Calgary Public Transit II

[Chadillaccc]

Originally Posted by MasterG

Mac Logan, transportation chief, said something interesting during the discussion this week. Him and his team know how important it is to get this decision right, but they have no favourites and couldn't reach a consensus internally on the best choice.

One thing he said struct a particularly strong chord: Centre Street LRT has a good parallel for the Younge Street subway in Toronto in the 1950s. Both had booming downtown workforce, high population growth and around 1 million people in the city.

Obviously, digging a little deeper and a few crack appear in the comparison. For example, Toronto didn't exactly have other choices for transit. LRT was barely conceivable at the time. Subways were largely the only game in town, apart from rapid highway expansion (which they accommodated as well). Suburban expansion was just beginning to take off. No one assumed the city would eventually multiply 6x in 50-60 years to over 6 million people.

He even mentioned that Toronto cut corners (compared to what they would do now if they knew that this line would be the backbone of a mega-city). The downtown stations were downsized to save money, the turn-radius of the tunnel was tight, forcing trains to slow down. Not even close to an issue for a while, but add a few more million people and dozens of more trains, the curve radius acts as a bottleneck during peak periods on occasion.

There is that common expression that no plan will stand up with first contact with reality. Something similar here is true too. If boom times go forever and Calgary keeps growing until 2, 3 or 4 million people, the SSP nerds of 2075 will look back and commend the city for putting the effort to "get it right" the first time with an expensive, high capacity underground line.

If less growth or stagnation occurs, this could be the last significant project in Calgary's transit history. It is impossible to predict either way on such time-scales.

With that said, high-quality transportation infrastructure has the added benefit of potentially changing the future as well making Calgary more attractive for people, investment and businesses. The growth, development and economic resiliency of Calgary will be maintained and enhanced by competing with other cities for great transit.

This is a great post. I totally agree. I think that no matter what, we have to get it right the first time, getting it right means undergound at least to 24 Avenue. Centre Street is already the backbone of northern Calgary (while Macleod is the backbone of Southern Calgary), we're just not a huge city yet. The Calgary Region expects a population of over 3 million by 2070 though, so that definitely correlates to what you were saying.

[MasterG]

Originally Posted by Chadillaccc

This is a great post. I totally agree. I think that no matter what, we have to get it right the first time, getting it right means undergound at least to 24 Avenue. Centre Street is already the backbone of northern Calgary (while Macleod is the backbone of Southern Calgary), we're just not a huge city yet. The Calgary Region expects a population of over 3 million by 2070 though, so that definitely correlates to what you were saying.

I don't really know which option I like best at this point. These are ideas I have had and haven't heard convincing answers to them (not that I disagree either, these are just thoughts).

I see two big assumptions everyone seems to already have made but we should be careful of:

1. Grade-separation is the only way to have an efficient, high-capacity transit line
   
2. The SE-LRT and Centre Street LRT must be connected

1.
Some grade separation is inevitable on major cross-streets (i.e. 16th Ave, McKnight, downtown etc.) but I don't know if I am sold on the argument that it is required entirely to have the speed, reliability and functionality that is required. Is it worth the expense? What else could we get if the price was half as much for not-grade-separating everything?

It's easy to conflate grade-separation and dedicated Right of Way. If we didn't hold auto-traffic to such a gold standard along this already primarily transit route what options could we do? It seems transit projects get dramatically inflated in price because we must do everything we can to avoid impacting car traffic.

We don't have good examples of these that I know of in North America - 36th Street is not a contender obviously - but many, many cities in Europe have high-capacity tram networks at the surface level, allowing full movement of pedestrians across, but reduce auto crossings to a minimum. You get nearly the same capacity and speed, but with significantly lower costs.

If you save $1 billion, could you build a similar tram to MRU - Currie Barracks - downtown for example? Would that be worth making a Airport Trail to Downtown route 5 minutes longer?


2.
The biggest reason I have heard for connecting the two is so they can share maintenance facilities, which is a great idea. What about passengers though? Is there much demand for a Centre Street to SE commute or will most get off in downtown? What if the SE LRT terminates at Eau Claire or 7th Avenue? Is maintenance facilities reason enough alone? If we don't integrate them, could there be other alternatives we could do?


All pie-in-the-sky ideas to be sure, but it seems there is risk of waiting forever to get really expensive & great transit, rather than getting a lot more cheaper and good transit that could potentially open up much more of the city to the transit lifestyle.

Not that expensive and great transit wouldn't be awesome

[MalcolmTucker]

My concern with building right first is more political than anything else. Calgary has maintained consistent public support for transit expansion in part by not drastically reducing auto capacity. I think Edmonton's move away from this is a mistake and Calgary shouldn't follow them.

[MasterG]

Here is an article on the subject. Talking about Transit lines in France vs. North America.

Obviously we can't simply change every road over, but as it's been stated, Centre Street isn't very important for auto-traffic and is primarily transit already. It just hasn't been designed to support that fact yet.

"The difference largely comes down to what the French call "insertion," but what Americans would simply see as street design. French cities typically install (insert, if you will) tram tracks onto public right-of-ways—streets, alleys, plazas and the like—even if that means removing car lanes or street-parking spaces to do so. To accommodate trams, streets are often redesigned in full to prioritize pedestrians and cyclists and other potential transit riders. For the most part, trams get exclusive lanes that cars can't use; it's not that the French don't drive, it's that cars don't automatically monopolize city streets."

http://www.citylab.com/commute/2014/10/w...m_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer

[MasterG]

Originally Posted by MalcolmTucker

My concern with building right first is more political than anything else. Calgary has maintained consistent public support for transit expansion in part by not drastically reducing auto capacity. I think Edmonton's move away from this is a mistake and Calgary shouldn't follow them.

That is very true, the political element is certainly a trump card for transit projects, regardless of their cost or relative value.

[DizzyEdge]

If an expensive LRT line up centre street included upzoning along centre + even more intense around each station, and the full new zoning density was realized, what kind of affect would that have on city-wide tax rates, or would it be far too small for anyone to notice?

[MalcolmTucker]

Originally Posted by DizzyEdge

If an expensive LRT line up centre street included upzoning along centre + even more intense around each station, and the full new zoning density was realized, what kind of affect would that have on city-wide tax rates, or would it be far too small for anyone to notice?

It would have to be a lot, and the value would have to be much higher than the do nothing (higher density development elsewhere in the city, more suburbs in the city limits, and some extra development outside of the city limits). To move property taxes by 1% you would need to induce more than $4 billion dollars of growth in real capital stock that would not have happened in the city limits otherwise.

[CalgaryAlex]

I understand that the trains themselves are set as using a low-floor configuration. Since platforms have the most impact downtown where space is limited and integration with existing structures costly, I assumed that the train choice was purposefully designed for at-grade stations downtown.

Underground, the train option is a moot point, and I assume the price-points aren't too off between configurations.

I guess what I'm getting at is that if the city has already committed to a certain type of train, haven't the decision makers already envisioned (and mostly settled their minds on) at-grade track placement?

[ByeByeBaby]

Originally Posted by MasterG

2.
The biggest reason I have heard for connecting the two is so they can share maintenance facilities, which is a great idea. What about passengers though? Is there much demand for a Centre Street to SE commute or will most get off in downtown? What if the SE LRT terminates at Eau Claire or 7th Avenue? Is maintenance facilities reason enough alone? If we don't integrate them, could there be other alternatives we could do?

Sharing maintenance facilities is nice to have, but actually having a maintenance facility is a must-have. There are no good alternatives for a maintenance facility on the NC corridor at present. Broadly -and assuming we're not bulldozing parks or communities - they are:

1) North of Stoney Trail, which would require ~ 3 km of extra track and some sort of overpass structure over the freeway and also precludes any phased construction. (I don't think it makes a lot of sense to build and open from downtown to 64th Ave with bus transfer for the north, but it makes a hell of a lot more sense than building from Stoney Trail to 64th Ave with a bus transfer south.)

2). Somewhere in the Greenview industrial area along Edmonton Trail, which would require 500m to 1.5 km of extra track - track that would never be useful in the future, unlike the north of Stoney alternative. There is a substantial grade to get up to Centre that could cause problems, and there are few parcels of land big enough to support an LRT maintenance facility. The only parcel west of Nose Creek big enough at present is the Centre Street Church parcel, which is about the same size (15 acres) as the Anderson facility, and half the size of the OBMF.

3). Thinking way outside the box, the Victoria Park transit facility is right next to the planned track; the full route through downtown would need to be built to connect here. Obviously, the buses and operations facilities currently at Vic Park would need to be relocated, but I believe that is in CT's long term plans. The unfortunate thing here is that this is a prime parcel for redevelopment as a TOD node, rather than spending another 50 years as a transit garage, and CT could probably sell the land and take the profit to build SELRT down to the Central industrial area, and put the maintenance facility there.

You are right that there's limited demand for a Centre St to SE commute (even beyond there being limited demand for an anywhere to SE commute); I would suspect less than 10% of all transit trips are between truly across-the-CBD origin-destination pairs.

But any successful LRT route to downtown needs to connect to the existing LRT lines, and needs to be close to most of the CBD; you can't build one stop on the edge of the downtown and expect people to walk half an hour to the other end. So each line entering the CBD needs a path with multiple stops serving different parts of the downtown and at least one stop near 7th avenue. This is the most expensive and complex part of any LRT link, so it makes sense to have multiple routes share a path through the CBD.

[DizzyEdge]

Originally Posted by MalcolmTucker

It would have to be a lot, and the value would have to be much higher than the do nothing (higher density development elsewhere in the city, more suburbs in the city limits, and some extra development outside of the city limits). To move property taxes by 1% you would need to induce more than $4 billion dollars of growth in real capital stock that would not have happened in the city limits otherwise.

Another way to look at it is could you somewhat cancel out the additional cost of the 'cadillac' NCLRT plan vs the 'low cost' one by the added zoning the line will bring. Just looking at ways to sell the 'done right' plan.

[MalcolmTucker]

If you're willing to be totally unscrupulous about the amount of induced development you can justify lots! Wouldn't make it true. Additionally, there would be a massive transfer in wealth from the taxpayer to properties along the route, and if we are playing 'try to pay for the line' I would much rather that public benefit be captured.

[lubicon]

I'm not sure why we don't look closer at elevated lines similar to Vancouver. The cost is likely higher than at grade but would be less than underground and you may be able to keep the streets as close to untouched as possible. The other alternative that seems like it has possibilities is to run the line down one side of the street rather than the middle. Similar to the WLRT along 17 Ave, or what Edmonton did along 114 Street between the main U of A Campus and South Campus. They lost a row of houses along the tracks and many of the side streets lost direct access to 114 Street but on the other hand the ability to turn left in three out of four directions and not cross tracks is a huge plus.

[RyLucky]

Originally Posted by MalcolmTucker

My concern with building right first is more political than anything else. Calgary has maintained consistent public support for transit expansion in part by not drastically reducing auto capacity. I think Edmonton's move away from this is a mistake and Calgary shouldn't follow them.

This has got me thinking. I wonder if the political success of the WLRT is in part due to improvements to auto right of way on Sarcee Tr and on Bow Tr. Centre Street has no similar roadways that would/could be upgraded.

[milomilo]

Originally Posted by lubicon

I'm not sure why we don't look closer at elevated lines similar to Vancouver. The cost is likely higher than at grade but would be less than underground and you may be able to keep the streets as close to untouched as possible. The other alternative that seems like it has possibilities is to run the line down one side of the street rather than the middle. Similar to the WLRT along 17 Ave, or what Edmonton did along 114 Street between the main U of A Campus and South Campus. They lost a row of houses along the tracks and many of the side streets lost direct access to 114 Street but on the other hand the ability to turn left in three out of four directions and not cross tracks is a huge plus.

The route is Centre Street though, which IMO is far too narrow up to at least McKnight for a high quality LRT, let alone an elevated option.

Elevated is great down a wide corridor with a median, but down a narrow road which we're aiming to make pedestrian friendly, I don't think it's ideal. Plus you have the engineering aspects of how to get it above the road - is it elevated over the bridge, or where is it's portal from tunnel?

[Full Mountain]

IMO if the surface option is selected any bus service should be across the route and any remaining routes that run parallel to the LRT should utilize other roads. Also any vehicle traffic flow should be severely restricted (local traffic only).

I think there may be room for two solutions here:
1. commuter focused LRT (red line type service)
2. local transit

The only way this will happen is if 1 is buried LRT and 2 is buses similar to route 3 now. One concern with this is that if Crescent Heights doesn't get a stop on 1 it will be left with significantly less frequent service from 16th south to the river, sure some people will go north to the 16th ave station but at some point that becomes counter productive.

I think the buried, bridge, buried option is the best balance of cost, risk, and service. The full buried option provides little benefit for the increase cost, risk and complexity while the surface option provides a significant risks relating to service, and public opinion for a minimal cost savings. Elevated down town IMO is a non starter, elevated on centre could be considered but attempting to get elevated from any elevation down town would be nearly impossible south of McKnight and then it doesn't matter any more as the ROW is either wide enough or the traffic volume is low enough to have negligible impact.

I think the LRT would only need to be buried till ~20th and then could be surface expect for key crossings, we built the city's first u/g station under an empty field, if there is the political will to do that we can do buried south of 20th without an issue as there are thousands more people that would be directly effected by a surface routing here. Only time will tell if their voices are loud enough to make an impact. Maybe if the residents of the ridge top homes and our friends in sunnyside are loud enough they'll put it u/g completely. When this comes up for a decision (now or in 20 years) everyone who thinks it should be completely u/g should make sure their voice is heard.

[/end opinion piece]

[RyLucky]

Here's the main issue:

We don't want to spend billions of dollars for a second-rate solution. Anything that fails to connect NCLRT to SELRT, fails to dramatically reduce transit commute times, doesn't have total ROW, doesn't allow auto traffic at volumes similar to today, or leaves a smudge on our postcard skyline view will be viewed as such.

However, in order to meet these criteria, there almost certainly must be a tunnel between 20th ave n and 10th ave s. This PART alone would likely cost >$1B. The total SENCLRT might cost $3-5B, and the $3B option leaves everyone unhappy. In a sense, it has to be all or nothing. "Nothing", though, still ought to include a q&d BRT upgrade on Ctr St, as well as (hopefully) allocation of funds to various other BRT projects.

I feel like we've been talking about this for years and we are still at the exact same conclusion..

[Full Mountain]

Originally Posted by RyLucky

Here's the main issue:

We don't want to spend billions of dollars for a second-rate solution. Anything that fails to connect NCLRT to SELRT, fails to dramatically reduce transit commute times, doesn't have total ROW, doesn't allow auto traffic at volumes similar to today, or leaves a smudge on our postcard skyline view will be viewed as such.

However, in order to meet these criteria, there almost certainly must be a tunnel between 20th ave n and 10th ave s. This PART alone would likely cost >$1B. The total SENCLRT might cost $3-5B, and the $3B option leaves everyone unhappy. In a sense, it has to be all or nothing. "Nothing", though, still ought to include a q&d BRT upgrade on Ctr St, as well as (hopefully) allocation of funds to various other BRT projects.

I feel like we've been talking about this for years and we are still at the exact same conclusion..

The dedicated lanes on centre street are under functional planning and should be under construction in 2017 IIRC. This will provide a good test case for the loss of two lanes, if it creates some level of ripple effect and or major traffic issues, I would expect that the city will mitigate those effects during this phase.

[joe498]

Just so everyone is aware that while we are dreaming about a new green line the city is reducing service hours in a pretty significant manner:

http://www.calgarytransit.com/news/spring-service-changes

[speedog]

Originally Posted by Full Mountain

The dedicated lanes on centre street are under functional planning and should be under construction in 2017 IIRC. This will provide a good test case for the loss of two lanes, if it creates some level of ripple effect and or major traffic issues, I would expect that the city will mitigate those effects during this phase.

Ripple effect? Watch Edmonton Trail and 4th Street NW get much busier and NB 4th is often now backed up almost a kilometer south from McKnight during the PM rush - 2 lanes of vehicles off of Centre Street just aren't going to magically start taking transit and especially so since Centre Street is the most heavily used in terms of a busing corridor in the city. Stuffing a few more buses in 2 new dedicated lanes isn't going to make those 2 lanes of cars go away IMHO - they just move elsewhere for the most part. For people like me that have a 32km N-S across the city, the loss of these 2 lanes will just most likely add to my commute time (business is in deep south, residence is north central, been living there 18+ years and have no intentions of moving and business can't be moved either). I'll be one that will advocate for an underground solution at least to somewhere north of 40th Avenue if not McKnight - anything less is just a compromise IMHO.

As far as ripple effect, when there's an accident on Centre Street then 4th Street usually bears the brunt and I have seen NB 4th backed up a solid 3km south from McKnight - 4th Street with it's 2 lane sections in Mount Pleasant and Highwood just can not accommodate huge amounts of traffic volume.

[CalgaryAlex]

Originally Posted by speedog

Stuffing a few more buses in 2 new dedicated lanes isn't going to make those 2 lanes of cars go away IMHO - they just move elsewhere for the most part.

So a drastic improvement in public transit will have absolutely no impact on the number of cars on the road?

Edit: If the street itself has less vehicle capacity, drivers will want to go elsewhere and avoid that particular road. I can't see why the traffic volume would stay the same if changes have been made to the lane structure (and probably speed limits with pedestrian-minded changes)