Calgary Public Transit II

[RicoLance21]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

Any idea on what they would do north of 40th? Up the centre like 36th? Elevated? There are lots of houses north of there...could get expensive.

When driving north on Centre Street it slopes up from 30 Avenue to 32 Avenue and then back down from 43 Avenue to Laycock Drive. Since there is an open area on both sides between 44 Avenue and Laycock Drive, would this perhaps be the perfect spot for the line to transition from underground to elevated (Centre Street sloping downwards while the train line sloping upwards)?

[RyLucky]

As soon as there is room, I think the NCLRT should run at grade, maybe around 24th ave. Is it cheaper to bury it or buy land?

[MalcolmTucker]

It is a lot of houses and road crossings.

[Chadillaccc]

There's no way it would be elevated. It would be on street after that as they already have a ROW reserved for it past 64th Avenue. It will be more like a mix between downtown and 36th Avenue I'd imagine.

[H.E.Pennypacker]

NCLRT at 16th and Centre (or Edmonton Trail) has to be underground .. I can't even imagine the 🞵🞵🞵🞵🞵🞵🞵🞵🞵🞵🞵 of east-west traffic along 16th Ave in that area improving with an at-grade LRT

[ken0042]

Originally Posted by Chadillaccc

I think underground to 16th Avenue on Centre Street is best at first. Once it's extended, it should continue underground possibly all the way to 40th Avenue, or McKnight Boulevard. This is obviously a very expensive option, but Vancouver could do it down Cambie, I'm sure we can manage to do it down Centre.

The only thing with comparing us to Vancouver- what is under the soil? I honestly don't know what our respective compositions are, but going through clay is going to be a lot easier than going through bedrock.

[Chadillaccc]

They were going through bedrock for at least a significant portion. The entire area around Queen Elizabeth Hill is bedrock. But they did cut and cover. I would hope that Calgary will learn from that horrid mistake and bore the tunnel, but who knows.

[Fuzz]

Originally Posted by Chadillaccc

There's no way it would be elevated. It would be on street after that as they already have a ROW reserved for it past 64th Avenue. It will be more like a mix between downtown and 36th Avenue I'd imagine.

Where is the ROW north of 64th ave? I didn't see anything obvious...

[MalcolmTucker]

Boring costs more than cut and cover in most cases. And the biggest disruptions will be the station pits anyways - no point in keeping 4 lanes of traffic open between station pits if you'll be squeeze down to two lanes there.

The stations will be much longer than the Canada Line stations unless the targetted capacity changes a lot.

[RyLucky]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

Where is the ROW north of 64th ave? I didn't see anything obvious...

Centre street until Harvest hills blvd, where a ROW is ready and waiting for the final few km.

It seems obvious that the line needs to be underground between 16th ave n and 10th ave s. Unlike the SELRT, the NC corridor never had a functional assessment because there was controversy over alignment (Edmonton trail, nose creek, etc.). I think the alignment is more or less settled on Centre street (although anything can change), so maybe it's time for a detailed study like what was done in the SE. I'd love to get a better idea of costs for each option (bury, buy land, elevate) and to get a feel for other challenges I haven't thought of.

[RyLucky]

News flash: the "mask" design for new ctrains has won.

[fusili]

Originally Posted by RyLucky

News flash: the "mask" design for new ctrains has won.

Really?? I was one of the few who liked it, although I did like the other two a bit more.

[Fuzz]

Originally Posted by RyLucky

Centre street until Harvest hills blvd, where a ROW is ready and waiting for the final few km.

It seems obvious that the line needs to be underground between 16th ave n and 10th ave s. Unlike the SELRT, the NC corridor never had a functional assessment because there was controversy over alignment (Edmonton trail, nose creek, etc.). I think the alignment is more or less settled on Centre street (although anything can change), so maybe it's time for a detailed study like what was done in the SE. I'd love to get a better idea of costs for each option (bury, buy land, elevate) and to get a feel for other challenges I haven't thought of.

Ah, so up the middle like 36th st NE? I guess there aren't to many crossings to deal with.

[Chadillaccc]

Don't forget to vote for your favorite Canadian City!!!

http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/showthread.php?t=154088&page=18

[mellbell416]

LRT plans are back in the news...

http://www.calgaryherald.com/Calgarians+back+ring+road+plan+poll/9051159/story.html

[J-D]

http://www.calgaryherald.com/news/Increa...+ease+safety+concerns/9049786/story.html

[RyLucky]

Originally Posted by mellbell416

LRT plans are back in the news...

http://www.calgaryherald.com/Calgarians+back+ring+road+plan+poll/9051159/story.html

It's interesting how many people feel the airport is a high-priority. I agree, but I think a lot of Calgary Transit insiders would not agree based on decisions made in the past 10 years (turning the NELRT away from the airport, citing current low ridership on the airport bus as a reason not to improve service, etc).

Building the SE/NCLRT with a spur line to from Aurora to YYC would be a killer line! Imagine being able to ride from SEton to YYC without a transfer. Got $8B?

[ken0042]

Originally Posted by RyLucky

It's interesting how many people feel the airport is a high-priority.

I believe a lot of people aren't thinking it through. They may be responding to the question as "wouldn't it be nice to not have to worry about bugging friends for a ride to the airport." However in reality I don't see it being a great return on investment.

If I live close to airport and I'm going on a long trip, would I rather cart all my bags on a feeder bus and then a train for $6, or spend $40 on taxis? Then consider a couple, now it's $12 instead of $40.

If it's a short trip, then park your car at the airport for $7 per day.

Then take people further away. Assuming I had SELRT available, that would still be a bus, and then 2 trains to the airport.

[mellbell416]

I don't get the airport LRT thing either. I use transit for everything, but when comes to trips to and from the airport, I would much rather use a cab - you throw your bags in the cab, and it gets you there quick - no worrying about whether you missed the right bus or connection. I have enough stress just trying to get out of the house on time!

And my experience with travelling to other cities is that I don't want to worry about getting lost on public transit on the way to and from the hotel. I can't imagine that I am all that unusual that way.

[ByeByeBaby]

Originally Posted by RyLucky

It's interesting how many people feel the airport is a high-priority. I agree, but I think a lot of Calgary Transit insiders would not agree based on decisions made in the past 10 years (turning the NELRT away from the airport, citing current low ridership on the airport bus as a reason not to improve service, etc).

Building the SE/NCLRT with a spur line to from Aurora to YYC would be a killer line! Imagine being able to ride from SEton to YYC without a transfer. Got $8B?

Airport transit is always one of the transit aspects that people attach a halo on, thinking it is more important than it really is. Much like rails and subways.

Here, CT used to focus on the airport workers (you're right about the old guard insiders at Transit) as the main market -- although the NELRT is correctly going somewhere where there are riders to take it. The recent addition of the BRT is a step in the right direction, and some legibility/usability improvements may actually make it a worthwhile service, although that's another day.

But the public is mostly imagining either how nice airport transit might be (without the hassles), or thinking that "world class cities" have "trains to the airport" (and that buses could never suffice, for instance.)

Here's a reality check -- San Francisco has a decent quality (except for the seats, yuck) metro system, BART, that has 50% more ridership than we do -- 415,803 on a typical weekday as of September 2013. The train runs right to the airport; you can take a one-seat ride to the airport from downtown San Francisco (or Oakland, or even as far away as Pittsburg, which is 80 km by car!) and the stations downtown are well situated -- blocks from the Embarcadero and Ferry Terminal, from Union Square, the convention centre, MOMA, the cable car turnaround etc. It's a really good system as far as transit to the airport; I'd rate it in the top 5 of the 17 North American airports I've taken transit to. (Calgary is in the top 17.)

So BART is a high-quality transit service to the airport, BART carries 150% of the C-Train's passengers, and SFO has three times the passengers of YYC. What is the ridership? 7,150 people take BART to SFO on a September weekday, 1.8% of riders, and 20th out of 44 stations. (5,098 on Saturdays and 5,517 on Sundays - I'll say one thing; airports are 7-day generators.) Relative to our system and size, we might expect something in the 2,500-5,000 rider range per day, which is absolute peanuts -- weekday LRT ridership is 277,400. The additional ridership would probably be lower than that from the $130M Saddletowne extension.

Building rail to our airport is justifiable only if it's on the way somewhere else (and it isn't), or if we have money to burn (and we don't -- I'm not known as bullish on the SELRT, but I'd rank it waay higher than airport LRT), or if we are letting our egos drive our decisions, rather than our brains (I hope not).