it's also short-sighted because it's a good way to scare off casual users who might just want to take a look. I can't imagine that the privacy issues surrounding a carpooling site are greater than social networking sites, dating sites, or real estate sites and all of those let you browse.

Meh. A one month marketing blitz for someone else's website, followed by a press release every few months? It's like the smallest possible amount of effort to change societal attitudes.