Quote:
Originally Posted by BlackDog204
Not running the BRT along the rail line, parallel to Penbina Highway was a huge mistake. It's so dense along Pembina, with many apartment buildings for seniors and students. Additionally, the dog leg takes more time to traverse from the U of M to Osborne. I also wish there was some way of running a BRT line down the median of a divided road (Portage, Grant Ave, etc). Calgary just built a BRT line from Downtown to the Forest Lawn area recently, so it can be done. It's a shame that the city did not designate the old rail line that ran parallel to St James Street and Centennial St. as a future BRT line. It would have been perfect to run it from Red River College to Waverley West.
BTW, why did Edmonton build the LRT from Claireview to Downtown, and just leave it like that for over 20 years? I have always been perplexed, as to why there is no line from the West Edmonton Mall to Downtown. I see they are finally building a line to Millwoods, but it seemingly took forever to build any LRT line to the south part of the city, especially when Calgary completed the majority of their C-Train within 6 years (1981-87).
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What is the “dog leg” people keep referring to?
I haven’t ridden the BRT in Calgary, but I did get to see it while in that city over the summer and it looks really good. I’ve heard good things from Calgarians who’ve used it, too. The Forest Lawn line isn’t even the only one they’ve got, and they only decided to build BRT a few years back!
Edmonton’s LRT was stunted by two things. The first was tunnelling underground downtown and at the UofA. It’s nice now that it’s all done, but it was costlier and more time consuming than Calgary’s all above ground approach, which meant that time and funding could go to further extending the lines. That, and there was big austerity in Alberta over the 90s and early 00s during the Klein years, a premier who also didn’t like Edmonton much.
I fully agree with the rest of what you’re saying. I made some remarks in the P&M thread but they may be better suited here:
Quote:
Originally Posted by ue
On the topic of Stradbrook and Harkness, I still don't really like how these stations seem to be less about getting people to a destination (unless that destination is Downtown or the UofM) and more about creating transfer points. Such points are useful, don't get me wrong, but if the system isn't adequately getting people to key destinations, then getting people to transfer or do long walks to hit where they actually want to go makes transit inconvenient and noncompetitive.
I am once again thinking about how the routing of the Southwest Transitway sucks and this transit plan seems to double down on that. The routing should go from Osborne Station up Osborne, have a station at the part of the village people actually live/hang at, cross the river and have a station by the Legislature/WAG, and then connect to the UofW/IG Building/Bay/Portage Place and then go down Portage. Have another line which just goes straight down Osborne into South Osborne, across the Red River, and eventually meeting up with St Vital Centre.
Unless I'm reading the transit plans incorrectly, there are buses that go down these roads, but I don't actually see a designated stop on Osborne at River or by the Leg. It looks like buses just zoom from Osborne Station to Colony Station. The map could only be showing stops on the RT lines, so I admit I could be misreading. But I regularly see more people huddled around the shelters on Osborne at River than I do at Osborne, let alone Harkness Station.
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