The Great Canadian Transit Thread

[Chadillaccc]

Originally Posted by Harrison

You mean 2023 right (not that I'd love to have the election sooner!)?

Or whatever? Sure I guess.

Feels like these slapdick cunts have been in power for years already. Though I guess 2020 has been 56 years long so that's probably why it feels like that

Originally Posted by milomilo

While it probably is still better the Green Line gets built, it would be nice to see the Council and city admin get punished for their collective incompetence (even though it's us that suffer really). And the wailing of the irrational "Green Line is the perfectest project ever" fanboys will be a delight.

I don't think anyone, anywhere, maybe even ever has passionately declaimed that the Green Line is the best project ever. The centre city portion has been totally bastardized by the mismanagement of the team in charge of planning it. Regardless, it needs to be built now, not in 50 fucking years or whenever the rural/uneducated-pandering conservatives get around to it. The biggest mistake ever made in regard to this project was claiming the whole thing would only cost 4.5 billion without taking into account Calgary's unique/unstable geology for the tunnel under the river and incline up the bluffs. Now that this initial idea is completely kiboshed and an entirely new plan reviewed and approved, these provincial government dipshits need to get their ass in gear. Not that I wouldn't love to see them completely eviscerated in the next election, but I'd rather what's best for the city happen first, and that is of course a major shovel-ready transit project creating thousands of jobs during a period of economic catastrophe. The end.

Or is that too fanboy?

[milomilo]

Originally Posted by Chadillaccc

Or is that too fanboy?

No, it isn't, you put forward good arguments and I agree with a lot of it.

I disagree though that it will be the end of the world if the Green Line does not get built in this iteration. What we are going to end up with is something far different than the original promise. And what has caused me to become disillusioned along the way is that every time the project has been reduced in scope, and pushed back because the city can't seem to do its job and make decisions, the fanboys come out telling us how it is still such an amazing project, with exactly the same amount of enthusiasm as for earlier when the project was bigger, better and cheaper.

If there is a rapid transit line the city "needs", it's a tunneled rail line directly up Centre Street. Not half an LRT to the south. But the latter is what we are getting, not the former. So what's the point? The SE would be easily served with a BRT which we could still probably get done faster than the Green Line will be built. And if cancelling the Green Line means we avoid any possibility of the Green Line on Centre Street, allowing us to rethink the decision in 5-10 years time, that would be a good thing, not bad.

The discussion around the Green Line reminds me of the discussion around the Olympics. I actually voted for the Olympics, but as soon as the result came that we didn't want it, I instantly was glad we didn't, as all the Olympics pushers came out acting as if it was the worst thing that could ever happen, and Calgary was doomed. They deserved their loss, and if the Green Line gets canned it deserved it too. The City has had 5 years to get this going, and they've failed. You can put a little blame on Kenney, but not much.

[wave46]

I'm a little confused by the routing of the Green Line.

While I do get the idea behind using old rail corridors to save money, the southeast rail corridor seems to parallel a lot of industrial areas.

Aside from skimming the edge of a couple of suburbs until it gets far out, it doesn't really hit any particular nodes that would typically be associated with transit.

[milomilo]

Originally Posted by wave46

I'm a little confused by the routing of the Green Line.

While I do get the idea behind using old rail corridors to save money, the southwest rail corridor seems to parallel a lot of industrial areas.

Aside from skimming the edge of a couple of suburbs until it gets far out, it doesn't really hit any particular nodes that would typically be associated with transit.

Are we talking about the same thing? The SE Green Line route doesn't follow rail lines a whole lot, and neither does the imaginary north route.

The SE route is good for where it needs to go, IMO. It's a reality that the portion from Ramsay - Quarry Park is industrial wasteland, and even after that it's low density suburbs full of people who quite happily chose to live in a place where having multiple cars is mandatory. But Seton and the SE Hospital is a proper destination worth serving. The Green Line route goes out to the few destinations on the route in the cleanest and most logical route possible, I think.

The problem IMO is that the SE line only makes much sense if you build it all the way, and considering there is zero good transit there already, I'm not convinced there is the demand that would justify going straight to LRT. I'd rather they spent a few hundred million building bus overpasses at strategic locations (over rivers, canals, railways, Deerfoot) which would massively reduce the journey time of buses. If we'd gone this route, like we did with the MAX routes, the transit would be in place right now.

[J.OT13]

Originally Posted by milomilo

If there is a rapid transit line the city "needs", it's a tunneled rail line directly up Centre Street. Not half an LRT to the south. But the latter is what we are getting, not the former. So what's the point? The SE would be easily served with a BRT which we could still probably get done faster than the Green Line will be built. And if cancelling the Green Line means we avoid any possibility of the Green Line on Centre Street, allowing us to rethink the decision in 5-10 years time, that would be a good thing, not bad.

Green Line is not perfect, I agree. But after years of debate, isn't it time to move forward?

As an outsider, I'm not privy on everything that's going on in Calgary, but from my understanding, the south segment has never been questioned. The downtown segment was reviewed multiple times and a satisfactory compromise has been settled on. Is that a fair assessment?

If that's the case, it seems to me with phase 1 south of the Bow, it provides that opportunity for sober second though on Centre Street. Those two stations at the north end could easily be decommissioned in favour of a tunnel in 10-20 years if a future Council decides on that. No use in continuing to delay the entire project when only a small segment is still in question.

I know this probably isn't the CPC's concern. They're just anti-transit, anti-progress, pro-oil from what I gather.

In Ottawa, there was a lot of debate on the western leg of the Confederation Line. It was settled early on that the downtown tunnel was necessary and that the Transitway would be converted however, there was a 4 kilometer gap in the Transitway in the urban west end. As the City debated and studied the best way west, construction started on the Blair-Tunney's segment that had already been agreed upon. During construction, they figured out the best route to reach Lincoln Fields and chose a contractor for Stage 2 before Stage 1 was even completed (because it was delayed by a little over a year).

[wave46]

Originally Posted by milomilo

Are we talking about the same thing? The SE Green Line route doesn't follow rail lines a whole lot, and neither does the imaginary north route.

The SE route is good for where it needs to go, IMO. It's a reality that the portion from Ramsay - Quarry Park is industrial wasteland, and even after that it's low density suburbs full of people who quite happily chose to live in a place where having multiple cars is mandatory. But Seton and the SE Hospital is a proper destination worth serving. The Green Line route goes out to the few destinations on the route in the cleanest and most logical route possible, I think.

The problem IMO is that the SE line only makes much sense if you build it all the way, and considering there is zero good transit there already, I'm not convinced there is the demand that would justify going straight to LRT. I'd rather they spent a few hundred million building bus overpasses at strategic locations (over rivers, canals, railways, Deerfoot) which would massively reduce the journey time of buses. If we'd gone this route, like we did with the MAX routes, the transit would be in place right now.

I'm using this map:

Green Line Map

You're right - I wasn't zoomed in enough on this map. I thought it used the existing rail line along Ogden. It doesn't.

[milomilo]

I thought you might have been looking at the Red Line South, which does follow the railway almost entirely. The Green Line does follow some, switching between them. While transit shouldn't be built solely on where it is easy to do, I think it makes sense a lot of the time to build near railways, after all the development near rail lines will often be some of the most mature in the city. And where there isn't development, there is the potential to repurpose old railway land to brand new development. Not that Calgary has had much success with TOD...

[J.OT13]

Originally Posted by wave46

I'm using this map:

Green Line Map

You're right - I wasn't zoomed in enough on this map. I thought it used the existing rail line along Ogden. It doesn't.

Not transit related, but I never noticed that canal that snakes through s/e Calgary, from the Bow River dam near downtown to the Chestermere reservoir. Is that for water supply? or flood control? power?

[milomilo]

Originally Posted by J.OT13

Not transit related, but I never noticed that canal that snakes through s/e Calgary, from the Bow River dam near downtown to the Chestermere reservoir. Is that for water supply? or flood control? power?

It's for the Bow river irrigation system - it supplies water for agriculture, along with other similar systems throughout the prairies.

[J.OT13]

Originally Posted by milomilo

It's for the Bow river irrigation system - it supplies water for agriculture, along with other similar systems throughout the prairies.

Thanks for the response!

[MalcolmTucker]

Originally Posted by milomilo

Are we talking about the same thing? The SE Green Line route doesn't follow rail lines a whole lot, and neither does the imaginary north route.

The SE route is good for where it needs to go, IMO. It's a reality that the portion from Ramsay - Quarry Park is industrial wasteland, and even after that it's low density suburbs full of people who quite happily chose to live in a place where having multiple cars is mandatory. But Seton and the SE Hospital is a proper destination worth serving. The Green Line route goes out to the few destinations on the route in the cleanest and most logical route possible, I think.

The problem IMO is that the SE line only makes much sense if you build it all the way, and considering there is zero good transit there already, I'm not convinced there is the demand that would justify going straight to LRT. I'd rather they spent a few hundred million building bus overpasses at strategic locations (over rivers, canals, railways, Deerfoot) which would massively reduce the journey time of buses. If we'd gone this route, like we did with the MAX routes, the transit would be in place right now.

The estimate to build the capital works to support BRT starting with a new Bridge over the Elbow and ending at Seton was $1.8 billion iirc. To get a 10 minute travel time savings iirc. Which wouldn't drive a huge amount of demand. Much of the cost escalations of the Green Line come from choices to increase that travel time savings and at the same time maintain automobile capacity, and most of that savings comes from additional grade separation west of the Elbow River which cost big $.

[MalcolmTucker]

Originally Posted by wave46

I'm using this map:

Green Line Map

You're right - I wasn't zoomed in enough on this map. I thought it used the existing rail line along Ogden. It doesn't.

One of the difficulties in Calgary is that the CPR mainline is busy and the CPR doesn't like potential future capacity needs being hemmed in too much. It is a different situation than much of the country, and constrains our actions. There isn't really a great option to build a freight bypass either - every option would add significant hills and valleys or 100s of km of length compared to the current option.



In a few places the Green Line sits in CN or CP ROW, but mostly where it parallels it sits in city owned setbacks from that ROW.

[milomilo]

Originally Posted by MalcolmTucker

The estimate to build the capital works to support BRT starting with a new Bridge over the Elbow and ending at Seton was $1.8 billion iirc. To get a 10 minute travel time savings iirc. Which wouldn't drive a huge amount of demand. Much of the cost escalations of the Green Line come from choices to increase that travel time savings and at the same time maintain automobile capacity, and most of that savings comes from additional grade separation west of the Elbow River which cost big $.

I know you've said this before, but I don't see any reason we should trust high level Calgary City cost estimates on transit projects - they have shown themselves to be untrustworthy and potentially deliberately wrong to justify decisions. And the numbers you quote don't sound realistic - we've built BRT transitways very affordably in the past few years, and given what a maze the SE is I can't see how there wouldn't be some high benefit:cost options for decreasing travel times.

We're building a 52 St MAX line now anyway, right? So the city has admitted that we're not building LRT at either end now anyway any time soon. Worst of both worlds, we're spending LRT money (well, actually we're spending subway money), to end up with a line where most people are still going to need to take at least one bus even if they live on the Green Line route.

[MalcolmTucker]

Originally Posted by milomilo

I know you've said this before, but I don't see any reason we should trust high level Calgary City cost estimates on transit projects - they have shown themselves to be untrustworthy and potentially deliberately wrong to justify decisions. And the numbers you quote don't sound realistic - we've built BRT transitways very affordably in the past few years, and given what a maze the SE is I can't see how there wouldn't be some high benefit:cost options for decreasing travel times.

We're building a 52 St MAX line now anyway, right? So the city has admitted that we're not building LRT at either end now anyway any time soon. Worst of both worlds, we're spending LRT money (well, actually we're spending subway money), to end up with a line where most people are still going to need to take at least one bus even if they live on the Green Line route.

The 17th Ave BRT had two phases: the exclusive lanes at $162 million, and the bridges at $85 million. A total of 5.2 km give or take.




Green Line east of the Elbow is approximately 26 km.



The 52nd St SE spending isn't that extensive - at $13.1 million that won't even buy Max style shelters. (TBH I thought it was more before I was googling just now). Maybe shelters at 17th Ave SE for the transfer, otherwise it is only a third of the 2013 ish projected route ahead budget for the corridor (though some of the corridor is already finished). The project is entirely in street running with priority whereas SETWAY was entirely offstreet from Elbow to Douglas Glen (would have to dive back into the studies to see if they designed it south of douglas glen and I don't remember). Not that street running is bad, just that it isn't a big offset to the SETWAY cost.



Also, in the muddle of all the various projects - I did quote the wrong one. Or maybe from an estimate from a different year (this was before the study came back on building the corridor so it was easily convertible to LRT, not just 'easily' in the Ottawa or Seattle sense where you have to rebuild much of everything due to curves, grade, weight, ground load needs, supporting utilities, train lengths). Or a quote with a different scope that included buses and a maintenance base and all the infrastructure to exclusive ROW it to SETON. The embedded pdf here from 2013 has the project at $642 million for 4th Street SE to Douglas Glen to save 13 minutes.

[swimmer_spe]

Originally Posted by milomilo

Are we talking about the same thing? The SE Green Line route doesn't follow rail lines a whole lot, and neither does the imaginary north route.

The SE route is good for where it needs to go, IMO. It's a reality that the portion from Ramsay - Quarry Park is industrial wasteland, and even after that it's low density suburbs full of people who quite happily chose to live in a place where having multiple cars is mandatory. But Seton and the SE Hospital is a proper destination worth serving. The Green Line route goes out to the few destinations on the route in the cleanest and most logical route possible, I think.

The problem IMO is that the SE line only makes much sense if you build it all the way, and considering there is zero good transit there already, I'm not convinced there is the demand that would justify going straight to LRT. I'd rather they spent a few hundred million building bus overpasses at strategic locations (over rivers, canals, railways, Deerfoot) which would massively reduce the journey time of buses. If we'd gone this route, like we did with the MAX routes, the transit would be in place right now.

Originally Posted by MalcolmTucker

The estimate to build the capital works to support BRT starting with a new Bridge over the Elbow and ending at Seton was $1.8 billion iirc. To get a 10 minute travel time savings iirc. Which wouldn't drive a huge amount of demand. Much of the cost escalations of the Green Line come from choices to increase that travel time savings and at the same time maintain automobile capacity, and most of that savings comes from additional grade separation west of the Elbow River which cost big $.

So, lets build what Ottawa did and is now converting it all? Maybe we should get away from building BRT and if we need it, build LRT or better and be done with it.

Why do a project twice?

[ssiguy]

Originally Posted by wave46

I'm a little confused by the routing of the Green Line.

While I do get the idea behind using old rail corridors to save money, the southeast rail corridor seems to parallel a lot of industrial areas.

Aside from skimming the edge of a couple of suburbs until it gets far out, it doesn't really hit any particular nodes that would typically be associated with transit.

I see no problem with having stops in industrial zones. For transit to be truly effective it not only needs to be close to where people live but also close to where people need to go.

You are correct in industrial areas are not typically associated with transit and that is part of transit's problem. There are thousands of workers in industrial areas that are forced to drive because the transit service is infrequent, unreliable, or sometimes non-existent. Rapid transit to industrial areas can also help "densify" the industrial areas as opposed to having them scattered all over the damn place. It can also help reduce the sprawl of these areas by not having to have half of the available land set aside for parking.

[accord1999]

Originally Posted by J.OT13

Green Line is not perfect, I agree. But after years of debate, isn't it time to move forward?

Any debate over the Green Line has been the result of the planning team over-promising and under-delivering time and time again. But despite a few harsh words from a few councilors, the meek and very pro-transit Council will simply rubber stamp whatever recommendations the GL team makes and then slap them on the back for a "heckuva job".

The downtown segment was reviewed multiple times and a satisfactory compromise has been settled on. Is that a fair assessment?

A compromise was made in order to fit the available budget. I wouldn't consider it satisfactory. A primary purpose (perhaps the)of the Green Line was to replace the crowded bus corridor of Centre Street N. The original Stage 1 didn't do anything to help crowded buses, but because it was tunneled it also didn't make it worse. This compromise, now with street running and the loss of two lanes in the approach to downtown, will probably end up making vehicular and transit traffic worse than before.

I know this probably isn't the CPC's concern. They're just anti-transit, anti-progress, pro-oil from what I gather.

The Conservative governments have generally supported transit for Calgary and Edmonton. Even Calgary's share of the GL capital costs is paid for by freed up property tax room that the Province gave up (about $78M/year). It just seems that finally somebody is taking a hard look at the costs and benefits. Right now, GL Stage 1 is $5B for 55K-65K daily riders, an extremely expensive project that compares poorly even with recent American white elephant LRT projects. And also doesn't meet its business case goals:





To get to the original 40 km line that was sold to the public in 2015 will require at least another $3.5B. That combined price tag is approaching the costs of Honolulu Rail Transit. I bet Honoululu wished they had a State government that pushed back and questioned things before they jumped off the cliff with the disaster that is HART.

[MalcolmTucker]

HART has an awful contracting strategy - akin to how TTC used to build things (and did with the Vaughan extension). HART sucks because their politicians wanted lots of small contracts to directly go to Island based companies, instead of having one or a few large contracts that would probably go to consortia.


HART's implementation doesn't suck because of the route, the technology, or the size of the overall project budget.

[accord1999]

Originally Posted by swimmer_spe

So, lets build what Ottawa did and is now converting it all? Maybe we should get away from building BRT and if we need it, build LRT or better and be done with it.

Why do a project twice?

The difference here is that the existing SE transit services are low capacity and low frequency. The 302 "BRT", the route most equivalent to the future SE LRT segment even before the pandemic and economic problems ran at just 10 minute peak/25 minute off-peak frequencies, sometimes using shuttle buses.

The irony is that the NC segment, the one with high bus usage (peaking at over 70 buses/hour in some places), and the one where I think most people here would agree is an ideal candidate to progress to LRT (based on existing ridership), is the segment that's only getting minor BRT upgrades because there isn't any money left.

[accord1999]

Originally Posted by MalcolmTucker

HART's implementation doesn't suck because of the route, the technology, or the size of the overall project budget.

The route and technology may be great, but the $10.2B cost + $1B in financing costs and the decade+ delay in opening means that it'll cripple Honolulu's finances for decades to come.

In a similar manner, the original pitched 40 km Green Line at <$5B was great, but the current 20 km Green Line at $5B not so much.