EdwardEdm said:
TransEd apparently had some technical issues today. Got to Davies to find nothing running, message signs noting a service delay, and a few PA announcements being made. Took the 73 instead. I only ride the Valley Line occasionally, but, this is now the 3rd delay I've encountered in the last month. 1 was a car hitting a train at Whitemud Drive, the other two times have been unknown reasons.
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Your experience highlights something that bugged me quite a bit recently (including on the high-floor lines). I find ETS communications are not nearly what they should be. To me, the gold standard is if there's a delay, either the driver or a person in the control centre, comes on the speakers in trains and stations and explains what's happening and how long the delay might be. ETS fell far short of that standard several times in my recent trips.
 
I thought this was a very fascinating profile on Japan's newest LRT project in decades and really reminded me of the Valley Line. I thought it was interesting for a few points.

  • Despite Japan's penchant for discipline and order, at grade, road intersections were still problematic with at least 4 vehicle accidents since it opened
  • It was conceptualized as a reaction of the suburbanization of its urban core and built connecting multiple nodes within the city, which seems similar to Edmonton's transit planning.
One thing we have going for us is that ours doesn't have a speed limit whereas, in Japan, the current streetcar regulations throttle the operation at 40kpm/h! I can only imagine how slow it is to go from one end to the other.

 
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thommyjo said:
Hard to tell if we are “on schedule”. What was the anticipated % completion for this date? I feel like they’ve purposefully been vague with this one for dates, which is a bit annoying. I get why, but it feels like bad accountability.
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I blame TransEd for that. It is vague, and I was going to comment that this was the metric they used on the VLSE to communicate completion, but, it was only for part of the time.
Up until Q1 2020 the VLSE quarterly reports used "Cumulative Schedule Performance" as the metric, which was a grim 66% at the time, and had been falling since the start, and in particular from Q3 2017 to Q4 2017 when it went from 95% to 80%.
In Q2 2020 they moved to "Construction Progress", which was 72.5% for Q2 2020. They've been using the Construction Progress method ever since. I suspect it was to try to make the numbers look nicer, as the schedule performance would have probably kept decreasing, given the project was nearly 3 years late. Indeed, I guess at some point the Schedule Performance metric would have been useless, at which point the Construction Progress metric is actually more informative. Certainly earlier on in a project this big the Schedule Performance is much more useful metric, however.
 
globalnews.ca

City of Edmonton gives end-of-season construction update - Edmonton | Globalnews.ca

In 2023, the City of Edmonton worked on more than 200 projects worth around $1 billion.
globalnews.ca globalnews.ca

“We never jeopardize budget, so we make sure we do everything we can to stay on budget and if something is going to give, it’s going to be schedule,” said Adam Laughlin, the city’s deputy city manager of integrated infrastructure services.

Inflation and supply shocks have hit Marigold as hard as anywhere else, yet they're still tracking to be on budget so it should be pretty obvious.
 
IMG_6636.jpeg

First panelling on lewis farms OMF
 
MacLac said:
So the Churchill station for the VLSE is that rampant with pigeons and associated pigeon crap? Already?
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I was there yesterday and it really is an issue — the pigeon poop is everywhere. Not to mention the broken doors, garbage and drug use in the shelters.

But I do see cleanups every week. It’s more that the problem is just much bigger than our efforts. My solution would be to remove the doors entirely (they’re just getting destroyed by vagrants), and fix the pigeon issue with deterrents asap.
 
This is a location with a very high probability of pigeon nesting/roosting/chillin' and that these stations have been there for what, 2yrs and this is still not responded to is simply unacceptable.

It's a brand new system and looks like shit at our main/premier above grade system.

There were layers upon layers of shit, with most benches, lean-toos and main posts absolutely disgusting.

Once again, little care or accountability it seems.
 
IanO said:
This is a location with a very high probability of pigeon nesting/roosting/chillin' and that these stations have been there for what, 2yrs and this is still not responded to is simply unacceptable.

It's a brand new system and looks like shit at our main/premier above grade system.

There were layers upon layers of shit, with most benches, lean-toos and main posts absolutely disgusting.

Once again, little care or accountability it seems.
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Looking at other stations in other cities one would assume that spikes would be built into the design.
 
IanO said:
This is a location with a very high probability of pigeon nesting/roosting/chillin' and that these stations have been there for what, 2yrs and this is still not responded to is simply unacceptable.

It's a brand new system and looks like shit at our main/premier above grade system.

There were layers upon layers of shit, with most benches, lean-toos and main posts absolutely disgusting.

Once again, little care or accountability it seems.
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Anyone have pictures of this? Trying to picture where the problem is in my head.
 
My phone's camera didn't have enough black powder to run it or I would have taken a few.

The worst areas are under the glazing along and down the large vertical steel sections. Sadly, it drops onto the benches and those 'lean-toos' and so nothing was usable when we were there.

Google maps to show where, but if anyone goes by please take a shot.
Screenshot 2023-12-29 at 11.47.40 AM.png
 
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