Calgary Public Transit II - Page 414

MasterG · #**8261** Posted **May 9, 2014, 7:05 AM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by milomilo

I highly doubt that a new station designed like that would ever pass modern safety/usability standards (for good reason).

On street would be fine if this was an inner city tram type system, but that doesn't appear to be the aim, which is partly as a commuter line for northern suburbs. Using on street would likely make the commute from the north unacceptably long and unreliable, and wouldn't attract as much ridership. The maximum capacity would be much lower also.

Much lower than the current 20,000 riders a day? You could easily get a good 100,000 per day on a system like this photo with only a few small improvements. Not to mention the build cost might get in the 1 billion range rather than the 3 billion.

How could using the street be unreliable? the NE works just fine with a longer line, poorer intersection and station design and constant accidents. Yet it somehow moves 70,000 per day anyways. Being "unreliable" is a matter of perspective.

RyLucky · #**8262** Posted **May 9, 2014, 8:15 AM**

What is the current setbacks between buildings on Ctr St, and how much would set backs need to be in order to have 4 traffic lanes with LRT in the middle?

What is the current setbacks between properties on Ctr St?

Is it just me, or are lanes wider in Calgary than most cities? ie downtown Toronto

The main reason why I think Ctr St is the super-obvious choice is because the line must get people into the centre of Downtown (by 2nd st w) and connect to the SELRT. I can't imagine an Edmonton Trail alternative that effectively achieves this without waaaay more disruption to Downtown road traffic and/or waaaay more tunnelling cost. Unless of course we were satisfied with both NCLRT and SELRT terminating in EV, which I don't think is ideal.

Fuzz · #**8263** Posted **May 9, 2014, 12:37 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by fusili

I never thought surface would work either, until it was brought up and I started looking a bit more closely at it.

Remember Centre street has a 22m ROW north of the bridge. With 2m sidewalks, that means 18m of space for lanes. Low-floor LRVs can function with 3m lanes, and a 3.5m travel lane is totally adequate. The contentious left-turns are northbound centre onto 12th and onto 16th and southbound centre onto 16th. So that means you could actually have two lanes running northbound and one lane southbound.

As for stations: Have an underground station at 16th (station heads at 16th and 14th aves which covers most of crescent heights in terms of a 600m radius) and then another station at Tuxedo park (the actual park), where lanes can jog slightly into the park to make room for the station. Alternatively, the LRT can run completely in the easterly lanes north of 16th avenue, thus allowing all the left turns from northbound centre uninhibited by the LRT, and you can have alternate left turn bays on the remaining 3 vehicle lanes. Tuxedo station can use the park as a portion of the platform and use the third lane as the other platform (lane jog at the intersections).

That doesn't seem too unreasonable to me.

We had this conversation earlier, around page 400....

Fuzz · #**8264** Posted **May 9, 2014, 3:41 PM**

Their is a new survey here:
http://www.calgarytransit.com/planning/north-central-lrt.php
with information, and panels for Edmonton Trail/Centre St. alignment and showing at grade and underground street layouts. I took the survey and recommended considering elevated options as well.

milomilo · #**8265** Posted **May 9, 2014, 4:20 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by MasterG

Much lower than the current 20,000 riders a day? You could easily get a good 100,000 per day on a system like this photo with only a few small improvements. Not to mention the build cost might get in the 1 billion range rather than the 3 billion.

How could using the street be unreliable? the NE works just fine with a longer line, poorer intersection and station design and constant accidents. Yet it somehow moves 70,000 per day anyways. Being "unreliable" is a matter of perspective.

A Centre St surface line will be more similar, but longer and worse, to 7th Ave, which in my experience absolutely is slow and unreliable.

The decision appears to already have been made however, although there still hasn't been any confirmation whether Centre St Bridge can carry the weight.

MalcolmTucker · #**8266** Posted **May 9, 2014, 4:28 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by milomilo

A Centre St surface line will be more similar, but longer and worse, to 7th Ave, which in my experience absolutely is slow and unreliable.

The decision appears to already have been made however, although there still hasn't been any confirmation whether Centre St Bridge can carry the weight.

Pretty far from the truth. You explore the cheapest option as one of your alternatives in a study, or else people will always complain, and you won't have numbers on how awful it would be traffic wise, and what it would look like, to justify going in on a more expensive option.

milomilo · #**8267** Posted **May 9, 2014, 4:36 PM**

Well it looks like they're going the cheapest option regardless, at every stage it is the cheapest options that go through. They haven't even costed the options (or at least released their data), so how can cost effectiveness be measured?

They also seem to have been biased towards low-level from the start - this slide for example is completely misleading.

DizzyEdge · #**8268** Posted **May 9, 2014, 4:55 PM**

re: those streetcar 'stations', they can also be staggered, so that one direction's platform is north of an intersection, and the other's is south of it, reducing the amount of street width required by half.

Fuzz · #**8269** Posted **May 9, 2014, 5:12 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by milomilo

Well it looks like they're going the cheapest option regardless, at every stage it is the cheapest options that go through. They haven't even costed the options (or at least released their data), so how can cost effectiveness be measured?

They also seem to have been biased towards low-level from the start - this slide for example is completely misleading.

Did you look at the link I just posted? The PDF's have estimates, not numbers just 4x cost for example. They do seem to still be considering underground.

milomilo · #**8270** Posted **May 9, 2014, 5:26 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fuzz

Did you look at the link I just posted? The PDF's have estimates, not numbers just 4x cost for example. They do seem to still be considering underground.

I did, I haven't seen that however. This section basically confirms they want street level:

Quote:

Based on their scores during the evaluation, two proposed routes were selected for further study. No options have been ruled out at this time, but resources are being focused on the highest ranking route options:

1) Centre Street North, at street level
2) Edmonton Trail NE, at street level

Of course, this isn't going to get built for a while so things could change.

suburbia · #**8271** Posted **May 9, 2014, 8:08 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by DizzyEdge

RE: NCLRT I just went through the city's website about possible routes http://www.calgarytransit.com/planning/north-central-lrt.php

Initially I was all for the Centre Street route due to it being a busier route and a more westerly route covers more residential. But I'm really concerned that an LRT running down centre will restrict ped crossing of Centre even more than it is now which will really hurt any thoughts of Centre being a highstreet of sorts. If I see something across the street of interest am I really going to walk 2 or 3 blocks just to cross the street and double back? They do have an option of underground up to 24th ave, but I think that should be extended to 32nd. I see the "never will there be retail on this side of the street" trenching on the WLRT 17th ave portion, and don't want any sort of disruption on Centre.

Looking through the web-site and specifically the presentations, I also find that the added expense of using centre is substantial, to the point where it will impact start of construction and completion, due to cash flow considerations, in a major, major way. I think Edmonton Trail is the way to go, where there could be some additional re-development possibilities also (EG 64 at Deerfoot, etc.

Full Mountain · #**8272** Posted **May 12, 2014, 2:45 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by suburbia

Looking through the web-site and specifically the presentations, I also find that the added expense of using centre is substantial, to the point where it will impact start of construction and completion, due to cash flow considerations, in a major, major way. I think Edmonton Trail is the way to go, where there could be some additional re-development possibilities also (EG 64 at Deerfoot, etc.

The only reason the redevelopment potential on edmonton trail is even close to centre is the aurora business park, otherwise it likely would have been cut in the first round.

Full Mountain · #**8273** Posted **May 12, 2014, 2:52 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by milomilo

Well it looks like they're going the cheapest option regardless, at every stage it is the cheapest options that go through. They haven't even costed the options (or at least released their data), so how can cost effectiveness be measured?

They also seem to have been biased towards low-level from the start - this slide for example is completely misleading.

The decision on low floor was made on the SE and the decision to connect the two (SE & NC) was made outside of the project (by council), not much the project team could have done.

milomilo · #**8274** Posted **May 12, 2014, 5:44 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by Full Mountain

The decision on low floor was made on the SE and the decision to connect the two (SE & NC) was made outside of the project (by council), not much the project team could have done.

I see - that makes sense.

DizzyEdge · #**8275** Posted **May 14, 2014, 10:24 PM**

Is there an online source of historic annual LRT ridership? I can find numbers for calgary transit as a whole, but not with LRT broken out.

DizzyEdge · #**8276** Posted **May 14, 2014, 10:24 PM**

Just read on twitter that 4 car LRT is beginning end of 2015, almost fully in place end of 2016...sigh

MalcolmTucker · #**8277** Posted **May 14, 2014, 10:29 PM**

APTA will go back a bit.

You Need A Thneed · #**8278** Posted **May 15, 2014, 3:45 AM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by DizzyEdge

Just read on twitter that 4 car LRT is beginning end of 2015, almost fully in place end of 2016...sigh

Yup, the new LRVs start arriving in summer 2015, and we have to wait until we've received a number of them before they have enough to run 4 car trains with any regularity.

TallisRH · #**8279** Posted **May 22, 2014, 7:43 AM**

Some photos from the platform replacement at Bridgeland last weekend.

The existing platform pieces were lifted out by a crane and placed on a flatbed truck:

New platform segments were lifted in, basically the reverse process of taking the old ones out.

More pictures from the weekend can be seen here.

googspecial · #**8280** Posted **May 22, 2014, 5:55 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by TallisRH

Some photos from the platform replacement at Bridgeland last weekend.

The existing platform pieces were lifted out by a crane and placed on a flatbed truck:

More pictures from the weekend can be seen here.

Awesome Photos!!!