Work starts on LRT extension to U of A South Campus

Trish Audette
The Edmonton Journal


August 24, 2005

EDMONTON - The next phase of the LRT's south-bound expansion started Tuesday as construction crews began work on a Belgravia Road detour that clears the way for new rail tracks to be laid to the University of Alberta's second campus.

By removing parking lots south of the Neil Crawford Centre on 113th Street during the day and working on the roads at night, crews are making room for the train to go under Belgravia Road to reach the new U of A South Campus station.

Scheduled to open in 2009, the above-ground stop will be located on the university's planned second campus at 67th Avenue and 116th Street. It will connect to another above-ground station at 76th Avenue and 114th Street.

As work began, the LRT's new neighbours said they welcome the first round of construction.

"They're going to be extremely, extremely careful not to obstruct traffic," said Fred Weichman, a McKernan resident.

"The sooner we get this blooming LRT in operation, the better it is.

"We've been waiting 20 years since the whole thing was originally planned."

Robert Hutchinson, president of the Belgravia Community League, said the detour comes after a very long consultation process.

"We've been waiting for awhile in terms of getting the LRT," he said. "It's finally starting and you can see some of the changes that will be coming."

A spokesman for the city's transportation and streets department, Randy Kilburn, said building the detour is expected to have little effect on traffic, although the road is a major thoroughfare for residents from the west end headed to the university or downtown.

"This is not going to be done during peak hours," he said.

Traffic will be limited to single lanes over a three-week construction period, but Kilburn said the Belgravia detour will have six lanes through the rest of the year.

Rick Millican, the city's general manager of transportation, said the detour construction comes at the same time as students return to university because the project was approved in June.

Don Hickey, U of A vice-president of facilities and operations, estimated that only a quarter of the university students drive to the campus.

For some McKernan and Belgravia residents, however, there are several concerns on the horizon, Hutchinson said, namely the potential traffic congestion caused by pulling up parts of 114th Street next spring to make way for a 76th Avenue pedestrian underpass.

Millican said those worries will be addressed in the coming months.

taudette@thejournal.canwest.com

LRT NEWS

- The latest addition to the LRT system is the Health Sciences station, located near the corner of 83rd Avenue and 114th Street and across the street from the University of Alberta Hospital. It's scheduled to open in January and will eventually connect to the 76th Avenue station at 76th Avenue and 114th Street and the South Campus station at 67th Avenue and 116th Street.

- Trains are supposed to reach Heritage Mall, at 111th Street and 23rd Avenue, by 2009.

Great news! How many stations are planned, and what's the new length of the whole length?

The entire South Line will add 5 new stations to the line (Health Sciences, 76 Avenue, South Campus, Southgate and Century Park). After that, the can continue further south into the now developing suburban areas. Or, it can turn east towards Millwoods.

It's about 7.5 km and their will be four new stations: 76 Avenue, South Campus, Southgate, and Century Park. You can get more info from the SLRT summer newsletter here:

http://www.edmontonslrt.com/PDFs/2005SummerNewsletter.pdf

excellent news...this will double our ridership by 2010...now on with the WLRT

yes on to the west end

Thats a decade of construction for just 7.5km and most of it is above ground. I'm glad it will get done but its been a long time in the making.
Will any new line go north to NAIT or west to WED first? Any ideas on construction timetables?
BTW, I thought Edmonton had decided on BRT for future transit????

I would think NAIT would make more sense before starting a whole new line.

"BTW, I thought Edmonton had decided on BRT for future transit????"

yes and no...for some routes that dont justify (or we dont have the $ for) LRT $$$ right now they will...such as NAIT...focus is SLRT due to traffic and growth in the south, then WLRT....but i hope they tie NAIT/KINGSWAY in soon.

What sort of LRT is this to be? Something like a train? Or will it be a streetcar on ROW?

Train. Its an expansion on the current system. THe streetcar is just from downton to accross the river in strathcona. Different system altogether.

we are suppose to be hearing that the fed/prov/muni are extending LRT to GMC and NAIT today...

Always good when we hear about a new expansion. GO Edmonton LRT GO

I am assuming that Edmonton will need to purchase new LRVs and will they be the same ones as in Calgary? Also how many cars are the platforms configured for?

^4 or 5 if i recall at a minimum

I am assuming that Edmonton will need to purchase new LRVs and will they be the same ones as in Calgary? Also how many cars are the platforms configured for?
I believe our platforms can accommodate 5 cars.

@SSIguy - the actual construction time for the sLRT is less than a decade - 2004-09 (5 years). The previous years were required for engineering & design, and approvals.

Here's some more news regarding more expansion plans for the NWLRT.

Mayor wants expanded LRT
Mandel sees need for east-west service, access to more communities

Keith Gerein
The Edmonton Journal

Wednesday, September 07, 2005

EDMONTON - The sod has barely been turned on the $595-million southern expansion of the LRT, but Mayor Stephen Mandel is eager to begin work on extending the tracks to other sections of Edmonton.

Within the next year, the city needs to develop a long-term funding strategy for getting areas such as north-central Edmonton, Mill Woods and the west-end added to the LRT network, Mandel said Tuesday.

"Taking the LRT to Heritage Mall is not an answer, it's a beginning," he said. "It's not going to do us any good if we stop it at Heritage. The problem right now is that people can only go north and south. We need to build east-west so that more people can use it. Right now it's relatively limited."

Council voted earlier this year to fast-track the south LRT project so the line would reach the Heritage Mall site at 111th Street and 23rd Avenue by the latter part of 2009. The city is borrowing most of the money, repaying the loan over 20-25 years using gas-tax revenues the federal government is starting to share with municipalities.

To service the other sections of Edmonton, including north central, Mill Woods and the west end, the city plans to construct bus rapid transit routes, featuring exclusive bus lanes.

Mandel added that while bus rapid transit could work in the short term, he wants the LRT expanded into those

areas as soon as possible. He said he would especially like to see tracks built between downtown and NAIT, hopefully at the same time the southern LRT leg is being completed.

"I would think that if it's at all possible we should try to deliver simultaneously somewhat of a north wing up to Royal Alex Hospital and NAIT," he said. "That way we would link all our major colleges and universities together."

It is unclear, however, how the city could fund the LRT expansion beyond the southern leg. Mandel has pitched a special LRT fund raised by boosting property taxes one-quarter of a percentage point, or about $3 for a typical home.

On Tuesday, he also suggested that much of the money would have to come from the other levels of government.

Municipal Affairs Minister Rob Renner raised another idea when he mused about the possibility of the province cancelling or reducing its yearly take of property taxes.

About 40 per cent of the current property taxes paid by Edmontonians is sent to the province to fund education. If the province was to stop taking its share, the city could then collect more, Renner said.

"One of the ideas the municipalities are very interested in is the transfer of property tax room," he said. "It's an option we have to consider.

"That would give municipalities a long-term, secure source of funding to deal with all of their infrastructure pressures, such as the LRT project."

The city would add more than $200 million to its coffers each year if it claimed all the property taxes Edmontonians pay to the province.

Renner's comments are significant because municipalities have been pushing the property-tax idea for years, but have never got much provincial support.

Renner said he has raised the possibility with some of his cabinet colleagues and plans to do so again at cabinet and caucus retreats later this month.

"It's a long way from being a fait accompli," he said. "I've got a lot of my colleagues I need to convince. But as municipal affairs minister, it's something I have been pursuing. It's an opportunity for us."

Coun. Mike Nickel said Renner's comments make him optimistic that the province is changing its attitude when it comes to funding municipalities.

"I think the province finally understands that cities cannot finance these large capital projects on their own," he said.

"So we have to change the rules of the game. We should be getting tax room. We need that flexibility."

Like Mandel, Nickel agreed the city must continue building the LRT throughout Edmonton.

"The next debate, as far as I'm concerned, is about moving to Mill Woods or the west end," he said. "We need to start thinking about funding it and appropriating the land for it."

kgerein@thejournal.canwest.com

Its about time. They should be constructing different lines at once as opposed to building one and then starting another. God knows Edmonton and Calgary have the money.

Its about time. They should be constructing different lines at once as opposed to building one and then starting another. God knows Edmonton and Calgary have the money.
Where's the money going to come from? No, Edmonton and Calgary DON'T have the money....the Province does. So far neither city has heard how or when the 1-billion for each city will be coming?!?!?!

Yeah until the province gives the cities the money, nothing can be done.

I am assuming that Edmonton will need to purchase new LRVs and will they be the same ones as in Calgary? Also how many cars are the platforms configured for?
The new platforms will be originally built to handle 4 cars but each will have space for a future extension to handle 5 cars.

They're going to have the same vehicles as Calgary's C-Train?

I am not sure.

@IKAN104 - welcome fellow Etowner. You will find many more Edmonton forumers at www.skyscraperpage.com

@addisonwesley - it's quite possible. Because Edmonton is piggybacking its order for new LRVs atop Calgary's in order to save on LRV(Light Rail Vehicles) purchases, I think it's going to be the same new cars that calgary will order, probably the SD160. Those would be from Siemens - the same company that manufactures the LRVs that both cities have, although Edmonton's fleet are entirely of an older type known as the U2.

I was bored out of my mind, so I fashioned this SD160 (http://www.barp.ca/bus/ct/lrv/ct2000sd160/2212.jpg) in Edmonton colours, incase you were curious.
If you squint, it doesn't look so terrible. :)

http://members.shaw.ca/mock/edmSD160.jpg

I squinted and they still look like shit.

I think it looks allright , great work

I squinted and they still look like shit.Hey, give him some props, it looks quite good.

@Mock - Hey, that's not bad!

Those platfroms have to be rather high, do they not?

I believe it's the same height as the U2 trainset. The SD160 just looks taller with all that panelling at the bottom.

I squinted and they still look like shit.

You look like shit

HE HE,

I very much appreciate what MOCK did to make them look like Ed LRT but I still don't like them.

I believe it's the same height as the U2 trainset. The SD160 just looks taller with all that panelling at the bottom.

I'd agree. Otherwise that'd require a massive upgrading of all LRT stations in order to bring up the platform height and that could cost a lot of extra $$$, which is the last thing the city council wants.

The paint scheme is a lot better than Calgary's though.

I squinted and they still look like shit.

Hey ass hole guy its better than anything you have ever done.

Don't be a prick.
I said I appreciated the work he did i just don't like the cars. Relax.

^^ :weird:

okay.. just to get back on topic lol. congratulations edmonton for actually expanding your network. Hopefully Edmonton will catch up to calgary (transportation wise keke). What is the frequency like on the edmonton RT (and edmonton bus routes)? i know my cousin said while she was here in toronto over the summer that transit in edmonton is almost non-existent. ?.? i don't know if this is a fact but if you guys are actually exapanding the transit grid it doesn't seem that bad does it? lol or is it just a white elephant?

anyways... i hope toronto starts building more subways where they are needed and more lrts where they are needed (and trust me.. they are needed)... cuz i don't want to commute for 1.2 hours each way to school and back T.T (thats actually quite fast considering i live pretty far away from UT downtown lol, but i just want it to go faster!!!)

the bus system is hit and miss IMO...some areas are serviced very well others not....but i guess in a low density large land area city that is to be expected.

the lrt is 5min in rush hour and 10-15 in non if i recall.

Well I live 17 kms from downtown and its a 40 min bus ride or a 35 min drive due to traffic. In my area buses run every 15 mins to downtown and once every 15 mins the other way where I need to transfer to go downtown which takes 45 mins.

okay.. just to get back on topic lol. congratulations edmonton for actually expanding your network. Hopefully Edmonton will catch up to calgary (transportation wise keke). What is the frequency like on the edmonton RT (and edmonton bus routes)? i know my cousin said while she was here in toronto over the summer that transit in edmonton is almost non-existent. ?.? i don't know if this is a fact but if you guys are actually exapanding the transit grid it doesn't seem that bad does it? lol or is it just a white elephant?

Cold's right - The Edmonton LRT frequency is 5 minutes during peak periods and 10-15 minutes outside the peak periods. Even on Sundays, the frequency is still 15 minutes all day. Not bad, actually. Bus transit frequency varies much more widely, obviously due to a few factors, especially pop. density and how far they go out into the 'burbs. Fact is, some new residential areas won't even see transit service for up to a few years. In a nutshell, it can be spotty out in newer areas. This kind of problem is not unique to Edmonton - quite a few other North American cities with low population density and large tracts of low-density housing have the same problem, including even Calgary.

Obviously, the LRT in Edmonton is not what I'd call a white elephant! It's estimated that ridership could go from the current 41,000 to over 100,000 per day by the time the SLRT gets to Century Park. And maybe higher, especially if gas prices keep rising. The current ridership is actually quite a bit higher than most North American cities of comparable size.

thanks everyone for all your information... i've certainly joined a very informed community =D