Quote:
Originally Posted by fusili
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I have a few points vaguely related to the SW BRT.
First, I'm not sure why Heritage Station has been designated, even historically, as the major transfer station for lines intersecting with the S LRT as opposed to Chinook. I suppose it makes sense, given existing infrastructure, because it would be difficult to service Rockyview Hospital from Chinook for a route like the 20 or to get the 3 to Chinook. That said, if we want to bypass congestion on the causeway then it will require new infrastructure and it could just as easily be built to allow busses to originate from Chinook. Chinook is simply a much greater employment/activity centre than Heritage today and it still has a great deal more potential to become an even bigger one in the future. To me it makes more sense to have intersecting lines hit a Chinook TOD instead of Heritage.
Second, I'd like to again advocate for the SW BRT to be transformed into a 14 St Crosstown route. This would first require that the route use the dam, or a new crossing, to continue north instead of veering west. Dedicated bus lanes would be hard to come by on 14 St north of 38 Ave S but the reduction in route length, and the corresponding number of stations, should keep the speed at an acceptable rate. A 14 St route through the inner city would have, in my estimation, a greater potential for serving the inner city and driving development there as opposed to a Crowchild route which would solely be about getting people from the suburbs to downtown. It would also involve an extension of the route north along 14 St N before possibly following Beddington Trail/Symon's Valley Rd out to new developments there. Just as I feel that the S LRT and 14 St S are far enough apart to justify some form of rapid transit on both, I think that the N LRT and 14 St N can both coexist. This would become an even bigger need if, for whatever reason, the city cannot be convinced to make the N LRT a Centre Street Subway.
As for the infrastructure for the busway along 14 St S, I've put some thought into it and come to the conclusion that concentrating most of the startup capital into the 90 Ave underpass actually makes the most sense for some of the reasons you outlined in the Blog post. By spending the money somewhere along the route we are making a clear statement that the future of 14 St S involves rapid transit in the corridor instead of a massive freeway. At the same time it doesn't restrict future decisions or put us into the position you outlined where we may have to rebuild an expensive piece of infrastructure in the future. Improvements at Heritage might reduce the options for interlining, transfers, or which stations serve as the connectors and furthermore are less important for the SW BRT itself (traffic on Heritage west of 14 St is so light, serving only the park, that it should never really interfere with the buses crossing it). Big improvements at Glenmore would suffer from the same problems as those at Heritage for restricting future decisions and would also likely be prohibitively expensive until we know that the route will have high ridership. Improvements further south, at Southland and especially Anderson, would seem unwise at this time because we may want to change the traffic set up, with interchanges, at some point in the future as well as separating the busway from cross traffic with an under or over pass. Until we have a clearer picture of the final configuration for both the BRT route and 14 St itself I would prefer to do only minimal work at those intersections. So the 90 Ave underpass seems like a good place to start in so far as it dictates to future planners and city councils a rough idea of what we want the corridor to be, a major arterial with rapid transit, without unduly restricting their ability to alter that idea around the edges.
I would also like the say that all major infrastructure for any BRT routes that the city constructs should be built, as a matter of course, with a transition to LRT in mind. Basically just that the lines grading should be roughly acceptable for rail with no unfixable hills, that all bridge and tunnel sections be built of an appropriate height, and that stations be located to have future room for 75 meter platforms at a minimum. It just comes down to your point of building it right the first time so that money isn't wasted tearing it all apart to rebuild later. Now most of the planned BRTs, both the city's and your's, will likely never see the ridership to justify a transition to rail but a few, namely those on 17 Ave SE and 16 Ave N, could easily see LRT level traffic. It just makes sense to ensure today that bridge clearances are high enough by spending a little more than to have to rebuild any of the expensive capital requirements in the future if we change technology twenty years down the line.
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