Quote:
Originally Posted by Spring2008
Fortunate to have people like Druh Farrell planning out the greenline. Great breakdown of pros and cons of Vancouver, Seattle, and Portland's lrt systems. I'm excited to see low-floor lrt running along places like Centre ST. Seems like a big emphasize on integrating with the neighborhoods, accessibility, public art, aesthetics etc.
http://www.calgary.ca/citycouncil/ward-7...ents-on-LRT-in-an-Urban-Environment.aspx |
Interesting presentation, I can see looking at Seattle's and Vancouver's choices definitely gives Calgary some ideas of things to avoid, and ideas we may be able to adapt successfully to the Calgary situation.
Druh seems to be against elevated options specifically where the line parallels a road; options crossing roads are OK. Elevated stations are particularly problematic for the dark "underpass" effects created under them. I'm still skeptical about any +30 or +45 option through the core downtown area. The station at 7th Ave will be particularly dark underneath, similar effect to
the core +15 on 3rd St . That being said, I think I'm bumping option C: New Bridge and elevated structure to my second choice. As
presented here, the option stays ROW separated along 10th until 4th St. SE, solving all the problems of crossing MacLeod and the south LRT. Above ground works better on 10th IMO, being a more open corridor and not very pedestrian oriented to start with. Perhaps future development along 10th Ave can incorporate the green line development to better effect compared to trying to retrofit 2nd St to include an elevated structure.
2nd Street at 7th and 8th Avenue is going to require the most planning effort per unit area out of the whole project, especially for an elevated option. Trying to tie in 7th Ave. surface, future 8th Ave underground, +15 pedestrian walkway, street front, utilities, among others will make for an interesting 3-dimentional planning challenge.
I still prefer option B of a new bridge and underground downtown, with the proviso that we also plan for the 8th avenue red line station, possibly roughed in at the same time. I prefer this option as transfers between the lines will be easier having only ~10 meters vertical distance to transfer between the red and green lines, and ~20 meters to transfer between the blue and green lines.
Compare that to a vertical distance of ~40 meters between the green and red lines in an elevated situation. I don't think elevators are going to cut it for a major transfer hub as this would become. Escalators are possible, it's been done in St Petersburg at 68m elevation gain, but I think it's going to be a challenge. Really, the city needs to be making a 30 year development plan for just these 2 blocks, because I think it's going to take that long for all the mobilty projects to be built out along this stretch; I'm assuming the last thing to happen will be putting the blue line underground in 30 years or so - I'm hoping the red line will get it's underground section in 15 years!
As far as the look, man, I did not realize how ugly some of those Vancouver Skytrain stations look. I Streetview surfed around a few others, it would seem there are example of ugly and good in Vancouver we should take note of. 7th Ave station will be a situation of having a station with high density right up against it. How do we build an elevated version that doesn't create a tunnel underneath? Perhaps a +45 version being higher up won't be as bad? Perhaps we can throw lots of LED lighting down on it - even the +15Core's area looks a little better with the lights they have under it. The covered area might make a good BRT transfer area?
I am all for spending the full 2% extra art budget on this one (+?% for quality upgrades?) - both to make the stations look a little better, and to provide for some art to make the area more interesting. I also was impressed with Seattle's art installations - we would do well to copy some of their methods here. In addition to having to look at these stations ourselves, the extra effort to make things look a little bit nicer will pay off in the long term tourist dollars.
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