Habibfazil
Active Member
why, has the city cut the line back from the original agreement?
- Thread starter Daveography
- Start date
Habibfazil
Active Member
Thanks for the readers digest on this one, lots of blood on lots of hands on this one...
yeggator
Senior Member
I doubt that would happen. The Capital Line did go over budget , yes, but by around $200 million, with the city covering the shortfall. Moreover, the scope of the project didn’t change.
The Green Line not only went way over-budget, but massively decreased in scope, to the point of not serving the ridings in southeast Calgary that voted UCP. More than the cost overruns, the whittling-down of the initial operating segment incurred the wrath of the province and killed the project.
HappyJazzz
Active Member
It's unreal how far off the rails that project went... It's like Calgary saw the California HSR gong show and said "hold my beer"!
If they had built the SE busway that was originally proposed it would have been in service ages ago..
Something needs to be done to keep politicians from meddling in large scale plans like that. A good transit network shouldn't be getting compromised by vote buying.
mBertan
New Member
Former mayor’s perspective:
Barnaby
Senior Member
I do not disagree with a thing he said. But the design of the tunnels to work with LRVs was idiotic from the start. If you're spending this much on a necessary tunnel, you better have the capacity potential of high floor trains, like Edmonton's subway does.
Out of Towner
Active Member
Not a bad deflection of any responsibility by Nenshi, but to begin with, does the CP mainline still need to be hauling freight through the middle of downtown Calgary? Doesn't Nenshi admit that the stumbling block to a cheaper surface line is the CP mainline? Using some of CP's right of way for the green line pretty much ensures that freight trains are going to be rumbling through downtown Calgary for years to come. If Nenshi is the smartest guy in every room then why didn't he work with with CP on a plan to move their mainline to an industrial area of the city and then there wouldn't be the need to spend hundreds and hundreds of millions tunneling underground. Kill two birds with one stone. Move the mainline out of downtown and save money on a surface line. Unfortunately that comes back to bite Nenshi because under his watch a pile of money was spent on an underpass beneath the CP main line on 4th street. So it all comes back to not having a clear plan forward from the very beginning.
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Habibfazil
Active Member
Oh 100% deflection for sure, and a convenient way to slag the UCP while he was at it.
The bus way would have b een done, but the added costs in labour and busses would be brutal. Rerouting the CPR (the yards too?), nice theory, but they are tough to deal with, and it wouldn't be cheap...
J_gordo
Active Member
Temporary supports being erected for the west section of the guideway.
Side note, this is a valley line west thread, not a green line / political thread. Where are the mods ?
mBertan
New Member
Nah, it's because Nenshi's not the smartest guy in the room, Obviously /s
Out of Towner
Active Member
I'm not up on the historical background on how CN's mainline was relocated but it has to be regarded as a huge success for the city and for CN. 104 is now an important urban corridor and with space becoming a growing issue at the port of Vancouver, CN has the opportunity to unload more containers in its yard rather than having freight loaded and trucked from Vancouver.
Habibfazil
Active Member
also a missed golden opportunity to run lrt or a brt down 97th, across the yards across the high level on one branch down the former CPR, another branch further west and one more out to st albert all with a terminal at the old CN Tower station...
Habibfazil
Active Member
well that too, but I recall the CPR vs City of Edmonton for use of the High Level for the LRT, that eventually resulted in that LRT bridge to the UofA
yeggator
Senior Member
Okay, but where would you move the freight rail alignment? The Bow Valley is the only way out of Calgary that climbs at a small enough grade for freight trains. And once you’ve gone just east of Crowchild where it crosses the river, how would you re-route it without ploughing through the inner city?
EdwardEdm
Active Member
I don't think I would call it a mainline. I meant to respond to another posting where someone called the CN line into Downtown Edmonton something like a "heavy freight line". It wasn't. As much as I would LOVE to learn more about the history of the actual operations into and out of City Yard, my impression was that by the 1960's it was there to interchange with CP and serve local industries. Of course, over the years all of that industry retracted and so did the need for City Yard. It certainly wasn't being used to build 50+ car trains that would run across the county like Walker does, and just became redundant. This is unlike in other cities where governments would work with the railways to relocate railway yards out of the center of the city. Saskatoon comes to mind.
While I'm not sure how the railways developed in other cities, Edmonton was lucky enough to have both the GTP and Canadian Northern come through, with the Canadian Northern coming into Edmonton and building their yard Downtown, while the GTP stayed further north and built their yard in Calder, but they built a line into Downtown Edmonton because of course they didn't want to not have access to middle of the City like CNor and CP had. GTP and CNor having financial difficulties would be taken over by the Federal Government and become Canadian National. And that was how we ended up with space for the LRT in between the originally competing GTP and CNor tracks, and also how we ended up with CN having the two yards which meant Edmonton didn't really need to convince CN to move out of Downtown.