Green Line LRT - $4.6 Billion Project

[milomilo]

Originally Posted by accord1999

Interesting opinion piece by Neil McKendrick on the business case for the Green Line. In it, he echoes a lot of the concerns raised in this thread about the Green Line and also provided a table with information that I hadn't seen in such detail before. The table provides a breakdown of 2019 bus ridership and service hours for the North, SE and SW and shows how hard it'll be for Stage 1 to achieve its projected ridership of 55K-65K even without COVID concerns.





https://everydaytourist.ca/city-planning-101/is-there-a-business-case-for-the-green-line

That article perfectly describes my criticism of the Green Line. I don't expect any changes now though, it finally seems like we have a proposal that could get built. Not that this will be the end of the problems though, there will be more cost increases and "unforeseeable" scandals.

I think the SE portion of the Green Line will get built, by 2029 or so, languish for a good few years with low ridership but maybe get its buildout south, at which point it will have a hope of success. A new set of political leaders will be questioned on this, and they will rightly point the blame at the incompetence of the current leadership.

Originally Posted by MalcolmTucker

That table is only east of Deerfoot.

And yeah - people with the worst transit access in the city are going to have poor ridership - their communities were literally designed for LRT and it will speed up access. Better service should help modify the base factors driving ridership instead of being a multiplier of the current transit number. You think of it - base factor is lumpy - change it and you get big changes. Think of university students driving to the NW - they are forced to pay for transit, but until the Greenline launches the travel time is just too high. The first stage will bring that down to still very long but better.

Now would it be better to get to at least McKenzie Lake? Yes! Further expansion would likely push that trip above from 90-100 minutes to sub an hour.

Isn't conventional thinking that you build higher order transit where the ridership is, not where it isn't? It is true that the SE bus routes are poor, but (and I know we've discussed this before) IMO the correct response to that is to improve the bus routes. If we'd have gone down that road, we'd have those improved bus routes today and if they were well used, then it would justify LRT. And given the delays of the Green Line, that would have scarcely made a difference in the timeline for them getting LRT (if it was justified).

[CTrainDude]

Neil McKendrick was in a perfect position to make those SE routes better when he worked for Transit and did nothing to change them - besides add the world’s slowest and most indirect “BRT” ever in the 302. If he’s the expert he wants everyone to think he is, perhaps he should’ve fixed it then.

[milomilo]

Originally Posted by CTrainDude

Neil McKendrick was in a perfect position to make those SE routes better when he worked for Transit and did nothing to change them - besides add the world’s slowest and most indirect “BRT” ever in the 302. If he’s the expert he wants everyone to think he is, perhaps he should’ve fixed it then.

I'm sure there's plenty of people in the Transit department that would have different opinions on what the best thing to build is, but they are muzzled and not the ones who make the decisions. Intellectual heavyweights like Jeromy Farkas and Sean Chu actually decide what gets built in the end.

[MalcolmTucker]

Originally Posted by milomilo

Isn't conventional thinking that you build higher order transit where the ridership is, not where it isn't? It is true that the SE bus routes are poor, but (and I know we've discussed this before) IMO the correct response to that is to improve the bus routes. If we'd have gone down that road, we'd have those improved bus routes today and if they were well used, then it would justify LRT. And given the delays of the Green Line, that would have scarcely made a difference in the timeline for them getting LRT (if it was justified).

If there is a structural barrier which stops transit ridership growth in its tracks, you need to address it to unlock that baseline. TBH the deep SE neighbourhoods should never have been built - they were the result of uncoordinated policy making between the province and city in the 80s. Then they were the 'cheapest' for the city to build out - flat land, close to existing infrastructure - heck the province built the expensive road works on all sides directly.



The Greenline will have the function of 'moving' those deep SE neighbourhoods closer to the inner city. Ogden will now be inner city rather than a suburb - 12 minutes to downtown! (it was originally a mix of worker housing and a streetcar suburb) the Deep SE communities will have access to downtown equivalent to the West Hill communities. This will be transformative.



The issue with the BRT is it didn't improve travel time enough, since the downtown grade separation is what helps a lot.



It sucks, but our geography and geology locks Calgary into certain paths.



And the NC LRT when Neil McKendrick -- I think he was the one who made the policy recommendation that BRT for NC Calgary was adequate for the next 30, 40 years. Because redesigning the network can increase capacity and speed in exchange for changing its perceived convenience (yay forced transfers!)

[milomilo]

One day I might get the crayons out and make a fantasy map of what I think adding a few overpasses could do for buses from the south - I don't think you'd have to do that much to improve service massively.

Grade separation downtown - what I'd like to see is some sort of loop or cross of dedicated busways serving all the MAX lines. I'm very critical of our usage of the term BRT in Calgary, and adding actual infrastructure for it downtown would go a long way. Just the visual navigation aid would help - if I'm on 7th I know easily that I can get on a train and go anywhere the CTrain map says I can easily. If I am downtown and want to get on a MAX bus where do I go? Who cares? I'll just get an Uber.

[MalcolmTucker]

Originally Posted by milomilo

One day I might get the crayons out and make a fantasy map of what I think adding a few overpasses could do for buses from the south - I don't think you'd have to do that much to improve service massively.

Grade separation downtown - what I'd like to see is some sort of loop or cross of dedicated busways serving all the MAX lines. I'm very critical of our usage of the term BRT in Calgary, and adding actual infrastructure for it downtown would go a long way. Just the visual navigation aid would help - if I'm on 7th I know easily that I can get on a train and go anywhere the CTrain map says I can easily. If I am downtown and want to get on a MAX bus where do I go? Who cares? I'll just get an Uber.

Here is the partial busway (in two phases) staging plan from 2012:



Partial busway was estimated to generate 7,000 net new riders per day on opening day, 29,000 by 2039, by saving them 10 minutes versus their current trips (but the system fails by 2029 due to overcrowding).



Partial LRT, (only to Quarry Park), was estimated to generate 7,000 new riders per day on opening day, 25,000 by 2039, by saving 14 minutes versus current trips (transfer penalty I'd guess, plus the option fails by 2039 due to overcrowding of the bus segement)


Full busway was estimated to save 15 minutes, and generate 13,000 new riders per day on opening day, 38,000 by 2039 (but the option fails by 2029 due to overcrowding).



Full LRT was estimated to save 25 minutes and generate 21,000 new riders per day on opening day, 62,000 by 2039.



LRT compared to the 2012 line is a little faster iirc, due to a few more grade separations.

[milomilo]

Yeah, so essentially the only expensive piece of infrastructure in that BRT route is from Ogden to downtown. It would likely be more expensive than the 17th Ave BRT or SWBRT, but closer in price to those than the $5B+ that is being spent on LRT. The $1B quoted by McKendrick in the article sounds generous, but I'll take his word.

If we had chosen to go the BRT route and it was overcrowded by 2029, that would be a great problem to have and would be easy justification for upgrade to LRT, and we'd have had the benefit of BRT the whole time rather than have LRT starting in probably 2029 as is the case now (and it definitely won't be overloaded). But how do they define overcrowding? I bet their standard is lower than the current situation on Centre St, where in normal times the buses are frequent and packed. But apparently Centre St's overcrowding is not only acceptable but fixable with only operational tweaks - so why would it not be possible to do similarly eke out performance on a SELRT, which would have a higher capacity bus infrastructure to begin with than Centre?

The infrastructure provided for a SEBRT would also be usable by the 17 Ave MAX, so all the BRT infrastructure downtown into Inglewood would give double benefits.

[MalcolmTucker]

The problem in the end came to this: you have to spend a lot to get to 10 minutes of travel time savings. And you'll always be limited due to being stuck in downtown traffic. The grade separation downtown is what enables success, and without it you're stuck with a system predicted to go into failure mode in the near term, not being able to meet demand and undermining itself.



So council decided to bite the bullet, and go for more. It is disappointing that costs have escalated, but that doesn't mean the central grade separation is unnecessary. And council has concluded that the political/city building cost of saving a billion bucks or more in the greater core versus elevated is worth it.

[accord1999]

Originally Posted by MalcolmTucker

And the NC LRT when Neil McKendrick -- I think he was the one who made the policy recommendation that BRT for NC Calgary was adequate for the next 30, 40 years. Because redesigning the network can increase capacity and speed in exchange for changing its perceived convenience (yay forced transfers!)

I think it was a combination of BRT/LRT that would work for the next 30-40 years based on how I interpreted the 2005 study; buses would serve south of Beddington Trail and the LRT would be an express for north of Beddington Trail using the infamous Nose Creek alignment. Buses alone would not be enough once Calgary's population went past the 1.25M mark and the new communities north of Stoney Trail became developed.

But that was a kludge on the expectation that they would not be able to go down a central N-S road with LRT (or didn't want to deal with the hassle) because of disruption, cost and lack of grade-separation.

And given the high number of overloaded and crowded buses on Centre Street N prior to the 2014 oil crash, I think they over-estimated the ultimate capacity of buses.

Originally Posted by MalcolmTucker

So council decided to bite the bullet, and go for more. It is disappointing that costs have escalated, but that doesn't mean the central grade separation is unnecessary. And council has concluded that the political/city building cost of saving a billion bucks or more in the greater core versus elevated is worth it.

But would they have made that decision if they had known the true costs beforehand in 2015?

[accord1999]

Originally Posted by milomilo

I'm sure there's plenty of people in the Transit department that would have different opinions on what the best thing to build is, but they are muzzled and not the ones who make the decisions. Intellectual heavyweights like Jeromy Farkas and Sean Chu actually decide what gets built in the end.

And I think the goal of 50% fare recovery, at least up to 2014, must have factored in route decisions as well. And looking at the table, the SE gets a decent amount of service hours given population and ridership. I think the SE's problem ultimately is that it's too far from DT, I would assume that most people moving there don't value transit to DT or other quadrants of the City highly to begin with.

[MalcolmTucker]

Originally Posted by accord1999

But would they have made that decision if they had known the true costs beforehand in 2015?

In the end the problem still is the tunnel. No matter which way you slice it, Calgary needs tunnels if you aren’t going to elevate. Without the tunnel or elevated you create failure modes that you can’t mitigate against.

Now if I were to have a time machine, I’d go back and form the Greenline Board in late 2015. Mandate it to generate a scope and principles for the project, and commission a study of contracting models to mitigate risk. Simultaneously order so much core sampling and water pressure sampling that you mitigate the core, and start building a much better utility maps for the entire route.

Now it won’t reduce hard costs much, but it could likely reduce the risk premium needed to sign a fixed cost contract. And It might reduce scope creep and change orders. Might also be able to reduce hard costs if go technology neutral but I’m not so sure.

[milomilo]

Originally Posted by MalcolmTucker

The problem in the end came to this: you have to spend a lot to get to 10 minutes of travel time savings. And you'll always be limited due to being stuck in downtown traffic. The grade separation downtown is what enables success, and without it you're stuck with a system predicted to go into failure mode in the near term, not being able to meet demand and undermining itself.

So council decided to bite the bullet, and go for more. It is disappointing that costs have escalated, but that doesn't mean the central grade separation is unnecessary. And council has concluded that the political/city building cost of saving a billion bucks or more in the greater core versus elevated is worth it.

Originally Posted by MalcolmTucker

In the end the problem still is the tunnel. No matter which way you slice it, Calgary needs tunnels if you aren’t going to elevate. Without the tunnel or elevated you create failure modes that you can’t mitigate against.

Now if I were to have a time machine, I’d go back and form the Greenline Board in late 2015. Mandate it to generate a scope and principles for the project, and commission a study of contracting models to mitigate risk. Simultaneously order so much core sampling and water pressure sampling that you mitigate the core, and start building a much better utility maps for the entire route.

Now it won’t reduce hard costs much, but it could likely reduce the risk premium needed to sign a fixed cost contract. And It might reduce scope creep and change orders. Might also be able to reduce hard costs if go technology neutral but I’m not so sure.

We are perfectly content to have all the other MAX lines and the Centre Street BRT run on surface downtown with no complaints about capacity. It does not make sense that the SELRT, a line that will have less ridership than the Centre Street route well into the future, demands a tunnel when all the other bus routes do not.

A billion dollars on BRT that could have been up and running today seems like a far better investment than $5B + whatever it takes to get to Seton for an LRT that might get there in a decade. That council did not make that choice is just a recount of history but it does not mean it was a good one, and I'm still on the fence of whether continuing down the path of SELRT is wise. The costs didn't escalate, they were discovered, they fairly arbitrarily set a budget for the whole line, then found it was more expensive than that.

[jules_landlocked]

Originally Posted by milomilo

We are perfectly content to have all the other MAX lines and the Centre Street BRT run on surface downtown with no complaints about capacity. It does not make sense that the SELRT, a line that will have less ridership than the Centre Street route well into the future, demands a tunnel when all the other bus routes do not.

Selfishly, I'd prefer them to ditch the tunnel for a series of stations running East/West down 6th Avenue and then use the additional funds to extend the SE line to Seton for Day 1. The Red and Blue lines have clearly demonstrated slower times in the core, don't deter ridership. And without the communities of McKenzie, Mahogany, etc... ridership is going to be a persistent problem for this line.

With that approach, they could even convert the 307 BRT Max Line to a low flow street car and leverage much of the same network/rolling stock.

The only way a downtown tunnel can be justified IMHO is that if it truly addresses the long term capacity issues facing the Red and Blue Lines.

[Pegasus]

I question why so much money was spent on the bus underpass at 14 Street/90 Avenue (near Glenmore Landing) when the same benefit (to buses) could have easily been achieved using the existing traffic lights. (It also meant 14 street couldn't be expanded to three lanes in each direction). Is this philosophy being applied to the Green Line?

[craner]

Originally Posted by Pegasus

I question why so much money was spent on the bus underpass at 14 Street/90 Avenue (near Glenmore Landing) when the same benefit (to buses) could have easily been achieved using the existing traffic lights. (It also meant 14 street couldn't be expanded to three lanes in each direction). Is this philosophy being applied to the Green Line?

Right!!
That bus underpass is irritating in so many ways.

[MalcolmTucker]

Originally Posted by Pegasus

I question why so much money was spent on the bus underpass at 14 Street/90 Avenue (near Glenmore Landing) when the same benefit (to buses) could have easily been achieved using the existing traffic lights. (It also meant 14 street couldn't be expanded to three lanes in each direction). Is this philosophy being applied to the Green Line?

That was about preserving turning movements on and off of 90th — a left turn flyover was first placed on a priority list more than 20 years ago iirc. It was stopped soon after the city decided not to expand 14th. Now with the ring road, it is unlikely 14th will ever be expanded.

[milomilo]

Originally Posted by Pegasus

I question why so much money was spent on the bus underpass at 14 Street/90 Avenue (near Glenmore Landing) when the same benefit (to buses) could have easily been achieved using the existing traffic lights. (It also meant 14 street couldn't be expanded to three lanes in each direction). Is this philosophy being applied to the Green Line?

Originally Posted by craner

Right!!
That bus underpass is irritating in so many ways.

Well the Green Line, especially the SE part, is mostly grade separated, which I fully support. I don't understand the problem with the 14 St underpass - it's better for drivers and transit riders.

[Pegasus]

Originally Posted by MalcolmTucker

That was about preserving turning movements on and off of 90th — a left turn flyover was first placed on a priority list more than 20 years ago iirc. It was stopped soon after the city decided not to expand 14th. Now with the ring road, it is unlikely 14th will ever be expanded.

Triple turn lanes from 90 Ave seemed to have solved the left turn problem.

Originally Posted by milomilo

Well the Green Line, especially the SE part, is mostly grade separated, which I fully support. I don't understand the problem with the 14 St underpass - it's better for drivers and transit riders.

Cost! (tens of thousands of dollars for an underpass vs a few pennies to reschedule the lights). And the elimination of an option to make 14 street three lanes in each direction. Is the same mentality being used on the Green Line?

[excel]

After much delay, province approves Calgary's Green Line LRT project

Embracing the revised business plan the city submitted will unlock $1.53 billion in provincial funding for the LRT expansion

https://calgaryherald.com/news/local-new...approves-calgarys-green-line-lrt-project

[Socguy]

Here is an interesting video about why high floor LRT is probably a better choice for about 90% of lines in North America. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pI6oi8x7HYc