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  #1  
Old Posted Nov 21, 2007, 5:58 PM
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LRT Underground downtown

So with the west expansion I read Calgary will have 4 car platforms in 10-15 years! With the capacity the way it is Calgary needs to start moving on projects like underground lrt downtown.

Is this still something being considered, as a downtown worker I think this needs to be done asap. Helps ease road traffic and helps get trains out of downtown quicker.

EDIT: I meant 4 car platforms (had previously written 3) Which is stated on City of Calgary website.

Last edited by tdurden5573; Nov 21, 2007 at 6:10 PM.
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  #2  
Old Posted Nov 21, 2007, 6:07 PM
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Calgary already has 3 car platforms.
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  #3  
Old Posted Nov 21, 2007, 6:12 PM
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A quick look at the last few pages of the stickied "Calgary Public Transit" thread should answer your questions.
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  #4  
Old Posted Nov 21, 2007, 6:19 PM
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City Council ordered a functional study of the Stephen Avenue and Eau Claire portions of the downtown metro at their meeting on 06 November 2007. That study is expected to come back to City Council this time next year with enough engineering and design in place to put Line 201 underneath Stephen Avenue and to run the downtown portion of Line 203 under Second Street SW from Eau Claire to a turn onto Tenth Avenue SW before coming up for air at about Macleod Trail. They might look into running stacked tunnels for the 201 and 202, but I wouldn't bet the air money on it--the city's stated preference at this point is to build a separate tunnel under Seventh Avenue at some indeterminate date in the future to accommodate the 202.

The city's general manager of transportation told City Council that the C-Train system would need to build the Stephen Avenue Metro and the Eau Claire Metro by 2017 to maintain service levels on the 201 and to build the 203. This construction is the next item on the city's C-Train agenda after the completion of 202 West, but it won't come cheap. Bottom line--it'll come, but probably a touch later than anyone would like.
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Old Posted Nov 21, 2007, 8:34 PM
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Originally Posted by Beltliner View Post
City Council ordered a functional study of the Stephen Avenue and Eau Claire portions of the downtown metro at their meeting on 06 November 2007. That study is expected to come back to City Council this time next year with enough engineering and design in place to put Line 201 underneath Stephen Avenue and to run the downtown portion of Line 203 under Second Street SW from Eau Claire to a turn onto Tenth Avenue SW before coming up for air at about Macleod Trail. They might look into running stacked tunnels for the 201 and 202, but I wouldn't bet the air money on it--the city's stated preference at this point is to build a separate tunnel under Seventh Avenue at some indeterminate date in the future to accommodate the 202.

The city's general manager of transportation told City Council that the C-Train system would need to build the Stephen Avenue Metro and the Eau Claire Metro by 2017 to maintain service levels on the 201 and to build the 203. This construction is the next item on the city's C-Train agenda after the completion of 202 West, but it won't come cheap. Bottom line--it'll come, but probably a touch later than anyone would like.
Ahh, they are in a major need of an update to their capital plan.

To be honest, city council should just fall on its political sword, and put in a gas tax (ala Vancouver) to pay for more capital costs. Or we could just bid for a world expo or the common wealth games and try to swindle the federal government for money to build a grand new airport terminal, subway downtown, and a suitable stadium.
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Old Posted Nov 21, 2007, 8:50 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Beltliner View Post
City Council ordered a functional study of the Stephen Avenue and Eau Claire portions of the downtown metro at their meeting on 06 November 2007. That study is expected to come back to City Council this time next year with enough engineering and design in place to put Line 201 underneath Stephen Avenue and to run the downtown portion of Line 203 under Second Street SW from Eau Claire to a turn onto Tenth Avenue SW before coming up for air at about Macleod Trail. They might look into running stacked tunnels for the 201 and 202, but I wouldn't bet the air money on it--the city's stated preference at this point is to build a separate tunnel under Seventh Avenue at some indeterminate date in the future to accommodate the 202.

The city's general manager of transportation told City Council that the C-Train system would need to build the Stephen Avenue Metro and the Eau Claire Metro by 2017 to maintain service levels on the 201 and to build the 203. This construction is the next item on the city's C-Train agenda after the completion of 202 West, but it won't come cheap. Bottom line--it'll come, but probably a touch later than anyone would like.
If the 2017 date is to believed then it will almost certainly have to be the next item after WLRT. So where does that leave the desperately needed SELRT with it's current $2 billion (if you believe the news reports) price tag?? Sounds like it won't see the light of day before 2020 at the earliest despite the fact that it's needed today.

Where will the $$$ come from ?? The Feds are not showing any indications of coming forward with any plan to help the cities with their infrastructure problems, the Provincial gov't just announced more than $1 billion in funding to Calgary and I doubt they will come forward with any further amounts of any significance, and I don't know where the city can come up with that kind of cash. Even if (best case) we see a 1/3rd split between the 3 levels of government that is a lot of money for each one (call it $700 million a piece). And I'm only talking the SELRT here, not the underground LRT downtown. Add those 2 together and you're probably looking at $2.5 -$ 3 billion. And that is just for one transit project in one city.
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Old Posted Nov 21, 2007, 8:54 PM
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^thank god Edmonton buried the downtown LRT right off the bat. I can't even imagine the nightmare of doing it after the fact.

We're only 20 years behind the times now
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Old Posted Nov 21, 2007, 9:06 PM
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^thank god Edmonton buried the downtown LRT right off the bat. I can't even imagine the nightmare of doing it after the fact.

We're only 20 years behind the times now
Mind you, the main reason the Stephen Avenue Metro was originally DOA circa 1980, and the main reason the Stephen Avenue Metro is going to put future capital budgets into a world of hurt, is the unsteady ground beneath downtown Calgary. For all practical purposes, Calgary's core was built on top of an overgrown sandbar, and the water table sits much closer to the surface than is the case even once you get out of the Bow River floodplain. Maybe some of the geologists and civil engineers lurking on the board can discuss this issue in further detail than I can, oi wot?
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Old Posted Nov 21, 2007, 9:13 PM
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What is the maximum frequency an LRT tunnel can handle?

In my visionary LRT system, I have 3 lines, all use 5-car trains, each with a 5-minute frequency. All lines use the same tunnel. I am not sure if the downtown LRT portion can handle trains passing through every 1 min 40 seconds.
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  #10  
Old Posted Nov 21, 2007, 9:23 PM
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What is the maximum frequency an LRT tunnel can handle?

In my visionary LRT system, I have 3 lines, all use 5-car trains, each with a 5-minute frequency. I am not sure if the downtown LRT portion can handle trains passing through every 1 min 40 seconds.
The game plan is for each line to operate on three-minute headways. It is possible to run C-Trains on 90-second headways, much in the same way that it is possible to do anything except ski through a revolving door, but with Seventh Avenue barely capable even now of handling the morning and afternoon rushes with two lines on separate five-minute headways, 90 seconds will represent something of a crunch.

Hard to tell at this point whether they would build five-car metro stations from a standing start--that might be too easy for them.
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  #11  
Old Posted Nov 21, 2007, 9:33 PM
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Originally Posted by RicoLance21 View Post
What is the maximum frequency an LRT tunnel can handle?

In my visionary LRT system, I have 3 lines, all use 5-car trains, each with a 5-minute frequency. All lines use the same tunnel. I am not sure if the downtown LRT portion can handle trains passing through every 1 min 40 seconds.
Calgary Transit has maximum headway at 2 minutes. Your going to add delays with switching aswell. Capacity would still be only 25000 per hour per direction. (With the SE, South, and North East line sharing a 'direction', thats only 8300 people per hour coming on each line)

If you leave the North East - West Line above ground, you don't spend any extra money, and all the lines have a huge capacity increase.
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  #12  
Old Posted Nov 21, 2007, 9:38 PM
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Originally Posted by lubicon View Post
If the 2017 date is to believed then it will almost certainly have to be the next item after WLRT. So where does that leave the desperately needed SELRT with it's current $2 billion (if you believe the news reports) price tag?? Sounds like it won't see the light of day before 2020 at the earliest despite the fact that it's needed today.

Where will the $$$ come from ?? The Feds are not showing any indications of coming forward with any plan to help the cities with their infrastructure problems, the Provincial gov't just announced more than $1 billion in funding to Calgary and I doubt they will come forward with any further amounts of any significance, and I don't know where the city can come up with that kind of cash. Even if (best case) we see a 1/3rd split between the 3 levels of government that is a lot of money for each one (call it $700 million a piece). And I'm only talking the SELRT here, not the underground LRT downtown. Add those 2 together and you're probably looking at $2.5 -$ 3 billion. And that is just for one transit project in one city.
Remember that they're refering to both the 8th Ave and 2nd Street subways and that the latter is part of the SE line. I assume that when they say they'd have to complete the underground work by 2017 that they mean to also have the SE line completed at that time, as there is little point to biulding onloy the downtown portion of the SE line.

As for where the funding would come from, well the three levels of government will either move enough money around to finance the project or it will not be biult. We can't really comment on it because we have no idea what budget constraints will exist (or even who will be in power at the various levels) when financing of the project comes up for debate, which will not be for at least five years.
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  #13  
Old Posted Nov 21, 2007, 9:50 PM
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Where will the $$$ come from ??
We could just put a halt to all road construction/maintenance.

Alternatively, oil could hit $200.

The sad part is, I've already seen one in action, and I'm no longer laughing at the possibility of the other.
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Old Posted Nov 21, 2007, 9:55 PM
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it will be interesting to see in the next 10 yrs if calgary has a better system with UG downtown or if Edmonton having downtown already UG will catch up to make a better expanded system.
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Old Posted Nov 21, 2007, 10:00 PM
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Remember that they're refering to both the 8th Ave and 2nd Street subways and that the latter is part of the SE line. I assume that when they say they'd have to complete the underground work by 2017 that they mean to also have the SE line completed at that time, as there is little point to biulding onloy the downtown portion of the SE line.

As for where the funding would come from, well the three levels of government will either move enough money around to finance the project or it will not be biult. We can't really comment on it because we have no idea what budget constraints will exist (or even who will be in power at the various levels) when financing of the project comes up for debate, which will not be for at least five years.
Well the feds just upped the 'new deal for cities' again, and the Liberals will be pressured into giving more aswell.

Since the tory's didn't bring out dedicated mass transit funding, in the next election it should come from either Libs or Cons as part of Green plan.
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Old Posted Nov 21, 2007, 10:38 PM
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Let's put it this way. Assume the project (burying the LRT downtown and building the SELRT) takes $2.4 billion to do and it will be split 3 ways. each level of government needs to come up with $800 million to do it.

1. that's a huge chunk of change for the city
2. the province would have to come up with a similar amount for Edmonton to keep the whining down. So they need to find $1.4 billion extra now.
3. the feds would have to also pony up similar amounts of $$$ (at least on a per capita basis) to other major cities in Canada for the same reasons meaning they need to find billions and billions more.

I'm not saying it won't happen, but it will be a tough sell to the various levels of gov't. I really hope it does come through, we need it bad.
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Old Posted Nov 21, 2007, 10:39 PM
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it will be interesting to see in the next 10 yrs if calgary has a better system with UG downtown or if Edmonton having downtown already UG will catch up to make a better expanded system.
That, and if edmonton would catch up in system size, how would the ridership numbers look comparitively.
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Old Posted Nov 21, 2007, 10:41 PM
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So the SE line is to be buried when it's built correct? what other line will be attached to the new SE line? NC?
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Old Posted Nov 21, 2007, 10:43 PM
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That, and if edmonton would catch up in system size, how would the ridership numbers look comparitively.
hard to say because we have significantly more nodes of employment versus you. However, we have a ton of people who might take this given our lack of freeways.
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Old Posted Nov 21, 2007, 10:44 PM
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So the SE line is to be buried when it's built correct? what other line will be attached to the new SE line? NC?
Only the DT portion will be below grade.
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