Calgary Public Transit II

[fusili]

Originally Posted by milomilo

Whatever is done, I really think it needs to be decently separated from pedestrians/the roads. This is going to be a similar distance from downtown as Crowfoot/Tuscany stations, and the NWLRT already takes a long time to get downtown even with the long 80km/h section down Crowchild. Any on-street section is going to be 50km/h max (probably less) with far more interruptions for signals etc, so getting downtown from the North is going to take an age.

We should be aiming for this line to be at least as good as the lines we already have, not worse by all the important metrics (speed, capacity, frequency).

If you look at the plan, the at-grade section really only has signals where stops would be located, so there isn't really much of a marginal increase to travel times, as the train is stopping anyway.

I cannot emphasize enough, max speed has very little impact on travel times for transit. Rarely do vehicles achieve top speed, and when they do, its only for a short amount of time. What really matters is stop spacing, station dwell times and signal prioritization/control.

[Surrealplaces]

Calgary’s soaring transit use suggests high ridership is possible even in sprawling cities

http://www.thetransportpolitic.com/2014/...ip-is-possible-even-in-sprawling-cities/

[H.E.Pennypacker]

Originally Posted by fusili

I wonder how much influence I had on this alignment. When Stantec came and presented their initial alignments, it was either the centre street bridge, or a subway. I asked whether they had considered coming out of a portal at Eau Claire and straight into a bridge over the river. Maybe they took the comment to heart.

Glad you said something That may just have been something they listened to - an additional $110 million to bury the line up until 20th Ave and add a stop at the Eau Claire market I think is well worth it .. Centre St doesn't have to go under a major redesign and it mitigates traffic concerns too

[fusili]

Originally Posted by H.E.Pennypacker

Glad you said something That may just have been something they listened to - an additional $110 million to bury the line up until 20th Ave and add a stop at the Eau Claire market I think is well worth it .. Centre St doesn't have to go under a major redesign and it mitigates traffic concerns too

It just seemed like a no-brainer to me. If tunneling under the river causes all these issues with crazy deep stations, etc, let's just avoid that and bridge over it.

[milomilo]

Originally Posted by fusili

If you look at the plan, the at-grade section really only has signals where stops would be located, so there isn't really much of a marginal increase to travel times, as the train is stopping anyway.

I cannot emphasize enough, max speed has very little impact on travel times for transit. Rarely do vehicles achieve top speed, and when they do, its only for a short amount of time. What really matters is stop spacing, station dwell times and signal prioritization/control.

I find this hard to agree with. We have a great example in Calgary of what on street LRT will be like - 7th Avenue. It's awful. Maybe on Centre it will be improved slightly, but we'll also have 6km of it.

I think I've managed to get my hands on the Stantec report if that was what was linked to earlier. From their report:

For Option 2, the LRT transit travel time may not be less than existing
bus / BRT surface transit travel time, although it is assumed that
transit signal priority will be provided. Generally, due to the
constrained nature of the existing Centre Street Bridge, there is a
significant likelihood of regular delay for the LRT.

[MasterG]

I would rather have street-level based transit that stretches a few times farther than subways everywhere.

This whole grade separation issue is often one of a fallacy: the cost of requisitioning all or most of Centre Street to a ground LRT would offer substantial benefits to transit accessibility but also significantly lower cost. Only use grade separate where absolutely necessary for high volumes of cross-town traffic.

There is no need to have the giant, ugly ROW of 36th Street NE, modern low-floor designs take no where near the space or stations infrastructure that a place like 36th Street does.

If there is no significant or reliable way to pay for a fully grade separated system, let's have more pretty good transit then some perfect transit. This is the methodology that works for many of the European systems of trams and LRTs, which often have around the same capacity and reliability but cost much much less.

If the Federal Government or the Province stepped in and said enough is enough, $10 Billion / Year for 10 Years for the major cities in Canada for infrastructure. Then yes let's do it, but there is little indication that may happen.

I am not saying car traffic shouldn't be considered, but the cost of minimizing the impact to car movement is substantial. It just feels that adding hundreds of millions to a project just to accommodate a shrinking mode-share's accessibility into downtown is a steep price to pay for a high-demand project that otherwise would be much cheaper.

7th Ave's train capacity issues and the many, many high traffic cross streets is a perfect situation where grade separation is favourable. For the majority of Centre Street, I don't really see the same need to balance out the huge cost of doing so.

[fusili]

Originally Posted by milomilo

I find this hard to agree with. We have a great example in Calgary of what on street LRT will be like - 7th Avenue. It's awful. Maybe on Centre it will be improved slightly, but we'll also have 6km of it.

I think I've managed to get my hands on the Stantec report if that was what was linked to earlier. From their report:

This is fundamentally different than 7th avenue.

We won't have signals at every cross street. Look at the ROW plan again (pages 92-96), almost no intersecting roads cross the right-of-way, and then only at stations and a few select other locations. At major intersections (16th, McKnight) we have grade separation, so there is no impact to capacity there. Nothing at all like 7th avenue.

[ByeByeBaby]

Originally Posted by milomilo

I find this hard to agree with. We have a great example in Calgary of what on street LRT will be like - 7th Avenue. It's awful. Maybe on Centre it will be improved slightly, but we'll also have 6km of it.

I don't know why you are talking about 7th Avenue, where every single block has cross traffic, and where the stop spacing is incredibly close. The closest match is 36th St NE. That's the place where the LRT goes down the median of a road, and where the road has limited and controlled crossings of the tracks. And it's about as fast as the NW, given similar stop spacing.

I know that drivers don't like 36th St, but that's because it's a stroad with a bunch of shopping centres accessing it on both sides; it's always going to be sort of awful. I had a similarly unpleasant experience driving down Macleod on Saturday, yet there was no train around to blame.

[Halofire]

I find that the multiple accounts evaluation is poorly weighted, and some of the values just really weird for the differentiation of the segment 1 options.

Apparently the bridge idea is completely unacceptable to the public (presumably environmental), and technically as difficult as the tunnel option. I never realized that the bluff and the tip of Prince's Island are sacred ground. Maybe people were expecting it to cross right over the middle of the park??

Additionally I think it over-weights the value of the LRT at grade south of 16th. As if it will create some sort of urban utopia in that area vs an underground station...

Apologies for the hyperbole, but I found the process stuck in an idealized concept of "complete streets".

PS - why do you need to use pie charts for values 1-5 ????

[WaitWhat?]

How important is a station at 9th Avenue? Presumably, given the high cost of an underground station (especially at 40 meter depth), we could save a lot of money if the first station out of downtown was at 16th Avenue.

Personally, I have changed my mind and now prefer the bridge and bluff option. I wasn't a big fan of a bridge across Prince's Island, blocking the view of Centre Street Bridge. But I now think with the right engineering this could be a good compromise, as others have mentioned.

[fusili]

Originally Posted by Halofire

I find that the multiple accounts evaluation is poorly weighted, and some of the values just really weird for the differentiation of the segment 1 options.

Apparently the bridge idea is completely unacceptable to the public (presumably environmental), and technically as difficult as the tunnel option. I never realized that the bluff and the tip of Prince's Island are sacred ground. Maybe people were expecting it to cross right over the middle of the park??

Additionally I think it over-weights the value of the LRT at grade south of 16th. As if it will create some sort of urban utopia in that area vs an underground station...

Apologies for the hyperbole, but I found the process stuck in an idealized concept of "complete streets".

PS - why do you need to use pie charts for values 1-5 ????

This I didn't get. How is a subway less optimal from a livability/design perspective than an at grade option. Some of the weights and variables are pretty spurious.

[Halofire]

Originally Posted by 5seconds

ByeByeBaby posted this in 2012 showing a portal/new bridge configuration.

Is this the assumed crossing? I quit the community advisory group before they got that far into this. Could it not land on 1St SW, and divert to 2nd?

[milomilo]

Originally Posted by fusili

This is fundamentally different than 7th avenue.

We won't have signals at every cross street. Look at the ROW plan again (pages 92-96), almost no intersecting roads cross the right-of-way, and then only at stations and a few select other locations. At major intersections (16th, McKnight) we have grade separation, so there is no impact to capacity there. Nothing at all like 7th avenue.

Originally Posted by ByeByeBaby

I don't know why you are talking about 7th Avenue, where every single block has cross traffic, and where the stop spacing is incredibly close. The closest match is 36th St NE. That's the place where the LRT goes down the median of a road, and where the road has limited and controlled crossings of the tracks. And it's about as fast as the NW, given similar stop spacing.

I know that drivers don't like 36th St, but that's because it's a stroad with a bunch of shopping centres accessing it on both sides; it's always going to be sort of awful. I had a similarly unpleasant experience driving down Macleod on Saturday, yet there was no train around to blame.

Maybe not quite as bad as 7th, but it won't be like 36th either - the tracks are far more separated from the roads on 36th than they would be on Centre. I don't car about the car traffic but If the crossings are spaced out a long way though, then that's hardly compatible with the vision of walkable streets and there still will be inevitable delays at signals.

I think this is a difference of opinion really, I just think the extra money would be worth it for a faster, more reliable system. If we are going to go on street, we might as well just build a busway which will provide 90% of the benefit for less cost.

[Ferreth]

Originally Posted by UofC.engineer

An interesting report for the North-Central LRT:

http://agendaminutes.calgary.ca/sirepub/...0csoi3lw3fle/31010812152014084114572.PDF

The report shows detailed station locations north of 16th ave. Different options for tunnelled and at-grade are presented for travelling over the Bow.

With LRT running down the median of Centre Street I hope to god this doesn't turn into a cluster f**k like 36th street N.E.

Did anyone ever find a proper link for this? I never did get a chance to D/L it.

I can't seem to search that agendaminutes site either.

[MasterG]

Originally Posted by Halofire

Additionally I think it over-weights the value of the LRT at grade south of 16th. As if it will create some sort of urban utopia in that area vs an underground station...

I just don't see how the primarily transit bridge that exists currently (Centre Street Bridge) would be a huge problem to convert to primarly LRT. Engineering factors considered to restructure aside, the cost of a tunnel is so much more.

What's so wrong with converting the existing structure and taking a couple lanes away? Costs nearly twice as much for the benefit of a minority that use the bridge as a auto-route.

[milomilo]

Originally Posted by Ferreth

Did anyone ever find a proper link for this? I never did get a chance to D/L it.

I can't seem to search that agendaminutes site either.

I had a look for it myself - I believe it's in here:

http://agendaminutes.calgary.ca/sirepub/mtgviewer.aspx?meetid=1412&doctype=AGENDA

Click on the North Central LRT link and it's the bottom one of the supporting materials. It's a detailed engineering report from Stantec.

[Socguy]

I personally don't have a problem with a train bridge across the end of PIP, even if it means extra cost. I do feel that the center street bridge is not where the train should run.

Politically, I don't think they could pull it off. The fight over bike lanes will be nothing compared to the hurricane that will occur if motorists start to believe that they might actually lose lanes on one of the few bridges out of downtown.

Whatever they decide, I just hope Nenshi finds a way to get this line going sooner rather than later. If the Provence can find $10b for ring roads, surely it can scape together 1 or 2 for a LRT line that's almost guaranteed to start at capacity on day 1.

[MasterG]

Originally Posted by Socguy

I personally don't have a problem with a train bridge across the end of PIP, even if it means extra cost. I do feel that the center street bridge is not where the train should run.

Politically, I don't think they could pull it off. The fight over bike lanes will be nothing compared to the hurricane that will occur if motorists start to believe that they might actually lose lanes on one of the few bridges out of downtown.

This is the problem. Centre street already only handles 20 - 25,000 vehicles per day, while transit (with it's attempted peak transit lanes) handling 30 - 35,000.

Why not give 2 of 4 lanes to LRT, vastly increase all capacity in both directions permanently. The other two lanes can alternate during rush or be only one-way in peak-direction. Doesn't matter.

If the South LRT handles 110,000 per day; the NW / NE handle somewhere around 70 - 90,000 per day, surely asking centre street to handle the current load of 35,000 transit users and 25,000 road users is doable.

Assuming peak capacity of an at grade line is in the 50,000 - 100,000 per day depending on how much priority the LRT gets over the minority auto-traffic (the low end being a minimal tram-like separated, the high-end with some other grade separation on key cross-streets), I still don't see why surface LRT won't work here.

You're point on political will is bang on though. As far as I can tell it is the only thing that makes sense here why you would spend an extra few hundred million dollars for little capacity benefit overall.

[MalcolmTucker]

If you look at the West LRT, more was spent on changes to assuage a much smaller number of people.

[PPAR]

Originally Posted by Socguy

I personally don't have a problem with a train bridge across the end of PIP, even if it means extra cost.

This is where proper architecture could make the project. A well designed bridge across PIP that is properly sympathetic to the setting would make all the difference.