Green Line LRT - $4.6 Billion Project

[suburbia]

Originally Posted by ClaytonA

Also what the community should be lobbying for with at grade LRT is a separated right of way, but pedestrian etc. crossings at every intersection. Not no crossings for 1.6km or whatever the distance is planned. Go completely grade separated, or actually fit it into the community (in its own ROW).

Elevated would solve this foundational problem :p

[UofC.engineer]

Originally Posted by ClaytonA

Also what the community should be lobbying for with at grade LRT is a separated right of way, but pedestrian etc. crossings at every intersection. Not no crossings for 1.6km or whatever the distance is planned. Go completely grade separated, or actually fit it into the community (in its own ROW).

Exactly! I'm afraid if we bury the LRT under centre street, the problems of the street will not be solved. Currently the street is lifeless and is generally terrible for the pedestrian. Cars whiz by at 60+km/h, there are no trees to separate the sidewalk from the road. Besides the pedestrian crossing lights, the road acts a barrier. However, if we run the LRT on the street and reduce the number of vehicle lanes I think the area would be more accommodating to pedestrians.

[scryer]

Originally Posted by UofC.engineer

Exactly! I'm afraid if we bury the LRT under centre street, the problems of the street will not be solved. Currently the street is lifeless and is generally terrible for the pedestrian. Cars whiz by at 60+km/h, there are no trees to separate the sidewalk from the road. Besides the pedestrian crossing lights, the road acts a barrier. However, if we run the LRT on the street and reduce the number of vehicle lanes I think the area would be more accommodating to pedestrians.

If you want more life on a street you have to give pedestrians a reason to use that street. Adding streetfront retail, residential, or alternative street access to office buildings are some examples. I do agree with you that streetscaping can help induce demand for these things but mixing regular traffic with LRT is never a good thing IMO.

[ClaytonA]

Originally Posted by UofC.engineer

Exactly! I'm afraid if we bury the LRT under centre street, the problems of the street will not be solved. Currently the street is lifeless and is generally terrible for the pedestrian. Cars whiz by at 60+km/h, there are no trees to separate the sidewalk from the road. Besides the pedestrian crossing lights, the road acts a barrier. However, if we run the LRT on the street and reduce the number of vehicle lanes I think the area would be more accommodating to pedestrians.

Or you bury the line, and maintain the potential for a future parking lane if that's the community and presumably the city as a whole's goal...
How much street life is on 7 Ave downtown? Does it depend more/less on the interface between the sidewalk and the storefront/blank wall/shrubbery of an office tower? The LRT is only one part of it.

How is LRT at grade transformative for street life? This is muddled, but Jan Gehl, for example, talks of people using space; have too-groceries etc, optional-choose a restaurant, want to-destination like Stephen Ave/mall to stroll through. Probably don't have that completely right. LRT doesn't provide any of these, redevelopment will provide more reasons to use that space. How many more eyeballs will LRT down Centre St bring than having BRT-light and 4 lanes of cars? Definitely more, and do people looking out of LRT cars add much/anything more to street life than car passengers on an arterial road? Street life isn't dependent on underground or at grade. At grade as designed creates a major pedestrian barrier.

[ClaytonA]

I'm surprised the province and YYC police haven't cracked down on speeding the raise revenue during the recession. It's a great way to raise revenue and it's not like other jurisdictions don't enforce tighter speed limits. Try going 8km/h 5mph over the speed limit in Oregon for example.

[Corndogger]

Originally Posted by ClaytonA

I'm surprised the province and YYC police haven't cracked down on speeding the raise revenue during the recession. It's a great way to raise revenue and it's not like other jurisdictions don't enforce tighter speed limits. Try going 8km/h 5mph over the speed limit in Oregon for example.

But are the speed limits in Oregon artificially low like they are here?

The police here already crackdown on our artificially low speed limits. How about going after distracted pedestrians? That would raise a ton of money and actually be a real safety initiative.

[Corndogger]

Originally Posted by sim

I'd love to be enlightened here.

The first half of your post shows a complete and utter lack of understanding of transportation demand, the interaction of land use and transportation and empirical evidence. I said it before and I'll do it again here, quit making these statements as though they have relevancy and are based in fact.

For simplicity's sake, and to concisely prove your premise completely false, how much would the volume of vehicles on Centre Street go down if the City closed Centre Street to vehicles? Let's start with some first principles and basic truths here, before ranting on subjects it's clear you have limited knowledge on. Yes, I'm on the offensive here, because this is just getting so tiring. This idea that your feeling or opinion (people's generally, but yours in this case) should be entertained or taken seriously simply because you have one.

If you can quote even one piece of literature or direct evidence that reducing vehicular capacity - or more generally, raising the generalized cost of vehicular travel, does not influence car drivers' behaviour and reduce vehicle kilometers driven, I'll at least start taking your posts seriously. You better get on writing that book.

—? Your post is completely over the top. You're attacking what I wrote by using an example of completely shutting down a road and then insinuating that I wouldn't know that there would be no traffic on that road? No — dude. No road no traffic. But what does that have to do with what's being discussed? Is your hatred for cars so deep that you're willing to sacrifice the economic vitality of an entire area? You clearly don't have much knowledge about business and I doubt you have anymore knowledge about transportation or planning than I do. You referring to 11th Avenue as a freeway rather clearly proves my point.

[UofC.engineer]

Originally Posted by scryer

If you want more life on a street you have to give pedestrians a reason to use that street. Adding streetfront retail, residential, or alternative street access to office buildings are some examples. I do agree with you that streetscaping can help induce demand for these things but mixing regular traffic with LRT is never a good thing IMO.

I apologize for my lack of clarity. I was not proposing to mix the LRT with regular traffic, I was proposing to reduce the number of lanes on Centre and run the LRT on a dedicated ROW.

[UofC.engineer]

Originally Posted by ClaytonA

Or you bury the line, and maintain the potential for a future parking lane if that's the community and presumably the city as a whole's goal...
How much street life is on 7 Ave downtown? Does it depend more/less on the interface between the sidewalk and the storefront/blank wall/shrubbery of an office tower? The LRT is only one part of it.

How is LRT at grade transformative for street life? This is muddled, but Jan Gehl, for example, talks of people using space; have too-groceries etc, optional-choose a restaurant, want to-destination like Stephen Ave/mall to stroll through. Probably don't have that completely right. LRT doesn't provide any of these, redevelopment will provide more reasons to use that space. How many more eyeballs will LRT down Centre St bring than having BRT-light and 4 lanes of cars? Definitely more, and do people looking out of LRT cars add much/anything more to street life than car passengers on an arterial road? Street life isn't dependent on underground or at grade. At grade as designed creates a major pedestrian barrier.

You raise several good points. Just because an LRT is running on a street does not mean it will bring vitality to the street. I'm just afraid that if we put the LRT underground nothing will change on centre street, it will be rebuild more or less the same way it is now. We will still be left with 4 lanes of high speed traffic and a generally desolate streetscape.

[craner]

Originally Posted by fusili

It won't be running in mixed traffic. There will never be cars in the LRT right of way. They will cross at intersections (as they do on 7th avenue and dozens of other locations throughout the city), but they are not operating as a mixed-traffic streetcar.

Ok - thanks for clarifying that for me.
I still say do it right and put it underground.

[craner]

Originally Posted by Corndogger

I'll ignore your comments about certain roads being overbuilt for now because I don't have time to write a book on why you're wrong.

As for Center Street, you're ignoring that things don't stay static. Back when Deerfoot was extended in the south to Okotoks the city claimed that meant there was no need to expand 22X. About two years after that they realized that traffic volumes did not go down and that they would have to do something. The same will happen with Center Street especially if the city successfully grows the area. Transit use might go up but auto use will go up even more. It's a reality that won't change. By putting the train underground it will allow all modes of transportation to benefit. Putting it at street level screws over everyone not just drivers. If we're going to spend $5B+ lets do it right. We should also seriously consider putting everything downtown underground right now to take advantage of cheap money and the downturn in the economy. Freeing up 7th avenue would have so much potential that in the long run it could pay for the cost of burying the LRT down that stretch.

My cost difference estimate of ~$400m for this project comes from the city itself. If I remember correctly the estimate for running it all the way down Center Street into downtown was $800m and the buried option was something like $1.2 or $1.3 billion. I'm sure those latter numbers would vary a lot depending on how they got up the hill and the depth of the station(s).

I agree with you, particularly the bolded part.

[suburbia]

Originally Posted by craner

Ok - thanks for clarifying that for me.
I still say do it right and put it underground.

Waste of money craner. And most people saying "what's an extra billion" don't get cash-flow analysis and the opportunity costs of spending that much for no real added value.

[craner]

Not a waste if money at all.

[MalcolmTucker]

From: Minister of Transportation Brian Mason talks Green Line

Q [ Metro News]: There’s speculation on how the project might be funded. Is there any honing in on what program the Green Line would fall under?

A [Alberta Transportation Minister Brian Mason]: Let me put it this way, without revenue from the Carbon Levy this is going to be very challenging for us to finance. It’s early for me to speculate on (if it will be funded through the Carbon Levy), but I certainly think financially this is a challenging project for the government.

[suburbia]

Originally Posted by craner

Not a waste if money at all.

Unless you can find a new stream of funding the extra $1B, it is empty rhetoric.

[craner]

^Then don't build it as far out but build it right (as others have suggested) - thats my vote anyway.

[sim]

Originally Posted by Corndogger

—? Your post is completely over the top. You're attacking what I wrote by using an example of completely shutting down a road and then insinuating that I wouldn't know that there would be no traffic on that road? No — dude. No road no traffic. But what does that have to do with what's being discussed? Is your hatred for cars so deep that you're willing to sacrifice the economic vitality of an entire area? You clearly don't have much knowledge about business and I doubt you have anymore knowledge about transportation or planning than I do. You referring to 11th Avenue as a freeway rather clearly proves my point.

Just a masters degree in the subject and commensurate profession in it.

You made the audacious claim that you could apparently write a book on why no or next to no roads are overbuilt. I call it like I see it. The above qualifications allow me to generally see when someone is talking about something they know little about with regards to transportation. But anyway, in simple terms:

No road, no traffic.
Small road, small traffic
Bigger road, bigger traffic
Even bigger road, even bigger traffic
Super big road, super big traffic

Excuse my facetiousness here, but are you seeing a trend? Is there a possibility it may work in reverse? If you answered yes to these questions, then it's time to quit vociferously and unsubstantiatedly proclaim that this will cause gridlock as though this in an immutable truth. If you didn't answer yes, then it's time to study up on the matter.

But to your point about economic vitality - that is something worth discussing. It is not clear what the outcome might be, and that's a fair point. But if your contention is firmly rooted in the belief that only a street that is capable of moving a reasonably high amount of cars is conducive to economic vitality, then it's again time to study up on the matter.

Finally, I make no apologies for being brash and outspoken on these things. The subject suffers enough from everyone who knows how to operate a gas and brake pedal believing they have the solutions - they're all experts...Plus, here I get to hide behind the internet.

[suburbia]

Originally Posted by craner

^Then don't build it as far out but build it right (as others have suggested) - thats my vote anyway.

underground being "right" is an incorrect assumption.

[UofC.engineer]

Originally Posted by craner

^Then don't build it as far out but build it right (as others have suggested) - thats my vote anyway.

I agree with you that we should build it right the first time. However, if we don't build it far enough to reach the catchment area in the suburbs then we would be left with a system similar to the LRT in Edmonton. For a long time they had small system which was about 10 - 12 km long and had a daily ridership of 20,000. As much as us inner city folk don't like to admit it, the LRT is used mostly to ferry people in the suburbs to their jobs in downtown.

If the SE leg of the green line is not built to Shepard on the opening day then we run the risk of a significantly lower ridership. The same can be said for the north segment if it is not built to at least 96th ave.

[MalcolmTucker]

There is little reason to phase things. Just add a few more years to the concession agreement.