LRT Underground downtown

[The Geographer]

So for the city to build both the SE and NC lines simultaneously to full completion, they are looking at about 8-9 billion (assuming NC subway)?

How much would full LRT system build out cost (including 4 car trains, downtown subway, etc.)?

[Me&You]

Will the 8th ave subway be constructed by actual tunnelling, or by cut-and-cover?

[tdurden5573]

Originally Posted by The Kid

^^I have to agree here. I am surprised that burying the LRT in the core is not the top priority for any available funds. I'm not saying that extra lines aren't needed in a timely fashion as well, but it just seems to me getting it underground downtown tops everything else right now.

Exactly, you can put as many trains on the existing tracks, and lengthen the exiting tracks to 4 cars, BUT the bottle neck is 7th ave, all the lights down 7th and all the lights for trains to get into the core. If anyone has walked by 7th ave and 9th street in the morning you can see traffic lined up for a train, or trains lined up waiting for traffic.

If we get more flow through 7th ave (our bottle neck) then longer platforms can come in parallel.

[wild wild west]

Originally Posted by kyle_olsen

Only two communities have had approvals of over 7 UPA in my knowledge. Auburn Bay had a max UPA of 8 in the ASP and Mahogany was one of the first (if not the first and only) to only have a minimum UPA of 7. It is being developed at 11.5. I should know, it was my release on density that was trashed in the Herald for being 'nothing but hot air' during the election for attacking the 'minimum' but not mentioning the actual development density.

Not a lot of communities have had approvals over that range, but the policy support is there for all future Outline Plans (other than those on the west side) to be over 10 UPA at least. One other huge one that was recently approved at a higher density was the Walton lands (I believe it was called Northpoint?) in the northeast. Future new communities along the City's edge will surpass 10 UPA in most cases...except for on the west side, where they will be lucky to hit 7 UPA.

Another better use of some of this money might have been to renovate all platforms to accommodate 4-car trains. Still not sure what their timeline for that will be.

[MalcolmTucker]

Originally Posted by wild wild west

Not a lot of communities have had approvals over that range, but the policy support is there for all future Outline Plans (other than those on the west side) to be over 10 UPA at least. One other huge one that was recently approved at a higher density was the Walton lands (I believe it was called Northpoint?) in the northeast. Future new communities along the City's edge will surpass 10 UPA in most cases...except for on the west side, where they will be lucky to hit 7 UPA.

Another better use of some of this money might have been to renovate all platforms to accommodate 4-car trains. Still not sure what their timeline for that will be.

If you want to talk about comparable prices/benifits, the NE and NW extensions would pay for the renovations of stations to four cars, the upgrades to traction power, and buying enough new cars to keep headway the same while upgrading the length of trains. The communities in the NW and NE that will be served by the future extensions will have great service already once the current extensions are built.

There is no area in the city that has the density you want trains to run through. The Walton lands would be at the end of a NC line (is it outside of the ring road? or just inside). Mahogany/Auburn Bay are outside of the ring road.

The West line serves the most number of people at the best price. The entire length of the west line is shorter than the lengths of the SE or NC lines before they get to residential communities.

[Beltliner]

Originally Posted by mersar

And the north central would either require about 6km of tunnel if it ran up Center, or run through a corridor that would require almost 8km of track before it even ran adjacent to a residential community. Either way it would be a good 12 or so kilometers of track to run, and no matter where in the city you want to run LRT there will be the nimby's against it, and against increasing the density of their communities. If we use the cost of the Crowfoot extension as a basemark [as its similar in the type of construction required for running the NC LRT above ground], running those 12km would probably cost a cool 1.5 billion or so to run up the creek, or probably (taking a really rough stab) north of 5 billion to run up centre street. If you trimmed it back to just the $700M the WLRT will cost, I'd imagine that the line would probably end before 64th avenue with the at grade option. Meaning it would serve pretty much nobody.

Good call on the general cost issues for the two alternatives, but if we were to use the TTC Spadina extension as a baseline, the Centre Street Metro component from Eau Claire to 64 Avenue would probably be more on the order of two gigabucks. The wild card is getting across the Bow River--I would suspect that going under from Eau Claire to a very deep-cut station at Crescent Heights would chew up close to a third of the overall budget for the project. From there, the engineers could take a page from the Danforth Line and run an offset cut-and-cover along First Street NE up to McKnight, and then jog back to Centre Street itself through Thorncliffe before coming up for air past 64 Avenue. Punch a relatively short hole through the hill past Beddington Boulevard and you're back at grade along Harvest Hills Boulevard the rest of the way.

[Beltliner]

Originally Posted by Me&You

Will the 8th ave subway be constructed by actual tunnelling, or by cut-and-cover?

Hard to tell until the study comes back, although I would suspect the stations will be cut and the tunnels will be bored, just to find what balance they can between minimising disruptions along Stephen Avenue and paying for the project.

[MalcolmTucker]

Originally Posted by The Geographer

So for the city to build both the SE and NC lines simultaneously to full completion, they are looking at about 8-9 billion (assuming NC subway)?

How much would full LRT system build out cost (including 4 car trains, downtown subway, etc.)?

4 car trains (platforms, traction power, LRT Cars) $ 250 million*
Downtown Subway (Stephen Avenue, South/NW) $ 500 million*#
SE Glendale $2000 million*
SE Glendale-22x ($100 million a stop) $ 500 million

NC I have no idea. The centre street cut and cover option should be comparable to the Canada line in Vancouver, so around 2 billion. But when we apply the SE LRT costs to the different lengths of NC the cost comes out much higher (as you can read a couple posts above). NC above ground through nose creek could end up at the 2 billion dollar mark by itself.

* From Calgary Transit Capital Plan & Officials Estimates
#Does not include changing NW/South line to 5 car platforms and traction power, and needed LRV purchases to do so. Might require a new Maintenance facility aswell to accomadate all the cars for 3 minute headway on the line with 5 car trains.

[MalcolmTucker]

Originally Posted by Me&You

Will the 8th ave subway be constructed by actual tunnelling, or by cut-and-cover?

Cut and Cover. It is to be a rather shallow tunnel to my knowledge, with utilities passing under it. (and the 2nd street subway to boot)

Shallow stations are also alot cheaper and easier to maintain. You can have direct entry from street level without a concourse level.

It has been related to me a couple times by geologist and Mech Eng buddies that tunneling in Calgary isn't a good idea unless you are going pretty deep.

Sand and clay mixed with big chunks of sand stone and patches of gravel don't always agree the best with tunnel boring machines.

Unfortunately, to my knowledge Calgary is not blessed with a nice layer of chalk under the city like Paris.

A solid consistent rock face is easier to bore through, and requires less rigorous tunnel reinforcement, rock bolting etc.

I remember there being a story about a storm water retention tunnel; being drilled in lower Mount Royal in the past year. Anyone know how deep it was?

[93JC]

Originally Posted by kyle_olsen

It has been related to me a couple times by geologist and Mech Eng buddies...

You mean civil, right? I'm a mechanical engineer and I know dozens of other mechanical engineers: we, cumulatively, no SFA about that kind of stuff.

[MichaelS]

Originally Posted by kyle_olsen

I remember there being a story about a storm water retention tunnel; being drilled in lower Mount Royal in the past year. Anyone know how deep it was?

I can't remember exactly how deep it was, but I remember it being about 40 feet or so on one end, and as it drilled west, it went under a hill so it became very deep (not sure how much again, but I want to say pushing 100'). When I was with the wastewater group, that was my boss' project. He took a bunch of us on a tour of it. I got to walk through about 2/3 of the length, and then see the tunnel boring machine being operated. It was very cool. The contractor for the project was actually the City of Edmonton, since they have quite a bit of experience in digging tunnels.

[240glt]

^From what I understand, Edmonton actually owns its' own tunnel boring machine

[MichaelS]

They do. It was the one that they used.

[You Need A Thneed]

Originally Posted by 240glt

^From what I understand, Edmonton actually owns its' own tunnel boring machine

Edmonton owns 5 boring machines, according to a recent magazine article that I read. One of those is big enough for Light Rail Tunnels (the one they used to tunnel their downtown).

^^^ There's a project in Calgary that just had it's tender close that involves tunnelling under the Bow river - storm water related I believe.

[Doug]

Originally Posted by You Need A Thneed

Edmonton owns 5 boring machines, according to a recent magazine article that I read. One of those is big enough for Light Rail Tunnels (the one they used to tunnel their downtown).

^^^ There's a project in Calgary that just had it's tender close that involves tunnelling under the Bow river - storm water related I believe.

Only some of Edmonton's LRT tunnel was bored:
-from just west of Central to just west of Bay
-from Grandin to North Portal
-South Portal to just north of Health Sciences except for the track crossover just inside South Portal and University Station itself.

[Beltliner]

Originally Posted by You Need A Thneed

There's a project in Calgary that just had it's tender close that involves tunnelling under the Bow river - storm water related I believe.

Which project was this, now? Storm water main may not be the same degree of difficulty as a metro tunnel, but in terms of proving the tunnel-building technology and scoping out what's actually happening underneath the river, the engineers could probably learn a lot....

[wild wild west]

Originally Posted by kyle_olsen

If you want to talk about comparable prices/benifits, the NE and NW extensions would pay for the renovations of stations to four cars, the upgrades to traction power, and buying enough new cars to keep headway the same while upgrading the length of trains. The communities in the NW and NE that will be served by the future extensions will have great service already once the current extensions are built.

There is no area in the city that has the density you want trains to run through. The Walton lands would be at the end of a NC line (is it outside of the ring road? or just inside). Mahogany/Auburn Bay are outside of the ring road.

The West line serves the most number of people at the best price. The entire length of the west line is shorter than the lengths of the SE or NC lines before they get to residential communities.

The approved Walton lands are within the ring road and would be serviced by extensions of the NE line, not the NC line (and in fact the approved Outline Plan establishes two future LRT stations along a NE line extension surrounded on all sides by mid and high-rise multi-family). I do agree that a NC line would be prohibitively expensive.

If we don't have the money to fund a SE line, then I would rather see either renovations of all stations to allow 4-car trains, and purchase of additional trains to add capacity, or a downtown tunnel, than building the WLRT. Calgary has a severely overburdened transit system as it is (anyone who's been stuck watching 3 or 4 trains go by on a downtown platform until one comes by they can fit on can attest to this) and we need to invest in improving service along the existing 3 lines. Not saying WLRT should never be built, just that there are far more pressing needs in terms of investing in LRT in Calgary. With the recent provincial funding deal we have the opportunity to put a large investment into LRT for the first time in many years - but let's make it the right investment.

[MichaelS]

Originally Posted by You Need A Thneed

^^^ There's a project in Calgary that just had it's tender close that involves tunnelling under the Bow river - storm water related I believe.

That is another one of my old boss' projects that I got the priveledge of working on before I moved to the Roads business unit. It is sanitary sewer related. They need to increase the capacity of the sanitary sewer siphon that crosses the Bow river at the 15th St. east alignment (right through the zoo). Basically, all of the sewage from the city on the north side of the river, crosses at this point on its way to the treatment plants. It is basically at capacity now. Many options were looked at in the initial planning stages of this project, and I believe the final choice was to go with a tunnel for a new siphon, to the east of the existing ones. It is another very cool project. I know the media gives all the attention to roads and trains, but there are some pretty amazing projects being done by the city out there that involve more than moving people.

Sorry to take this thread off topic.

[Beltliner]

Originally Posted by MichaelS

That is another one of my old boss' projects that I got the priveledge of working on before I moved to the Roads business unit. It is sanitary sewer related. They need to increase the capacity of the sanitary sewer siphon that crosses the Bow river at the 15th St. east alignment (right through the zoo). Basically, all of the sewage from the city on the north side of the river, crosses at this point on its way to the treatment plants. It is basically at capacity now. Many options were looked at in the initial planning stages of this project, and I believe the final choice was to go with a tunnel for a new siphon, to the east of the existing ones. It is another very cool project. I know the media gives all the attention to roads and trains, but there are some pretty amazing projects being done by the city out there that involve more than moving people.

Sorry to take this thread off topic.

This must be the project you just mentioned. The punchline is this bullet point reproduced here:

This project involves open-cut excavation north and south of the river and a tunnel under the river. The two open-cut sections on the south and north sides of Bow River are required to connect it to the existing system. The tunneling option was selected to cross the river because it will have no impact on the Bow River.

[MalcolmTucker]

Originally Posted by wild wild west

The approved Walton lands are within the ring road and would be serviced by extensions of the NE line, not the NC line (and in fact the approved Outline Plan establishes two future LRT stations along a NE line extension surrounded on all sides by mid and high-rise multi-family). I do agree that a NC line would be prohibitively expensive.

If we don't have the money to fund a SE line, then I would rather see either renovations of all stations to allow 4-car trains, and purchase of additional trains to add capacity, or a downtown tunnel, than building the WLRT. Calgary has a severely overburdened transit system as it is (anyone who's been stuck watching 3 or 4 trains go by on a downtown platform until one comes by they can fit on can attest to this) and we need to invest in improving service along the existing 3 lines. Not saying WLRT should never be built, just that there are far more pressing needs in terms of investing in LRT in Calgary. With the recent provincial funding deal we have the opportunity to put a large investment into LRT for the first time in many years - but let's make it the right investment.

And all I am saying is that the West LRT wasn't the wrong investment that should be cut to pay for four car trains.

The NW extension to Tuscany and the NE extension to Saddle Ridge would pay for four car trains rather nicely. Without decreasing service levels to those communities to the degree that cancelling the west line would.

I agree if capacity is the issue on the existing lines, extending service to more people is not a way to solve that problem.