[Foolworm]

The problem with the road network south of the Henday is that it barely exists at all.

I think this just reinforces the point that while the deep South is seeing a ton of growth and infrastructure dollars, North side is still waiting for the LRT to service already-established neighbourhoods.

Along with Metro line, perhaps the Gorman extension should be prioritised over the phase 2 south to the proposed hospital, which the Province is maliciously ignoring anyway. Manning Town Centre is almost fully built out and the houses stretch to the Henday there.

 

[yeggator]

I think this just reinforces the point that while the deep South is seeing a ton of growth and infrastructure dollars, North side is still waiting for the LRT to service already-established neighbourhoods.

Along with Metro line, perhaps the Gorman extension should be prioritised over the phase 2 south to the proposed hospital, which the Province is maliciously ignoring anyway. Manning Town Centre is almost fully built out and the houses stretch to the Henday there.

I agree. Once the LRT is extended to Heritage Valley, it’s pretty accessible to much of the south side, while the same can’t be said for the swaths of suburbs at a higher latitude than Clareview station. I think Desrochers and Gorman could be done at the same time, though. The ROW is reserved and fully at-grade, with only two roadway separations needed (at 153rd Ave and Ellerslie Road). Plus, construction on each of these would be happening at opposite fringes of the city, hence limited disruption.

 

[SarcasticMarmot]

The Capital and Metro lines seem to have a bunch of pieces that are planned/proposed. No way are we going to get all the money needed for these projects in a short time. Out of curiosity what priority would people on this forum place these projects?

1) Grade Separate University Ave
2) Grade Separate 111th ave/Kingsway
3) Split Coliseum station into 2 to better serve new development on expo lands and open ghost station
3) Extension to Gorman/Desrochers
4) Extension across Ellerslie Road to proposed South Hospital
5) Assuming 4, extension to EIA
6) Extension over railyard to Castledowns

 

[The_Cat]

I think there will be work on the Coliseum Station this year. I thin the highest priority will be the first expansion of the Metro Line to Castle Downs, which includes the bridge construction over the Yellowhead and Calder/Walker yards.

 

[yeggator]

The Capital and Metro lines seem to have a bunch of pieces that are planned/proposed. No way are we going to get all the money needed for these projects in a short time. Out of curiosity what priority would people on this forum place these projects?

1) Grade Separate University Ave
2) Grade Separate 111th ave/Kingsway
3) Split Coliseum station into 2 to better serve new development on expo lands and open ghost station
3) Extension to Gorman/Desrochers
4) Extension across Ellerslie Road to proposed South Hospital
5) Assuming 4, extension to EIA
6) Extension over railyard to Castledowns

My priorities:
2030-2037: extension to Castle Downs + grade-separation at Kingsway/111th Ave consolidated into one big project. It’s been the highest priority and it’s not even close, and I’ve discussed why the two projects should be done simultaneously. We should start this no earlier than when the other major LRT projects are done, or people will be overwhelmed by construction encompassing every quadrant of the city.

2034-2037: extension to Gorman. By this point, all the North Edmonton neighbourhoods within the Henday will be fully built out (including the namesake for the station), plus significant development in Marquis northeast of the Henday, so bringing the LRT as close to all these far-flung suburbs as possible will be crucial to cut traffic and boost ridership on the northeast Capital Line. It’s also low-hanging fruit since the ROW is reserved.

2037-2039: grade-separation of University Ave. Now that the Capital Line and Metro Line have expanded coverage in North Edmonton, that will sustain ridership in the northern half of the network when the line is temporarily severed at University Ave. The Valley Line will have to pick up the slack for commuters on the south side travelling across the river, while there needs to be shuttle service for south-side commuters going to/from the UofA.

Early 2040’s: replace Coliseum with two new stations and open the station by RAM. By this point, there’ll be enough infill in these areas to support it.

Early-mid 2040s: extend Capital Line south of Ellerslie Road. Who knows, maybe the hospital might come to fruition by then, but until that point, Heritage Valley station will be good enough at serving the deep south.

2040+: airport extension.

 

[northlands]

The Capital and Metro lines seem to have a bunch of pieces that are planned/proposed. No way are we going to get all the money needed for these projects in a short time. Out of curiosity what priority would people on this forum place these projects?

1) Grade Separate University Ave
2) Grade Separate 111th ave/Kingsway
3) Split Coliseum station into 2 to better serve new development on expo lands and open ghost station
3) Extension to Gorman/Desrochers
4) Extension across Ellerslie Road to proposed South Hospital
5) Assuming 4, extension to EIA
6) Extension over railyard to Castledowns

My hot takes:

1. Gorman should be the next expansion. Cheap, easy, good value for money, which is what Edmonton needs after spending $5b on LRT in the past decade. Lots of expanding residential there. ~$250m probably gets it done with a nice station and park'n'ride. Plus it can help entice people to buy in the NE instead of the SW.
2. Metro Line Castledowns expansion. @CplKlinger noted that ridership was modeled to be substantial and @yeggator makes the good point about it accessing the last quadrant of the City. The cost on this is going to be eye watering (does $1b even get you across Walker Yard anymore?) and overall unless there is major federal & provincial dosh, I don't think the City has the finances to proceed with something of this magnitude for a number of years.
3. Probably the expansion past Ellerslie Rd and beyond to EIA. The latter depends on what the GoA does for rail but maybe there could be some synergies there?
4. Grade separate Uni Ave

The other two I don't really care about. 111 ave crossing got a real bad rap off the hop but it's not that bad, and there are a lot of other options for east-west traffic anyway (107, 118, even YHT) and I'm pretty sure the entire Kingsway station would have to be reconfigured, so it's likely to be excessively more expensive than Uni ave. The "demo coliseum and build two stations" is a total vanity project IMO. Demo Coliseum station and bring 118 to grade if they really want to, but I think one station at the City's laydown yard off 80st/117 ave is really all that's needed. Neither of these two are really necessary in any sense and are more "nice-to-have" with money better spent in so, so many places.

 

[JuliallThat]

My hot takes:

1. Gorman should be the next expansion. Cheap, easy, good value for money, which is what Edmonton needs after spending $5b on LRT in the past decade. Lots of expanding residential there. ~$250m probably gets it done with a nice station and park'n'ride. Plus it can help entice people to buy in the NE instead of the SW.
2. Metro Line Castledowns expansion. @CplKlinger noted that ridership was modeled to be substantial and @yeggator makes the good point about it accessing the last quadrant of the City. The cost on this is going to be eye watering (does $1b even get you across Walker Yard anymore?) and overall unless there is major federal & provincial dosh, I don't think the City has the finances to proceed with something of this magnitude for a number of years.
3. Probably the expansion past Ellerslie Rd and beyond to EIA. The latter depends on what the GoA does for rail but maybe there could be some synergies there?
4. Grade separate Uni Ave

The other two I don't really care about. 111 ave crossing got a real bad rap off the hop but it's not that bad, and there are a lot of other options for east-west traffic anyway (107, 118, even YHT) and I'm pretty sure the entire Kingsway station would have to be reconfigured, so it's likely to be excessively more expensive than Uni ave. The "demo coliseum and build two stations" is a total vanity project IMO. Demo Coliseum station and bring 118 to grade if they really want to, but I think one station at the City's laydown yard off 80st/117 ave is really all that's needed. Neither of these two are really necessary in any sense and are more "nice-to-have" with money better spent in so, so many places.

It's wild to me that Gorman isn't a high priority with how much development is picking up in that area. Though IMO we should get a step ahead in the NE and build out to Horse Hills too.

 

[IanO]

1. Gorman should be the next expansion. Cheap, easy, good value for money, which is what Edmonton needs after spending $5b on LRT in the past decade. Lots of expanding residential there. ~$250m probably gets it done with a nice station and park'n'ride. Plus it can help entice people to buy in the NE instead of the SW.

- Probably low hanging fruit, but i'd rather use that for NW planning and funding.

2. Metro Line Castledowns expansion. @CplKlinger noted that ridership was modeled to be substantial and @yeggator makes the good point about it accessing the last quadrant of the City. The cost on this is going to be eye watering (does $1b even get you across Walker Yard anymore?) and overall unless there is major federal & provincial dosh, I don't think the City has the finances to proceed with something of this magnitude for a number of years.

- This is the key line to get going though to have 'a complete city-wide' system and to tie St.Albert in.

3. Probably the expansion past Ellerslie Rd and beyond to EIA. The latter depends on what the GoA does for rail but maybe there could be some synergies there?

- One can dream.

4. Grade separate Uni Ave

- Won't happen.

 

[northlands]

1. Gorman should be the next expansion. Cheap, easy, good value for money, which is what Edmonton needs after spending $5b on LRT in the past decade. Lots of expanding residential there. ~$250m probably gets it done with a nice station and park'n'ride. Plus it can help entice people to buy in the NE instead of the SW.

- Probably low hanging fruit, but i'd rather use that for NW planning and funding.

Metro Line NW depends on political winds. Gorman extension doesn't. Plan to build that of which has certainty and quietly begin acquiring strategic ROW parcels and loudly lobbying until the right political champions are at the fed/provincial level.

@JuliallThat even makes a fair point about expanding into Horse Hills, which is poised to be booming with housing construction. On the Blatchford thread there has been lots of good discussion about building LRT before the neighbourhood demand is fully there, maybe they're onto something.

 

[IanO]

Maybe, maybe not. We are literally the only city in the world building high capacity transit in the middle of a field. It's counter-intuitive and discouraging given that our community with the highest density, Oliver is not served, nor is our most urban in Old Strath.

Sure it will look genius in 20-30 yrs, but until then, backwards.

 

[dkazzed]

I don't know if Gorman is being planned with a park and ride in mind, City of Edmonton wants a medium to high density town centre to happen there.

 

[CplKlinger]

Maybe, maybe not. We are literally the only city in the world building high capacity transit in the middle of a field.

Mind you, it's a field close to a quickly growing neighbourhood that is more than twice as dense as typical Edmonton suburbs, and they had to build this extension anyway if they wanted to set the stage for the Castle Downs extension. Given that the city was able to transfer tens of millions of unspent dollars from this project to the Capital Line South extension, I think it was a fair decision. It's either that, or stop it at NAIT and pay more for the Castle Downs extension while potentially conflicting with construction/residential uses at Blatchford. And if they built the track but not the station, then within a decade they'd need to build the station anyway, but pay more due since it'd be less efficient than doing all the work in one go.

the highest density, Oliver is not served

The Capital/Metro lines serve part of it, and they're building another line along its northern boundary right now.

nor is our most urban in Old Strath.

I do agree with you that the Whyte Ave area needed mass transit decades ago, let alone now.

 

[IanO]

^i'd bet that that station has the lowest usage of any station in the modern world and while it's infra-ahead-of-people and somewhat was required, it goes against everything foundational about mass transit.

walk
bus
rapid bus
LRT
Heavy rail

 

[Blizzard]

Do you have a source for ridership at "that station"? Because my data shows that in September 2024 "that station" had higher ridership than McKernan/Belgravia and Gov't Centre, and was on par with Stadium.

 

[Agard]

We are literally the only city in the world building high capacity transit in the middle of a field

There was this other city in America called New York that tried the same thing. They were building this new place called "Queens" I think. Not sure if it ever worked out for them