So I emailed Councillor Rutherford advocating for the Metro Line to be extended to Castle Downs via 97th Street. Let's see if she'd be interested...
Dear Councillor Rutherford,
As a long-time Edmontonian of almost 22 out of 24 years, I have been eager to see the LRT network expand across the city, including to the northwest quadrant and beyond. However, the more I've contemplated the proposed alignment for the extension of the Metro Line, the more flaws it reveals in the face of a better option. Your recent calls to re-evaluate mass transit options to the Northwest (due to the ballooning costs to cross the Walker yards) spurred me to write to you to advocate for an LRT alignment to Castle Downs
via 97th Street. This route involves a simpler, cheaper crossing across the CN mainline, would be surrounded by better land use, provides coverage to a larger swathe of North Edmonton, and offers superior integration with the wider transit network.
The alignment would be as follows: going north from Blatchford Gate station, rather than heading north over the railyards, the line would swing east and run along a ~1.3 km elevated guideway in the median of Yellowhead Trail towards 97th Street, where it would curve north. It would cross the CN tracks at their narrowest point east of the roadway, on an 80-meter bridge. North of the tracks, the LRT would run along a 2 km elevated guideway and stop at above-ground stations at 132nd Ave and Northgate. It would then return to ground-level, stop at Griesbach and cross underneath 153rd Ave and the southbound lanes of 97th Street, reaching a station for the relocated Eaux Claires Transit Centre north of the avenue. Finally, the line would continue west at-grade to the Castle Downs terminus. You can take a closer look at the alignment
here.
The first major advantage to this route is the rail crossing. As you know, since CN won't allow any piers in the railyard, the current proposal requires a ~600 m cable-stayed bridge with massive towers rivalling downtown high-rises, and this is becoming infeasible to construct. By contrast, 80 meters is the length of a single span of the Dudley B. Menzies LRT bridge over the river. A conventional single-span beam bridge would fully clear the tracks at the 97th Street crossing and would cost peanuts to build versus the existing proposal. A fairly short underpass is another alternative.
Once across the railyards, the next major advantage of the 97th Street corridor over the 113a Street corridor is the land use. For starters, 97th Street is a much wider roadway in a commercial corridor with more space for the train, whereas south of 137th Ave, 113a Street is a tight residential street with homes directly fronting it and a dense tree canopy in some areas; significant disruptions to the neighbourhoods are required to fit high-floor LRT here. I also wish to highlight the superior ridership potential from putting future stations on 97th Street. The 132nd Ave Station, if located on 113a Street, would be next to a few 2-storey walk-up apartments, single-family homes and an elementary school, all offering limited ridership potential. While the 132nd Ave/97th Street intersection is currently surrounded by car dealerships and other low-density commercial uses, these present a prime opportunity for TOD around a future station here. Moreover, a station at this intersection is within walking distance of two high schools (Queen Elizabeth and O'Leary), enabling the LRT to capitalize off of ridership from older students with the independence to take longer commutes to school and cross-town trips to access jobs and recreation. A starker contrast between the land uses on 113a Street and 97th Street is at 137th Ave. The intersection with the former street is surrounded on 3 corners by a sea of single-family homes, with only the southwest corner of Griesbach having some density. Thus, the ridership potential for the proposed trenched station here is limited. On the other hand, the 137th Ave/97th Street intersection is surrounded on all corners with high-intensity commercial and residential developments that generate tons of trips for shopping, living, and employment: Northgate Mall, North Town Centre, Griesbach Village (which feels much more walkable than its counterpart a mile west), and the shopping centre, hotel and long-term care facility on the southwest corner. Compared to its counterpart on 113a Street, the 137th Ave/97th Street intersection yields much higher ridership potential, which justifies the added cost to grade-separate the station.
The 97th Street alignment also generates more ridership by bringing the LRT closer to more neighbourhoods in North Edmonton. I've attached two maps that divide North Edmonton into a grid of neighbourhoods that are within either ~1, 2 or 3 miles of the Metro Line Extension. The proposed Castle Downs Road alignment puts the Metro Line too far from the neighbourhoods between 66th Street and 82nd Street. It's particularly problematic north of 153rd Ave, where the neighbourhoods (ex. Crystallina Nera) are also poorly served by the Capital Line (both by the current Clareview terminus and future extension to Gorman). However, by routing the Metro Line along 97th Street, these neighbourhoods would also be within ~2 miles of the Metro Line, and together, the Metro and Capital lines would reach virtually all of North Edmonton.
Finally, a 97th Street LRT alignment provides much better integration with the overall transit network. By putting LRT stations at the Northgate and (relocated) Eaux Claires transit centres, the Metro Line will be able to capture tons of ridership from feeder and cross-town bus routes, allowing ETS to deploy the buses more efficiently. Furthermore, this alignment could render the northern portion of the proposed B1 BRT route unnecessary, which will save on long-term operating costs that would otherwise be required to run a high-capacity BRT route paralleling LRT on 113a Street. Additionally, the perception of LRT being faster and more reliable than BRT will also attract even more ridership. The original NW LRT study from 2009 identified 97th Street (a "premium transit corridor" that could warrant another north LRT line) and Northwest Edmonton as "distinct but overlapping travel markets." The Metro Line alignment I propose kills two birds with one stone, maximizing the efficiency of implementation of mass transit, ridership potential and the overall value of the extension.
I am aware that the original NW LRT study from 2009 ruled out the 97th Street corridor because the "out-of-direction" travel makes the route to St. Albert too indirect. However, that was 17 years ago, and with the whole project still stuck in purgatory, it's time to re-evaluate the options. I estimate that the additional travel time to St. Albert is around 5 minutes. For 5 extra minutes, we could build an extension of the Metro Line that doesn't require a bridge worth half its budget and which jeopardizes the whole extension. For 5 extra minutes, the Metro Line would reach major shopping, employment, educational and residential nodes and TOD opportunities that would significantly boost ridership and justify the massive investment. For 5 extra minutes, we could bring fast, high-capacity light rail transit to within a reasonable distance of all of North Edmonton. For 5 extra minutes, we could funnel a massive amount of ridership from the north-side bus network onto the LRT, allowing us to deploy our limited capacity of buses and drivers to where they're needed the most. I think those 5 minutes are worth it. I would like to thank you for taking the time to read this email, and I hope you will take my proposal into serious consideration and fiercely champion the mass transit corridor that Northwest Edmonton has been patiently waiting for.
Sincerely,
"yeggator" (not what I signed off with)
