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Green Line LRT


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http://nationalpost.com/pmn/news-pmn/canada-news-pmn/alberta-to-spend-1-53-billion-in-carbon-tax-cash-on-calgary-transit-expansion/wcm/ce954038-c46f-448f-aab0-cb5252ce0baa

Ok, let's build the thing already.

I still don't like the idea of people commuting to and from 16th Avenue and catching connecting buses to their final destination. 

Seems like a lot of work to commute to and from downtown. Hopefully some miracle will come through and the line can go further north.... doubtful but wishful thinking.

Should we begin placing bets on what kind of LRVs they'll be using?

I'm also interested what kind of singling system they'll be using.

Hope there not going to hire private contract workers for operators...

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17 minutes ago, LRT said:

Hope there not going to hire private contract workers for operators...

As long as funding was provided by all 3 levels of government, the city had budgeted in its operations budget City Workers operating the system.

 

If there wasn't funding from 3 levels of government, that would be a different story.

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57 minutes ago, LRT said:

I still don't like the idea of people commuting to and from 16th Avenue and catching connecting buses to their final destination. 

Don't recall where (or from who) but I remember it being mentioned that existing buses would continue to connect downtown even when the Green line is operational and going up to 16th Ave.

So if you were travelling to/from downtown on a 3 or 301 for example, you wouldn't need to do a bus-train transfer to complete your trip.

 

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55 minutes ago, Gsgeek540 said:

As long as funding was provided by all 3 levels of government, the city had budgeted in its operations budget City Workers operating the system.

 

If there wasn't funding from 3 levels of government, that would be a different story.

Well that's reassuring. I had no idea good stuff! I guess eventually they'll be looking for more rail controllers ?

19 minutes ago, Transit Fan said:

Don't recall where (or from who) but I remember it being mentioned that existing buses would continue to connect downtown even when the Green line is operational and going up to 16th Ave.

So if you were travelling to/from downtown on a 3 or 301 for example, you wouldn't need to do a bus-train transfer to complete your trip.

 

It's just seems like kind of a waste of time to have buses and trains running in the same direction towards 16th Avenue. Its just a dead end for the green line. Its in the middle of nowhere... makes no sense to me at all. It makes more sense for the green line to go from the deep south and terminate in the core kinda like 10 st was bacon in the day on the 201.

With that said the money could be saved and used for the train to go all the way to the Deep South.

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I understand that the reason for 16 Ave is that it is expensive to stop and then restart the construction of the tunnel between stages, so it must be built from end to end in the first stage, and the northern end is 16 ave. There's enough at that intersection to make that station useful to passengers as currently planned, but I hope that the motion to look for wriggle room in the budget to go farther, even only to 64 Ave (the first station with a bus loop), somehow works out. Even if Calgary has regretted every single time it went with the lowest bidder (eg. Connect)

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Have been to several transit and transportation committee meetings at council over the last few months, i know the answer to most of those questions.

 

Yes buses from the north will continue into the core. It is more about getting the expensive capital infrastructure out of the way with costs of good and labour low then it is about operational efficiency.

 

The garage needs to go as far as shepard. The city looked at several plots of land. 6 in the north and 2 in the south. The only one that met all the requirements was in shepard.

 

The estimated costs of putting the train underground through the core and centre street are huge. What was presented to council was the costs of putting it underground could double if not tendered by 2018, hense the reason for getting it done now.

 

Lets not forget kids, they have made it very clear that stage 2 (north of 16 ave) will be under construction before stage 1 even opens. If they built the entire line in 1 shot, it could be up to  5-6 years after stage 1 is projected to be open. Stage 1 and stage 2 together, it would open 2 years after stage 1 is projected to be open.

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2 hours ago, LRT said:

@Gsgeek540 Any idea on trains or tenders on train's ? Will the signal system be the same or some sort of new tech?

I'm getting a little bit excited over here..?

I'm wondering about the underground stations, mostly. I want to see how Calgary Transit will utilize underground stations Downtown - particularly +15 Skywalk connections, if the stations will see any retail/amenities/services (walk-in clinics, for example), will there be future tie-in infrastructure to the unused tunnels/station underneath City Hall for the rest of the LRT network, mostly stuff along those lines. Would it be more like Montreal (underground city), or Edmonton (connections to the street, and thats it)?

I wish the Seoul approach would work, but I don't know how Calgary Transit would contemplate (or tolerate) dedicating entire stations or even LRV's to retail, government services and other things that they've implemented in Seoul (both for drawing ridership, along with saving time - why go to the store when you can get groceries on your train/at the transit station?). If the fear's of SE Calgary transit usage in the future are justified (example: Route 302 using shuttles on evenings and weekends), would potentially including limited retail and government services on the trains, along with TODevelopment at stations in the future - make up for lost ridership? As in, if a four-car train can't be filled beyond three cars, so the fourth would become a hub for retail, vendors and services? Would be pretty efficient if people may spend up to 30-40 mins on the train, going to Seton - potentially enough to draw some people out of their cars. Particularly around rush hour.

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8 hours ago, LRT said:

@Gsgeek540 Any idea on trains or tenders on train's ? Will the signal system be the same or some sort of new tech?

I'm getting a little bit excited over here..?

I'd be willing to wager that the signalling system will be a CBTC system.  It could be standard ABS blocking, but I'd be pretty surprised.

As for stage 2, they haven't said it will be under construction before stage 1 is complete - they're HOPING it'll be under construction.  There's a big difference there.  If they find the money, it likely will, but they can't say anything for sure.

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14 hours ago, armorand said:

 Would it be more like Montreal (underground city), or Edmonton (connections to the street, and thats it)?

This document suggests it will be a simple connection like Edmonton:

http://agendaminutes.calgary.ca/sirepub/cache/2/bsh2lekwhifv1n3sngmfij2s/56422207072017021457715.PDF

I watched the last 2 council meetings on Green Line and both Mac Logan and Fabiola MacIntyre were very reluctant to talk about anything that would indicate scope creep.

17 hours ago, Gsgeek540 said:

What was presented to council was the costs of putting it underground could double if not tendered by 2018, hense the reason for getting it done now.

I don't recall the point about a 2018 tendering timeline, however Mac Logan made it very clear that it would be more expensive build the tunnel in 2 phases. The tunnel portion from 7 Ave north to 16 Ave is estimated at $800 million as part of phase 1 but could be dramatically more if they built this portion later.

7 hours ago, CTrainDude said:

As for stage 2, they haven't said it will be under construction before stage 1 is complete - they're HOPING it'll be under construction.

If bids come in lower or additional funding becomes available in the next 9 years, they would use it to build more of the line. However none of this is known right now.

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  • 6 months later...
58 minutes ago, Chinese Daniel said:

Why? We all use cbtc in subway, + ATO, if you drive a train in China, you don't even can run a red . The train can automatic stop b before the red .

Personally I don't think there's anything wrong with our current system that were running on the red and blue lines.

Does anybody know what kind of system San Diego, Portland, Salt Lake City and Denver uses?

Just look at the issues Edmonton is having the level Crossings...seems to have an issue with the CBTC

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1 hour ago, Chinese Daniel said:

Why? We all use cbtc in subway, + ATO, if you drive a train in China, you don't even can run a red . The train can automatic stop b before the red .

And besides, if they could get CBTC to work on LRT, we might one day have driverless LRT cars. That was the plan for the LA Metro line ironically also known as the "Green Line".

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49 minutes ago, LRT said:

Personally I don't think there's anything wrong with our current system that were running on the red and blue lines.

Does anybody know what kind of system San Diego, Portland, Salt Lake City and Denver uses?

Just look at the issues Edmonton is having the level Crossings...seems to have an issue with the CBTC

The Thales system has issues, and Thales has some what said none of their CBTC systems previously had to interact with grade crossing. To say in general that CBTC has problems with grade crossings is probably not quite accurate.

Having said that, I believe Denver's Fastrack commuter rail system has had issues with grade crossings and their signal system based upon PTC, which generally speaking is the same idea as CBTC. https://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/front-range/denver/rtd-ordered-to-staff-10-train-crossings-along-denver-international-airport-train-line

Portland is ABS: https://trimet.org/publications/pdf/factsheets/rail-powersignals.pdf

Denver is ABS with track circuits, additionally with inductive loops: https://nacto.org/docs/usdg/rtd_light_rail_design_criteria_regional_trans_district.pdf

Salt Lake City is ABS: https://www.rideuta.com/-/media/Files/Careers/Trax_Qualification_Study_Guide_2017.pdf

San Diego certainly was ABS, although in my quick search I haven't found much on what they may have done for signal system upgrades. I suspect though it's not CBTC!

At the end of the day, in Calgary's case they need to go with whatever is most cost effective. If that is CBTC, great, if it's track circuits, great. Operationally there's nothing that CBTC can do in this case that track circuits can't. I suspect there isn't much of a desire to to run driverless trains.

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4 hours ago, LRT said:

Personally I don't think there's anything wrong with our current system that were running on the red and blue lines.

Does anybody know what kind of system San Diego, Portland, Salt Lake City and Denver uses?

Just look at the issues Edmonton is having the level Crossings...seems to have an issue with the CBTC

Edmonton’s problem is a poor performing vendor, and trying to integrate with an existing ABS system. Green line is a greenfield system, with vehicles designed to match the signal system, so will hopefully avoid integration issues. 

Theres nothing wrong with the current system, but the real advantage of more advanced train control is moving blocks and tighter headways - rather than long fixed blocks regardless of where the train is in the block, the system can allow trains to run closer together. 

Green line won’t ever have true driverless operation, but could have various levels of automation in tracking and speed control. 

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22 minutes ago, Chinese Daniel said:

Green line LRT was a longer line, Do you think they will run faster LRT car?

Like Siemens SD-400 and SD-460 up to 65 miles per hour (105 km/h)?

 

We could only hope. But I think it will be consistent with our 80 km an hour track speed.

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Given that the Green Line is low floor, in the median of Centre St, and generally designed to 'integrate' into everything around it, I can't imagine speeds being faster than the Red and Blue lines. Especially given the speed limits imposed on the Martindale section of the Blue line

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  • 4 weeks later...

I would suspect the Green Line will use the same system as we currently have.  Why?  Maintenance.  Far easier to have one signal system for the city and as we already have staff that are trained for the ABS system, they're already good to go for the Green Line instead of having people be trained on both systems, maintaining two separate sets of inventory of parts, etc. etc.  I suspect it would also mean there's a lot of simplification for the LRV's as well since the signalling is for the most part on the outside of the cars.

Additionally, I'd imagine Rail Control would be able to swallow the Green Line instead of having a whole bunch of extra systems to control the Red/Blue line and then something else to control the Green Line.  Trying to reinvent the wheel for miniscule gains usually leads to a lot of headaches.  (Yes, I'm looking at you Edmonton...)

Jon

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  • 2 months later...

http://calgaryherald.com/news/politics/trudeaus-liberals-follow-through-on-1-53-billion-funding-pledge-to-green-line

Quote

Trudeau's Liberals follow through on $1.53-billion funding pledge to Green Line

The Liberal government says it’s making good on its promise of green for Calgary’s Green Line LRT project.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau confirmed in an announcement Tuesday that Ottawa would put forward $1.53 billion to the first stage of the Green Line, the expansion of the city’s light rail system that is intended to link Calgary’s north and south.

The money was first promised by the former Conservative government just before the 2015 election when the party lost power. Trudeau’s Liberals said during the campaign and after that they would see the project through.

Trudeau told reporters and officials gathered at Stampede station that the funding is now part of a fully laid-out infrastructure plan.  

“Working with our provincial and municipal partners, we’ll get the Green Line LRT built,” said the prime minister.

Alberta’s NDP government also committed $1.53 billion to the project last year, making it equally funded by all three levels of government. 

Mayor Naheed Nenshi said that although Trudeau had supported the project in the past, the big difference is that Ottawa has now committed to an “accelerated timeline” that is close to the province’s pledge to dole out the money over eight years.

“It was the last piece we were missing in order to really move forward,” said Nenshi.

“More details will come soon but we are very, very pleased with the cash flow and the timing . . . which will save hundreds of millions in interest over time.”

Nenshi said the prospective savings could potentially mean more work is done to extend the line within the initial phase of construction. 

The first stage of the Green Line, which is intended to run from Crescent Heights to Shepard, is slated for completion in 2026.

It involves the design and construction of 20 kilometres of track, 14 stations, a fleet of 70 low-floor light rail vehicles, a vehicle maintenance and storage facility, eight bridges, four tunnels, and three park-and-ride facilities.

Ultimately, the project is intended to run from the South Health Campus to the new neighbourhood of Keystone in the north.

“The Green Line is going to transform the city. It’s the largest single infrastructure project in the history of this province,” said Nenshi.

“It is a big deal.”

But Conservative MP Pat Kelly said Trudeau doesn’t deserve any pats on the back for simply following through on something initiated by the Harper government. 

“It was really a non-announcement,” he said.

 

 

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  • 2 months later...

On the speed point, I'd note that Alstom's trains that are being used in Ottawa and some of the Toronto LRTs are capable up to 65 mph, I think I'd far prefer them over flexities. 

Has anything about procurement been announced yet? RFQ RFP etc?

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8 hours ago, reecemartin said:

On the speed point, I'd note that Alstom's trains that are being used in Ottawa and some of the Toronto LRTs are capable up to 65 mph, I think I'd far prefer them over flexities. 

 

Has anything about procurement been announced yet? RFQ RFP etc?

No procurement news yet, although I imagine it would be soon to get the ball rolling on a large order, especially if they have to wait for others in line ahead.  Right now the Bombardier LRV is taking a bit of a kicking, at least in North America, so it wouldn’t be hard to go elsewhere now. They’ve got a lot of orders between TTC, Metrolinx and ION in southern Ontario (even after Metrolinx cut their order down substantially), and now Edmonton - and as most here likely know, the quality of their vehicles has been terrible and many have been sent back from the Ontario systems.  The Edmonton vehicle on display now looks good, but I’m sure that one-off was built with a little extra care and attention - not to mention it hasn't actually run anywhere.

As you mentioned, Alstom took over for the cancelled Bombardier Metrolinx vehicles, and have OCTranspo's new trains, so it’ll be interesting to see how they do in Canada. Since Siemens (Calgary's only previous supplier) is in the process of merging with Alstom, it may also give the advantage to that group, and whatever product they decide to pitch (S70? Citadis?).

A lot of these orders are part of a P3 consortium, so didn’t really have much choice in vehicles. The group building the system had a partnership with a vehicle manufacturer from the beginning. Calgary is purposefully procuring LRVs separately from the rest of the Green Line project procurement, so they can pick anyone they think is best. 

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