So I hear you guys have struck it rich when it comes to urban infastructure.
Over 5 years $877mil for Calgary and $680mil Edmonton {$900/person} for infastructure. This won't even include the money you get from prov govenment for regular day to day stuff which is, by far, the best in the country.
This will be ontop of the upcomiong money from the feds........nice goin!
Is this going to mean a speed up on Ctrain to Crowfoot and the NE Line?
And , god forbid, will this mean they can speed up the old SLRT. Maybe build it all at once now to open the whole system sooner? Maybe even WestED LRT?????

Edmonton City Council is expected to decide whether to go ahead on SLRT on Tuesday April 19. You can see a thread I posted on that in SSP in the Western Canada section.

As for the Crowfoot expansion. Yes. In fact, they started construction of the 150 or so million dollar project in the last few weeks. There are two interchanges being built at Sarcee Trail and Nose Hill drive to make way for the LRT line. Construction on Sarcee has already begun. THe NE expansion has also moved up.

I want to see the West LRT line built with the federal money.

Great news.........Calgary is such a well planned city.
BTW...I thought they wanted to extend the NE Line before the Crowfoot line although either one is great news.
How long will the Crowfoot line be extended and any idea when completion will be?

I think Dalhousie Station to the new crowfoot station (supposedly being called 'centennial' station) is something like almost 5 km.

How come Calgary is getting so much more than Edmonton, I though they were roughly the same size?

Its government payback for Edmonton going RED. LOL

How come Calgary is getting so much more than Edmonton, I though they were roughly the same size?

Actually, they're both getting roughly the same amount of money (~ $1 billion), but that's for the entire metro area of each city. The differences ssiguy2 mentioned ($877M for Calgary vs $650M for Edmonton) for within the city limits.

There's an important difference here - Calgary's city population makes up a much larger proportion of it metro population than Edmonton's. While Calgary's metro population of 1,050,000 is only slightly larger than Edmonton's metro population of 1,015,000, the population of the City of Calgary is about 950,000-970,000 and the City of Edmonton is about 720,000.

I don't think that's a payback for Edmonton voting Liberal in the past few provincial elections! LOL

^exactly...if you included st.albert/sherwood park etc. etc. edmonton and area will be very similar to calgary.

I always consider Sherwood Park to be Edmonton anyway. Surely its included in the metro figures at least.

\/ yes, Sherwood Park is definately counted as part of the metro Edmonton area.

BTW, Calgary replaced 2 Conservatives with Liberals during the last election. The political tide is changing in Calgary, which is typically is the case as a city's population diversifies.

Each city and town in Alberta is getting $900/per person.

THats kinda shitty if you ask me. The problem I have with giveing every municiapality money based on population is that the needs of the Edmonton and Calgary regions are different than say a city like Camrose. Edmonton and Calgary overpasses, mass transit etc cost more and thus requre more funding.

\/ yes, Sherwood Park is definately counted as part of the metro Edmonton area.

BTW, Calgary replaced 2 Conservatives with Liberals during the last election. The political tide is changing in Calgary, which is typically is the case as a city's population diversifies.


Actually 3 liberals. Harry Chase - Calgary Varsity (my riding). David Swann in Mountainview (actaully was a landslide) and Dave Taylor in Calgary Currie. There were 3 other close races where conservatives eaked out a narrow victory.
Progressive people in Calgary are congregating in the inner-city. An interesting political landscape right now.

There is an alternative forum to SSC that has good threads on Calgary/Edmonton regarding development. I had the address of that other forum but lost it. Can anyone give me the address to that other web site?

www.skyscraperpage.com

^Thanks coldrsx.

Its government payback for Edmonton going RED. LOL

Edmonton goes Red pretty much all the time.

I went into Edmonton City Hall to watch the council in session this afternoon. The city council voted in favour of SLRT 9-2. (? - the vote showing on the screen was too quick! And two councillors were absent as well)

:D :D :D

Also, the proposed interchange at 23 Ave/Gateway, which is Edmonton's most dangerous intersection, was approved. Also approved was the designing of BRT from downtown to NAIT.

:cheers:

^^^^^^^
Does this mean the SLRT is going to be completed significantly faster?
It seems like for every 1km Edmonton builds, Calgary builds 5.

^....SLRT to century park....and this should help speed the process along as IMO it is the politics and number of people/levels of govt involved that is the biggest hurdle.

It seems like Edmonton runs on Toronto time, studies everything to death, but takes forever to build it.
Maybe its that "can do" attitude of Calgary but they don't talk they just build the damn things.

LRT building is going to speed up now. No more tunnels and just laying track on the surface. Should be at Century Park in 4 years. Thats 5 more stations built in that time (not including the one thats set to open in a few months). Not bad in terms of speed.

Hate to be rude but yes it is, or atleast compared to Calgary which is expanding the CTrain at a dizzing rate.

Ssiguy2: as much as I should like your comments thus far, you are going to get some of us actual Calgarians caught up in the crossfire soon... ;)

Glad to hear about the progress on your SLRT guys. The only thing I really want to see soon here in Calgary is an airport line (which IMO should be a top priority. Then at least you wouldn't always have to pay for that horrendously overpriced airport parkade)

Hey, I still congradulate Edmonton on the SLRT........but you must admit seeing the main tunneling section is done, 4 years for 5km of at-grade LRT is a long time.

That does seem like an awfully long time to be honest. That can't be just construction time if the tunneling is already done across the North Saskatchewan.

Ssiguy2: as much as I should like your comments thus far, you are going to get some of us actual Calgarians caught up in the crossfire soon... ;)

Glad to hear about the progress on your SLRT guys. The only thing I really want to see soon here in Calgary is an airport line (which IMO should be a top priority. Then at least you wouldn't always have to pay for that horrendously overpriced airport parkade)

The line to the airport is a good idea. I think it could splinter off from a new North line as seen in this image below. It was put together by a transit enthusiast called Steve Perry, who posts on SSP. THe lines (except for the airport line - that is his idea) are roughly what the city is planning to do to builld out the system over the next 20 years or so. The west line is likely next. Another idea for the airport is to build a dedicated bus lane to the North line from the airport.

This map is a beatiful thing to my eyes.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v311/joshwhit/CTMapFuture-12222004.gif

That 'Silverado' station on the map amuses me. My Senior High School is adjacent to Somerset/Bridlewood (I could just take a bus and then the C-Train from Fish Creek/Lacombe to get there, but I just drive instead, lol) and I'll tell you, the only thing south of there is Okotoks (22X is on the opposite end of the complex).

I would much rather see a dedicated Calgary International Station than a bus lane, and I think it would be more attractive to visitors. Oh well, we could also use the bus lane if there wasn't enough money to fund the station right away, or between construction periods I guess...

Looks great!!!
I know they are working on extentions of the NW and NE lines but which NEW line will they build first and when will it start????

Hey, I still congradulate Edmonton on the SLRT........but you must admit seeing the main tunneling section is done, 4 years for 5km of at-grade LRT is a long time.

Actually, that's 3 years for at-grade LRT. When the Health Sciences station at the U of A Hospital is done in January, 2006, construction of the rest of the SLRT line will get started in the spring of 2006 and should be finished at Century Park by mid to late 2009.

There will be a couple overpasses as well at Belgravia and at 111 Street so that the LRT does not stop traffic. Plus the 5 stations in this extension.

Wow, good for you guys.
Has ridership increased in Edmonton over the last few years or is it still at around 47,000?

i dont have the numbers but i would guess it has increase by 10-15% simply due to increased traffic conjestion, increased population, the TOD in the NE and more people working downtown.

TOD??

TOD = Transit Oriented Development

Thanks.
I was on the LRT to the NE once, seemed pretty quiet.

It seems like Edmonton runs on Toronto time, studies everything to death, but takes forever to build it.
Maybe its that "can do" attitude of Calgary but they don't talk they just build the damn things.Then you've obviously never read any of the City of Calgary Council Hearings or Council Reports from various agencies, believe me, every municipality studies things to death.

The way they did calgary's airport is really dumb. The terminal is at the north end at the point farthest away from the city which makes it difficult to serve with Rapid Transit. Also, Calgary has got to start planning its growth.

The way they did calgary's airport is really dumb. The terminal is at the north end at the point farthest away from the city which makes it difficult to serve with Rapid Transit. Also, Calgary has got to start planning its growth.
The map posted by Josh White is just a concept created by a colleague.

I think that the yellow line in the Calgary concept map would be a waste for the city. I live about 2 Minutes from the Mckenzie Towne proposed station. While the Somerset-Bridlewood line is 5 minutes from my house. It would be still quicker for the poeple of the deep SE of Calgary to drive to the red line(201) the to take the yellow line. I think it would be better for the city to upgrade the red line to handle 4 or 5 car trains it would be a much better way to spend the money IMO.

I think that the yellow line in the Calgary concept map would be a waste for the city. I live about 2 Minutes from the Mckenzie Towne proposed station. While the Somerset-Bridlewood line is 5 minutes from my house. It would be still quicker for the poeple of the deep SE of Calgary to drive to the red line(201) the to take the yellow line. I think it would be better for the city to upgrade the red line to handle 4 or 5 car trains it would be a much better way to spend the money IMO.

The problem with that however is that there is going to be about 200 000 more residents in the SE quadrant. A line needs to service these people. And there will be a major employment centre in the are as well. Marquis of Lorne would never be able to handle the load of people getting from Seton and the health campus to the South LRT line.

Interesting. Can someone please tell me how the Calgary population is split up in each of its quadrants? Is it fairly evenly distributed, and where does Downtown fall?

NE: # of people
NW:
SE:
SW:

Interesting. Can someone please tell me how the Calgary population is split up in each of its quadrants? Is it fairly evenly distributed, and where does Downtown fall?

Just a rough estamate.
NW: 313000 Biggest region
NE: 173,487
SE: 157,631 Lots of industrial area
SW : 264,996 Most of downtown is here

Construction to start on new leg to Crowfoot centre
Will be finished in 2008.
LINK (http://www.canada.com/calgary/calgaryherald/news/city/story.html?id=3dec18cc-a9b5-4471-8555-cf35e82e949d&page=1)

Great news. Good work Calgary!!!!
How far would the extention be to get to Crowchild Centre and will there be any stations built between Dalhousie and Crowchild???

^^^
I think the extension is 5km and I have not heard anything about addition stations, though I believe there will be probably be one in the middle.

I think they would have to have atleast one in the middle. 5km between stations is too far.

^ It really depends on the development in between. Personally, I don't travel that area of the city much (it's a little far away) so I don't know what exactly is in there. What, for example, would be the point of sticking a station beside a stretch of bare freeway?

EDIT: Glad to see that they sped up the construction though...

Now if only the province would get on that ring road, or even the Southwest Connector for that matter.

There is no station in between actually, and it is not needed. There are 4 large communities on either side of Crowchild between Dalhousie and Nose Hill Drive. Dalhousie, Ranchlands, Varsity Estates, and Silver Springs. IN silver Springs for example, the feeder buses on the East side of the community are within short distance to the Dalhousie Station. I live in the SE corner of Silver Springs and the feeder bus takes about 6 or 7 minutes to the station. The same sitution with Ranchlands, which is directly north of Silver Springs. The West portions of Silver Springs and Ranchland will be quite close to Crowfoot station. Varsity and Dalhousie are even closer to Dalhousie Station. These are huge, sprawling 70's suburbs. An extra station would not make too much sense.

I might help spur development and make the bus trip shorter to the nearest station. 5km beteen sations seems to far for LRT. They should have a station in between.

You have to understand the context of the area to understand why the new station is where it is. It is situated amongst a lot of suburaban sprawl in the middle of a major transprotation corridor - Crowchild Trail. The suburbs are fully built out years ago, and there is nowhere to spur development around a new station.

Here is a picture that explains where everything is. The only place they could have possbibly put a station betwee Dalhousie and Crowfoot is at Sarcee. But that intersection has no room for bus feeders or parking as a huge interchange is being constructed there to make way for the LRT line.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v311/joshwhit/c-train.jpg

Thanks Josh, that picture pretty much sums up the reasons for the distance (A picture is worth a thousand words after all). And on the plus side, I now know the layout of that area for future reference!

^^^^^^^^Yes, thanks Josh that does help.
I can see why they don't feel a station is neccessary.