Quote:
Originally Posted by Radley77
This is my post on why I think Higgins is fully entitled to lead on the 'smart' vote:
One of the issues I have with Nenshi is his plans to dismantle the Nose Creek alignment for the LRT and the solution that Bob Hawkesworth in consultation with administration transportation have worked on and championed most of his life. I have already expressed that my experience in the oil and gas industry, and future energy concerns is my rationale why I am more supportive of growth that will have a future of relying more on energy-efficient transportation with less reliance on oil and gas. I love Calgary and want an exceptional quality of life to continue here and 25 years from now. Energy problems will become even more acute over this time frame and will cause a re-evaluation in the development path of cities.
If every new council was to go to city hall and dismantle the previous long range transportation plans, the LRT would never have been built. There needs to plan long term for right of ways and alignment which I think at least two plans were approved for right of ways last year including by Harvest Hills as well as by the new science centre. Also, at risk by Nenshi is the LRT connection to the airport via the Nose Creek alignment. It also has the most potential for TOD and to address inner city sprawl (golf courses et al that actually have more development potential).
The bad thing is the City of Calgary only has so much money, so it needs to focus on capital-efficient projects (note there is a huge difference between being cheap and capital-efficient as that one approach considers both the cost and value involved).
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For me, this is actually the reason that I hope Barb Higgins does not win the race for mayor. Nenshi has shown a willingness to explore the option of a Centre Street alignment for the NCLRT and I feel that even good ole Dr. No would probably be fairly open to the idea if it was presented as a P3 opportunity alongside the SELRT.
I am a large supporter of Plan It and it is because of this that I feel it's in the city's best interest to re-examine the NCLRT and soon. If you look at the Plan It document, one of the key strategies for curbing growth in the suburbs is to promote the intensification of communities along Centre Street and to create a higher density urban corridor along Centre Street itself. However there is very little direction as to how this will be accomplished.
We both seem to agree that the LRT is one of the best tools the City has to spark increased density. To me, this means that building the NCLRT as a Centre Street subway is the best option for the City to realize one of its main planning goals in the Plan It document. Otherwise, I'm curious how else you feel this density growth will occur along Centre Street? The only other options I can think of is the City spending money on developer incentives and creating heavy-handed policies to manipulate the real-estate market. By building a Centre Street subway and simultaneously creating some guiding policies for development, the City can then walk away and allow the market to run it's course, because growth and intensification will follow the LRT. This will be an organic growth of the communities over time and that will create the best kind of city in the long run... not to mention solving a big transportation problem at the same time!
So why not the current alignment along Nose Creek? Mainly because I think that while your idea of building TOD communities along the route is a great concept, it will not work in practice. For proof, I would turn to the Bridges. It is similar to the kind of TOD community the City would have to build along the Nose Creek alignment. However even though the Bridges has had the full backing of the City and has an amazing location next to downtown, growth and development has stalled. Any TOD in the in the Nose Creek Valley will also suffer from poor location (isolated which means that any sense of place will have to come from the first development phases and nothing more, plus it's next to Deerfoot Trail) and limited access to the City's primary road network (new access to Deerfot would be hard to create which would force the traffic onto the area's already strained road network to get out of the valley.)
Essentially, a Nose Creek NCLRT alignment would just serve as a 'cheap' to construct limited stop express LRT service to the communities north of Beddington Trail and nothing more. It would make the sprawling greenfield communities at Calgary's northern edge more attractive to live in and drive further sprawl in the north, taking us further away from Plan It's ultimate goals. I feel if we are ever going to see the Centre Street urban corridor as envisioned by Plan It, it will only be because of a Centre Street NCLRT subway routing. Barb Higgins doesn't seem to agree, which is why I'd rather see Nenshi or Ric at the helm of the City in the next few years. (yes, I said Ric, scary, I know!) Anyways, just my two cents..
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