Quote:
Originally Posted by Policy Wonk
And this is the point at which I cease to be able to take most of what any of you guys have to say about public transit seriously. The problem is the only interest most of you express in public transit is using it as a tool to advance a spatial form and lifestyle you happen to champion and anything a transit agency does that doesn't serve your vision is something stupid to be shouted down. This of course puts the urbanists in the sightly ridiculous position of impeaching Calgary Transit's knowledge of successful light-rail systems as they make a series of ridiculous demands. Many of which emulate the least successful light-rail systems. (I speak of the pining for street cars.)
To say nothing of the demand that more or less amounts to demanding a single LRT line for the price of two. Nobody is going to support splurging on a Centre Street alignment to serve a Centre Street that probably isn't going to look all that different when the communities the Nose Creek LRT was conceived of to serve are solidly established and at roughly the time further suburban extensions will be required to all the existing lines. Digging a two billion dollar plus hole (literally or figuratively) to 64th Ave as a policy is going to be unsalable.
Home Truth: The LRT is a poor mans commuter rail system, not a street car and certainly not a subway. Deviate from that reality at your own risk.
The Nose Creek LRT alignment has NOTHING to do with Centre Street and area. It has been recognized since the mid-1970's that Calgary is going to sprawl to the northern fringe for decades to come. And since that time it has and will undoubtedly continue to. Now in the days when urban planners were planners first rather than philosophers who day dream about picturesque high density communities (and clipart chicks asses) few people could afford to live in and even fewer would want to they acknowledged observations such as this and incorporated them into planning for real communities real people would live in.
"So then..." the planner asked himself, probably stroking his sideburns... "how are we going to integrate these communities into the LRT?" Which brings us to the FIRST time a Centre Street LRT was rejected as too expensive, too disruptive and not terribly productive given the high cost and limited potential to improve service over the existing bus service on Centre Street.
The Nose Creek alignment isn't "some sort of pseudo "public," inaccessible, cop out of a line." It is a highly efficient alignment that will serve people who will actually exist come completion. Unlike the imagined denizens of a re-imagined Yonge Street inspired Centre Street that will never exist in numbers to support the investment in a Centre Street subway or anything else.
I'm not sick of talking about it, I am sick of the people who have recently latched on to the issue by way of a superficial campaign promise and refuse to acknowledge that there just might have been some thought put into this prior to Nenshi's goofy shrug and "nobody lives there..."
|
If it`s any consolation, I`ve similarily stopped taking anything you have to say about transportation seriously. Not that you aren`t knowledgeable about it, but you`ve consistently shown that you are adhering to a paradigm from 20 or 30 years ago. Things have changed and we`ve argued this before, from parking to car ownership/usage and statistics generally win. Now that we`ve evened that out:
I`m by no means arguing this as an urbanist. I`m arguing it from the standpoint of accessibility. It`s a stupid idea because it is the most inaccessible piece of public infrastructure that can reasonably be conceived. I would still argue in favour of a central line over a Nose Creek alignment even if the consequential corridor would not become even one person denser. I`m not saying that it would still make sense in that case, just that it would still make more sense still than a Nose Creek alignment.
But while we are at it, if you yourself either fail or don`t want to recognize that virtually any piece of transportation infrastructure is inextricably linked to land-use, then there is no point talking further. However, since that doesn`t seem to be the case as you yourself have brought up redevelopment, or the supposed redevelopment that would follow in the Nose Creek corridor. So yeah, land use is inevitably going to come up - called that "urbanist" if you will.
Secondly, why does your metric continue to be Western Canada? I`m not overtly trying to offend Calgary Transit, but to imply that they are seasoned overseers and masters of light rail is disengenuously generous. There are 2 lines on the system. Hong Kong for example has a much more complex light rail system used as a feeder system its suburbs alone. I`m not trying to say Calgary Transit does everything wrong, but I am saying they have a lot to learn, and precisely in the case of this contentious line. To be more accurate, this applies to the City of Calgary. The status quo is not good enough and doesn`t speak to the goals of a public transit sytem - one meant to serve the public through enhanced accessibility, not to essentially cater to what then becomes a relative priviliged few - who are already a larger burden.
And re-reading your post, I hate to ask, but you have left Canada before right? So most of the people of the world are fake? I mean...
And where do you get this imaginative idea that somehow a centrally located line serves less people than one that goes up Nose Creek? Have you looked at a map? All things being equal, in where the line continues up the already set aside ROW up Beddington, thereby either alignment ending in the same place - which one has the potential to serve more people that are already there (let alone upon completion - which would then also be there)? So that is such a non-argument that it seems like you just decided to leave logic out the window. If the suburbs do inevitably continue spreading further north, then there is no difference, and even if the mandate was to over-cater to suburban residents, as has been pointed out before, the travel times due to having to take a less direct A to B route would be very similar to a centrally located line with (heaven forbid) stations that collect more people.
And to reiterate, a planner`s job is to plan proactively. While we are being facetious, the word planning largely loses its meaning if said person`s most critically intellectual challenge is to go "oh, people live over there or are for sure going to, perhaps I shall build something so that they have accessibility." Now if that isn`t a silly enough contention, it furthermore flys in the face of the historical sequence of what comes first. Hence, yes, that is precisely why I state that the planner has a large ability to shape that; and when it is in favour of all 3 facets of sustainability, as has been pretty solidly emperically proven in recent years, it might just be a good idea to do so. So yeah, if you want to label me as an "urbanist" for championing equality, lower energy use, and inevitably, cheaper mobility costs for residents and more sustainable public coffers by way of massively influential back-bone public infrastruce (an LRT line,) then so be it. But to be sure, I`m first and foremost interested in public transit.
And are you yet again contending that street cars have no place and are across the board unsuccessful? What`s your sample here - Seattle and a few other American cities? Again, perhaps time to broaden those horizons? You`re just flat out wrong here.
What I`m getting a little sick of is people that seemingly can`t "latch" onto anything because they might actually have to learn something new.
Coming back to the whole redevelopment point and how this could potentially happen along a Nose Creek alignment. You really think that somehow people are going to want to live there - sandwiched between transportation infrastucture and devoid of amenities? I can barely imagine a harder sell.
I`m still waiting for you to show me a real example of an alignment that mirrors what is being proposed here.
Lastly, I can agree that there is a potential for there to be a commuter line there meant entirely for that purpose. If the end goal is to go to Airdrie anyway, then this might as well serve that purpose. The only prerequisite to that being however, that inner city residents along the then foregone corridor are too provided a higher quality, mostly seperated ROW with over-riding prioritization. You know, seeing as how this is how you build a functioning public transportation system - one that has the potential to go beyond the single purpose of serving expensive commuter trips. (You don`t start from the outside.) I garauntee that the combination of these two projects, especially once trying to figure out how to efficiently get that commuter line into the downtown, is not going to be of any magnitude cheaper. This point somewhat mirroring what Trogdor has said above.
Prev
Linear Mode
