yeggator said:
The dismissal of 97th Street as a potential corridor for the Metro Line is ridiculous. I can’t believe the city planners were so insistent on prioritizing the link between St. Albert to NAIT that they completely neglect the massive ridership potential on 97th Street (actually, it should make sense considering where a lot of these city managers might live).

For a 1.3 km “out-of-direction” travel distance along Yellowhead Trail:
- you could put the 132nd Ave station next to TWO high schools - whose students are more likely to take cross-city train trips - instead of an elementary school
- the 137th Ave station would be next to Northgate Mall, the transit centre, and the actual commercial and high-density residential centre of Griesbach instead of being surrounded by mostly single-family homes
- you could add a stop near the Eaux Claires transit centre (and relocate it)
- the trains wouldn’t have to go around that at-grade 90-degree turn pulling into Castle Downs
- the span across the rail yards would only be 80 meters
- so much of the bus network would feed into the LRT instead of needing a BRT to run parallel service a mile east of the LRT
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the st albert curse strikes again. Why should we burden the cost to service a suburb not paying taxes to ETS? Arguably the SW line ideas from south campus to windemere and south are a better spend of edmonton taxpayer's $
 
I think the green line up 113 St., and all the way down 137 Ave. is best because neighbourhoods are more porous and welcoming to pedestrians. I would never buid an LRT station along 153 Ave. Those kind of neighbourhoods are facing away from the street making it difficult to walk anywhere conveniently. They give off the 'gated' community effect and would have to be redesigned extensively in order to make the LRT station work as intended.
 
yeggator said:
Now that the city might be mulling a realignment of the route, can we convince them to do this?

www.google.com

Alternate Route for Metro Line Extension - Google My Maps

Forgoes a giant bridge over Walker Rail Yard.
www.google.com www.google.com
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The more I think about this, the more I like your idea.

The 127 St realignment is doable, although to get there it would have to cut thru the northern end of Blatchford and the Yellowhead freeway project. It would then tunnel under the VIA Rail tracks, although an LRT stop at the VIA Rail terminal would be sweet. This realignment can plow thru the impound lot, cross the Yellowhead at 124 St, head west thru an industrial wasteland until it reaches 127 St, and then cross the CN Rail tracks using the existing tunnel. This continues along the middle of 127 St until it reaches 153 Ave.
 
I think this Metro alignment might work better. 97 Street is probably a better location for residential development. The line could connect with Northgate, Castle Downs and Maki Transit Centres. The B1 could go to Eaux Claires Transit Centre instead.
 
I can easily see an elevated track along 97th Street down the center of the roadway. Once we get to somewhere where it is quieter than definitely the train can go back to grade level and in some cases for stations could also go below grade as I believe it was once proposed for the castledowns station.
 
IMG_1641.jpeg


😢

Hopefully not true.
 
I don't think the city's going to not invest in an LRT line for a decade, but judging on provincial (and now federal) moves and business-oriented mindsets, it's going to be a link to the airport rather than the NW extension. We're not gonna say no if there's provincial and federal infrastructure grants on the table.
 
yeggator said:
Now that the city might be mulling a realignment of the route, can we convince them to do this?
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Personally, the 97th street option would have made the most sense, but I believe there's a new-ish sanitary trunk line that runs from Beaumaris to Ft Road on 153 Ave that would cause issues for construction? I also think the west side of Griesbach is now way more densely developed to accommodate LRT than the east. West side seems more TOD oriented along Castledowns road. Plus by the time this gets built there will be 2 High Schools at Castledowns (new Catholic + new EPSB (in planning)).

I agree with some of the sentiment above though, simplify the bridge, get it built. I'd assume CN (and the CN Police) would probably object to the shared use path on the bridge with our history of e-scooter usage lol.
 
Kosy123 said:
I don't think the city's going to not invest in an LRT line for a decade, but judging on provincial (and now federal) moves and business-oriented mindsets, it's going to be a link to the airport rather than the NW extension. We're not gonna say no if there's provincial and federal infrastructure grants on the table.
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This is my instinct as well. I suspect that we will see LRT or heavy rail to the airport before LRT is expanded to the NW (if ever). I also anticipate the 2 BRT routes will be funded, meaning that the political inpetus to build rapid transit to the NW will be met.
 
Tropical said:
This is my instinct as well. I suspect that we will see LRT or heavy rail to the airport before LRT is expanded to the NW (if ever). I also anticipate the 2 BRT routes will be funded, meaning that the political inpetus to build rapid transit to the NW will be met.
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It's probably going to be an LRT link. If we're balking at the financial cost of the Yellowhead Bridge, there's probably similar feelings over another bridge over the North Sask and a heavy rail component. LRT line goes through flat easy terrain past Century Park anyway and shouldn't cost billions.

Seems like an easy win for all parties (municipal focus on economic development, provincial priorities and the Feds), well except for NW Edmonton.
 
Kosy123 said:
It's probably going to be an LRT link. If we're balking at the financial cost of the Yellowhead Bridge, there's probably similar feelings over another bridge over the North Sask and a heavy rail component. LRT line goes through flat easy terrain past Century Park anyway and shouldn't cost billions.

Seems like an easy win for all parties (municipal focus on economic development, provincial priorities and the Feds), well except for NW Edmonton.
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Yes - except the balking at the financial cost is coming from the municipality. The drive to connect the airport by rail is coming from the province - which means LRT or high rail are in play based on their own decision making. The Green Line in Calgary has taught us that they will decide what is best for us, rather than consulting the City on its priorities.
 
Tropical said:
This is my instinct as well. I suspect that we will see LRT or heavy rail to the airport before LRT is expanded to the NW (if ever). I also anticipate the 2 BRT routes will be funded, meaning that the political inpetus to build rapid transit to the NW will be met.
Click to expand...

I would say it depends. If the federal government makes a pile of cash available for LRT projects and oil prices stay high (meaning the province could match), then I wouldn't rule it out. The UCP isn't a big fan of LRT, generally speaking, but it gets harder to say no when you have to walk away from a lot of federal money.
 
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