I still think this has a huge gap that a 87ave bridge has to fill. Too radial and focused on downtown without a E/W connection that misses downtown.
Your logic is bang on, but the political reality is, it's never going to happen (unless it's tunnelled all the way under the river).
All these ideas neglect far east Mill Woods and north-central east Edmonton.
A crosstown BRT/LRT along 23ave is probably the best solution for east millwoods. Challenge is that the closer you get to industrial, the less efficient your capture area.
153ave crosstown is probably the north side option as well.
Lewis Farms to Heritage Valley along the SW Henday could probably use some sort of bus service too if you had all those LRT lines. Connect Lewis Farms, Hamptons, Windemere, Heritage Valley, 50st/Walker.
A few points in this:
I only talked about my vision for high-floor, fully grade separated lines (with the exception of the Valley Line). This means that I'd have the current at grade crossings for the Capital and Metro lines would all be eliminated.
There are also a few extra tweaks that I would love to make on top of those, as well, such:
- A spur of the capital line that diverged at the Stadium station and went all the way down to the Highlands, on 112 Ave, possibly going underground east of Borden Park/Wayne Gretzky Drive/Concordia and continuing underground to Abbostsfield, with a stop on Lawton School/Aflah (116 ave) and one at Abbotsfield Rec Centre.
These could start as a BRT with dedicated lanes and proper stations, and then potentially develop into LRT as the city grows and densifies. For lack of creativity, I'd name these lines after the seasons of the year:
- an E-W low-floor line through 23ave, from Tamarack/The Meadows (Meadows Rec Centre) to Terwilegar Park. That would intersect with 4 different lines (Metro, Valley, Festival and Energy). Spring line.
- an E-W low-floor through 137 ave from Clareview to St Albert Tr, with the possibility of extending further west, that would intersect 3 lines (Capital, Metro and Festival). Summer Line.
- an E-W Low floor line through 153 ave, from Manning TC through to Castle Downs. That would would intersect 3 lines (Capital, Metro and Festival). Autumn Line.
- a N-S low-floor line down Manning drive and then 50th street, all the way from Manning TC, crossing the river in the Highlands through to Capilano and then going down to Millwoods TC. This line would intersect 5 other lines (Spring, Summer, Capital at two different points, Energy and Valley). Winter line.
One nice thing about these is that it would bring the last non-connected major destinations in the city into the rail network (Londonderry Mall and Concordia University).
All large Rec/Fitness Centres would be directly connected to rail or within a 15 min walk (and those few that are not directly connected, a frequent shuttle could be used).
All EPL branches would be either directly connected or within a 10min walk from an LRT station.
All major destinations in Edmonton would be directly connected to the LRT: Downtown (and everything there), Fort Edmonton Park, Muttart Conservatory, Expo, River Cree, Whyte Ave/Old Strathcona, Commonwealth Stadium, TELUS World of Science, Aviation Museum, as well as a significant amount of major parks (the main exception being Hawrelak).
An 87 ave crossing would be nice, but out of all the unrealistic things we have here, it feels like the most unrealistic. I also do not think it would be as needed, with all of these lines connecting to each other, and with the lines running down White Ave and west side being fully grade separated (mostly underground) it wouldn't be too much of an issue in terms of time, as these trains could run relatively fast.
I'd also add free park and rides at some stations: Manning, Tamarack, Edgemont, Lewis Farms and Castle Downs (97 St and 153 Ave).
Some other general infrastructure improvements that would happen with having all of these lines (9 in total) are:
Whyte Ave road diet, with wider sidewalks (which would also help accommodate nice underground entrances), only one traffic lane each way, no turning lanes, tree median (and on the sidewalks) and bike lanes.
Jasper Ave road diet, with two lanes of traffic each way, and no turning lanes(no left turns allowed except at 97 st and 109 st) that would be replaced by wider sidewalks.
124 St road diet, only one lane of traffic each way, no turning lanes, wider sidewalks, more trees.
Replacing all bus shelters for bigger, more modern and climatized ones.
Adding free, stable wi-fi on all trains, buses, stations and bus stops, meaning no connection "black holes" throughout the whole network. This is something that could incentivize ridership and is a quality of life improvement that I believe would be much appreciated.
Conversion of 75 st and 170 st to freeways, between Yellowhead and Whitemud, to complete a proper inner ring that would also help moving buses.
Conversion of Manning Dr to freeway.
Conversion of Terwillegar Dr to Freeway
Overpasses on St Albert Tr at 137 ave and Campbell Rd.
As counterintuitive as these freeway conversions might sound, doesn't matter how good we make transit, we'd always need to move cars, trucks and buses efficiently as well. It also could help placate the "war on cars" claims by giving some attention to drivers too.
Of course, another benefit is that lots of bus routes could be eliminated by the city with all of these lines, which would free up buses and the network could be restructured to have more, and shorter, lines that would feed into the lines, making transit faster, more reliable and more accessible.
Because this forum is Citynerdland I did some rough math, and with these lines, operating at their highest capacity and frequency, and the current number of buses ETS owns, this transit system would have the staggering capacity of anywhere between 3 and 5 million passengers/day (rail being responsible for roughly half of that). For comparison effects, the Paris metropolitan area moves around 4.5M passengers/day. At lower frequencies/capacity, it would still be a healthy 1.5 to 2.5 million passengers per day.
A roughly estimated cost of building all of this, at current prices, based on recent similar construction, would come just short of 30 billion dollars (20Bn USD), which is surprisingly much lower than I would've expected.
