Green Line LRT - $4.6 Billion Project

[suburbia]

Deleted (N/A given Chemist's updated post / clarification)

[MrBigStuff]

Originally Posted by The Chemist

Wow, is that ever slow.

Guess I'm used to the much faster pace of construction here in Shanghai, where they can build full underground / elevated metro lines in 3-4 years maximum.

That's because there's no infighting amongst people - such as environmentalists and other anti technology groups and stuff gets done a lot faster - case in point: the SW Ring road

[milomilo]

Originally Posted by MrBigStuff

That's because there's no infighting amongst people - such as environmentalists and other anti technology groups and stuff gets done a lot faster - case in point: the SW Ring road

I'm not sure that would apply to the Green Line though. As far as big projects go, the Green Line is about as universally welcomed as can be expected. It's a popular project that has been well planned, I don't see any evidence that infighting is holding this up.

[jc_yyc_ca]

Originally Posted by The Chemist

Wow, is that ever slow.

Guess I'm used to the much faster pace of construction here in Shanghai, where they can build full underground / elevated metro lines in 3-4 years maximum.

I guess we're not used to a communist run country that can force issues when it feels like, and labour rates slightly above slave labour.

[The Chemist]

Originally Posted by jc_yyc_ca

I guess we're not used to a communist run country that can force issues when it feels like, and labour rates slightly above slave labour.

A few things:
1. China is communist in name only
2. Labour rates in Shanghai, while certainly much below those in western countries, are way more than 'slave labour'. From the information that I can find on the internet, it seems that experienced construction workers in Shanghai make about 250 yuan ($50) a day, while inexperienced workers make about half of that. This is fairly close to the average salary in Shanghai, which is ~5000 yuan per month.
3. Local governments in China, particularly in the largest cities, have started to take concerns of the public when it comes to large infrastructure projects far more seriously, and have changed/cancelled projects that have large amounts of public opposition.

[ST1]

The key is labour rates. With rates of 25-50 dollars a day you can hire a lot of people and make stuff happen. Maybe the local governments are now taking public concern more seriously, but I highly doubt they take it as serious as western counties. I also question the safety and the amount of break times etc.. you would have in China. It might be changing there lately, but it has been different in the past. Those things alone can speed things up. Also having the money makes a big difference. One of the reasons the Green Line is taking longer than a line in shanghai, is the funding isn't happening all at once.

It's foolish to even compare the pace of projects in Shanghai to the pace of projects here.

Originally Posted by The Chemist

A few things:
1. China is communist in name only
2. Labour rates in Shanghai, while certainly much below those in western countries, are way more than 'slave labour'. From the information that I can find on the internet, it seems that experienced construction workers in Shanghai make about 250 yuan ($50) a day, while inexperienced workers make about half of that. This is fairly close to the average salary in Shanghai, which is ~5000 yuan per month.
3. Local governments in China, particularly in the largest cities, have started to take concerns of the public when it comes to large infrastructure projects far more seriously, and have changed/cancelled projects that have large amounts of public opposition.

[The Chemist]

Originally Posted by ST1

The key is labour rates. With rates of 25-50 dollars a day you can hire a lot of people and make stuff happen. Maybe the local governments are now taking public concern more seriously, but I highly doubt they take it as serious as western counties. I also question the safety and the amount of break times etc.. you would have in China. It might be changing there lately, but it has been different in the past. Those things alone can speed things up. Also having the money makes a big difference. One of the reasons the Green Line is taking longer than a line in shanghai, is the funding isn't happening all at once.

It's foolish to even compare the pace of projects in Shanghai to the pace of projects here.

Sure, you're probably right about all of this. Still, after being spoiled with how fast stuff is built here after living here for a decade, it's still shocking to see how slow things go in Canada (even if there are good reasons for it).

[milomilo]

Originally Posted by The Chemist

Sure, you're probably right about all of this. Still, after being spoiled with how fast stuff is built here after living here for a decade, it's still shocking to see how slow things go in Canada (even if there are good reasons for it).

The sad thing is that it's not even that bad in Calgary - other cities in the Western world are far worse for endlessly delaying projects.

[DoubleK]

Has the decision on low floor technology been decided?

Or will that be a part of the contracting strategy due to council in Q1 2018?

[milomilo]

Originally Posted by DoubleK

Has the decision on low floor technology been decided?

Or will that be a part of the contracting strategy due to council in Q1 2018?

How do you mean? It's been chosen as low floor from the start. Because it's 'urban'. Thus we've been cemented into having to pay drivers forever rather than have an actually modern automated system.

[CrossedTheTracks]

Originally Posted by DoubleK

Has the decision on low floor technology been decided?

Or will that be a part of the contracting strategy due to council in Q1 2018?

It's been stated "it will be low floor" for years now.

I'm not sure how much of the design -- at this instant -- is constrained by that choice; probably not much yet, in the sense that nobody's made any build-ready blueprints and nothing's constructed or contracted yet. But the point of no return is probably coming up shortly if it hasn't already. I imagine it would require a very compelling argument to change it to high-floor.

[Rollerstud98]

WHAT is the reasoning for the low floor design?

[milomilo]

Originally Posted by Rollerstud98

WHAT is the reasoning for the low floor design?

In the beginning, the line was envisioned to be mostly surface level, so a low floor design was deemed more appropriate, and is also what all the other cool cities are doing. I believe it was actually decided before the SELRT/SETWAY and NCLRT were even one project. However as design progressed and they sensibly realised that it would be best to mostly grade separate the line, they did not stop to question whether those (exaggerated) benefits of low floor design were neccesary.

Really the route should have been decided first, and then an appropriate technology choice decided after. But Druh Farrell et al. had their heart set on low floor from the beginning, as they want a cool hipster tram like Portland. Three of them actually went to Vancouver, Seattle and Portland and somehow decided that Vancouver's vastly better system was worse than the LRTs in the US cities. Madness.

• Video Link

[suburbia]

Originally Posted by Rollerstud98

WHAT is the reasoning for the low floor design?

Only knowing the value propositions of the different technologies at a superficial level, the counter question also comes to mind. Is there any reasoning / benefit for a high floor design?

Comparisons for safety, speed, cost?

[milomilo]

Originally Posted by suburbia

Only knowing the value propositions of the different technologies at a superficial level, the counter question also comes to mind. Is there any reasoning / benefit for a high floor design?

Comparisons for safety, speed, cost?

The benefit of high floor itself is truthfully relatively minor - increased interior capacity due to the cabin not having to fit around the wheel wells. I would also imagine the design is simpler so would be cheaper and easier to maintain, but that is speculation.

However the true disadvantage we have is that because the system has always been envisioned as a low floor 'streetcar style' LRT, we never considered that we could instead have a proper automated system (which would probably be high floor).

In stage 1 of the Green Line there is literally no advantage to the vehicles being low floor. None whatsoever. Yet because that was decided arbitrarily years ago, the line has been compromised to reflect it. Stage 1 is almost entirely grade separated, with the 6 or so road crossings being fairly minor to grade separate. If the city had taken a step back once the route had been decided to rethink, they could have seen that the option was available to change the technology to a grade separated, high floor automated system which would give us lower operating costs, a safer, more reliable system and eliminate any BS union disputes down the road. Not having to pay drivers for 30 years and not having the countless collisions the grade crossings cause would likely pay for any increase in cost.

You might say that while stage 1 is easy to grade separate, the future stages won't be, but that is only true for the in street running section down Centre St. However, anyone who has taken a minute to look at this route in the slightest detail will realise that running it down the middle of that road is a terrible idea that should be avoided anyway.

But sadly, this ship has sailed and we are stuck with a line that will never live up to its full potential.

[CrossedTheTracks]

Originally Posted by suburbia

Only knowing the value propositions of the different technologies at a superficial level, the counter question also comes to mind. Is there any reasoning / benefit for a high floor design?

Comparisons for safety, speed, cost?

Historically (wish I could give proper years, but I don't know exact time), yes, high-floor had an advantage. Current low-floor technology has reduced the gap substantially.

The old advantage is that old "low-floor" trains weren't really low floor, but simply low-boarding. They either had stairs right at the doors (much like old high-floor buses) or portions of low floor, and then stairs within the carriage, transitioning to a high-floor area above the bogies.

This made it easy to build cheap stations, but compromised on accessibility and available floor space within the carriage. By contrast, with high-floor trains, as long as the platform is accessible (ramps, elevators), then the train itself is fully accessible and the entire floor is available for standing/seating/etc.

Current low-floor designs are low-floor throughout, with some minor loss of space around wheel wells.

[craner]

I sure do wish they had gone with high floor.

[The Chemist]

Originally Posted by milomilo

The benefit of high floor itself is truthfully relatively minor - increased interior capacity due to the cabin not having to fit around the wheel wells. I would also imagine the design is simpler so would be cheaper and easier to maintain, but that is speculation.

However the true disadvantage we have is that because the system has always been envisioned as a low floor 'streetcar style' LRT, we never considered that we could instead have a proper automated system (which would probably be high floor).

In stage 1 of the Green Line there is literally no advantage to the vehicles being low floor. None whatsoever. Yet because that was decided arbitrarily years ago, the line has been compromised to reflect it. Stage 1 is almost entirely grade separated, with the 6 or so road crossings being fairly minor to grade separate. If the city had taken a step back once the route had been decided to rethink, they could have seen that the option was available to change the technology to a grade separated, high floor automated system which would give us lower operating costs, a safer, more reliable system and eliminate any BS union disputes down the road. Not having to pay drivers for 30 years and not having the countless collisions the grade crossings cause would likely pay for any increase in cost.

You might say that while stage 1 is easy to grade separate, the future stages won't be, but that is only true for the in street running section down Centre St. However, anyone who has taken a minute to look at this route in the slightest detail will realise that running it down the middle of that road is a terrible idea that should be avoided anyway.

But sadly, this ship has sailed and we are stuck with a line that will never live up to its full potential.

The VAST majority of grade separated heavy rail metro systems around the world are not automated, despite the technology existing for decades. This tells me that automated lines are somewhat overrated - the capacity advantages of automation (which are rather unnecessary in a small city like Calgary anyway - I doubt the C-Train will EVER be in a situation where it requires >30,000pph in each direction!) can just as easily be obtained with automatic train control (ATC) which most modern Metro lines with drivers use. Further, given again that very few Metro lines around the world are driverless, I daresay that the cost advantage of driverless systems is probably nowhere near as great as it might seem at first blush, otherwise everyone would be using them.

[milomilo]

Originally Posted by The Chemist

The VAST majority of grade separated heavy rail metro systems around the world are not automated, despite the technology existing for decades. This tells me that automated lines are somewhat overrated - the capacity advantages of automation (which are rather unnecessary in a small city like Calgary anyway - I doubt the C-Train will EVER be in a situation where it requires >30,000pph in each direction!) can just as easily be obtained with automatic train control (ATC) which most modern Metro lines with drivers use. Further, given again that very few Metro lines around the world are driverless, I daresay that the cost advantage of driverless systems is probably nowhere near as great as it might seem at first blush, otherwise everyone would be using them.

This isn't because automated isn't much better, it's because most systems are older than ours and people/unions are resistant to change. A combination of over powered unions and a misinformed public means that even in cities that have made their lines automated, they often still keep their 'drivers' - see London and Toronto. In those cities on their automated lines the driver's only function is a very highly paid button pusher to open and close the doors.

Those cities then have lost one of the biggest advantages of automated systems due to politics - not having to pay an army of incompetent (relative to a computer) drivers a good salary. Since the Green Line is a fresh line, not involving drivers should be easier, and dare I say I think in conservative Calgary the idea of not having to pay for a huge amount of public sector jobs should be an easy pill to swallow.

Agreed capacity isn't likely to be a pressing concern for many years as long as we build the stations big enough, but automated has other big advantages. The fact it is grade separated makes it inherently more reliable, but perhaps the nicest feature is that not having to pay a driver means running frequent trains at off peak times and late into the night is much cheaper, giving a much better service at these times. These advantages also happen to be the worst aspects of our current LRT - reliability and off peak frequency.

[The Chemist]

Originally Posted by milomilo

This isn't because automated isn't much better, it's because most systems are older than ours and people/unions are resistant to change. A combination of over powered unions and a misinformed public means that even in cities that have made their lines automated, they often still keep their 'drivers' - see London and Toronto. In those cities on their automated lines the driver's only function is a very highly paid button pusher to open and close the doors.

Those cities then have lost one of the biggest advantages of automated systems due to politics - not having to pay an army of incompetent (relative to a computer) drivers a good salary. Since the Green Line is a fresh line, not involving drivers should be easier, and dare I say I think in conservative Calgary the idea of not having to pay for a huge amount of public sector jobs should be an easy pill to swallow.

Agreed capacity isn't likely to be a pressing concern for many years as long as we build the stations big enough, but automated has other big advantages. The fact it is grade separated makes it inherently more reliable, but perhaps the nicest feature is that not having to pay a driver means running frequent trains at off peak times and late into the night is much cheaper, giving a much better service at these times. These advantages also happen to be the worst aspects of our current LRT - reliability and off peak frequency.

Almost all Asian systems are quite new, yet there are very few automated lines even in Asia. For example, there's not a single fully automated line on the Shanghai Metro, which is only 25 years old.