I'm still waiting for Valley Line SE lights to be normalized. The light at 85 St / 95 Ave remains red in both directions a full minute or more after the train passes. It had pulled into the Holyrood stop today before the light changed.
 
I'll drive on 104 Ave if I need to get to the Brewery District (Loblaws, TD Bank, Alberta Precision Laboratories) or to Unity Square (London Drugs, Second Cup, Ace Liquor). But I always have to wait a few minutes to turn onto 104 Ave. Once I'm finished at Brewery District or Unity Square, I'll drive down to Jasper Ave instead of 104 Ave.
 
"In a statement to CTV News Edmonton, city officials said the intersections along 104 Avenue – between 105 Street and 121 Street – are currently operated by Marigold Infrastructure Partners, the company hired to build the Valley Line West LRT.

“Achieving optimal traffic flow during construction is difficult due to lane and speed reductions and the fact that the permanent infrastructure required to optimize consecutive signals hasn’t been installed yet,” Valley Line West LRT project director Brian Latte said in a statement on Tuesday.

"Latte continues in his statement to say the traffic lights are “operating on a fixed cycle to allow safe movement for both pedestrians and vehicles” during LRT construction.

"Once the Valley Line West LRT is complete and permanent traffic infrastructure is in place, “detection loops” and pedestrian triggers will be added to help reduce wait times at the intersections."

www.ctvnews.ca

Traffic lights around Valley Line West construction still being optimized: Edmonton officials

The City of Edmonton has responded to drivers frustrated with the downtown commute along 104th Avenue.
www.ctvnews.ca www.ctvnews.ca
 
I think it is fair to say that installing LRT down the middle of a 4 lane road was maybe a mistake, especially downtown, where you have a lot of pedestrian traffic. The time it takes to cross 104 AV is quite long, especially if you are not a quick walker. Now lights all have to be timed to allow for pedestrian movements. It would be a mistake to make all intersections have pedestrian movements only by beg button, especially in Downtown, but now the light cycles are all so long. I wonder if signals could be in phases to cross 104, and each intersection has a pedestrian refuge in the middle, so that crossing the southbound and northbound lanes can be split up. You see this in London at some of their busy crossings.
 
TagYEG said:
I think it is fair to say that installing LRT down the middle of a 4 lane road was maybe a mistake, especially downtown, where you have a lot of pedestrian traffic. The time it takes to cross 104 AV is quite long, especially if you are not a quick walker. Now lights all have to be timed to allow for pedestrian movements. It would be a mistake to make all intersections have pedestrian movements only by beg button, especially in Downtown, but now the light cycles are all so long. I wonder if signals could be in phases to cross 104, and each intersection has a pedestrian refuge in the middle, so that crossing the southbound and northbound lanes can be split up. You see this in London at some of their busy crossings.
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I think it's only a mistake if you think of it in terms of vehicular traffic. Anyone expecting 104 ave to be as fast flowing as it was before the LRT is deluded, as it was always very clear that the LRT being there was going to make it slower, and part of it is having longer traffic light cycles to allow for increased pedestrian movement.
Nevertheless, most intersections actually have pedestrian refuge because of the staggered design of the LRT stops, so crossing can be done in 2, or even 3 stages, at points.
 
ChazYEG said:
I think it's only a mistake if you think of it in terms of vehicular traffic. Anyone expecting 104 ave to be as fast flowing as it was before the LRT is deluded, as it was always very clear that the LRT being there was going to make it slower, and part of it is having longer traffic light cycles to allow for increased pedestrian movement.
Nevertheless, most intersections actually have pedestrian refuge because of the staggered design of the LRT stops, so crossing can be done in 2, or even 3 stages, at points.
Click to expand...
There are refuges for some of the pedestrian crossings, specifically at stations, but not necessarily elsewhere. There are also not separate pedestrian signals for moving from one half of the road and into a refuge. This would allow pedestrians to move across a portion of the road in a staged manner, for instance, while a vehicle advanced left turn is happening across one part of the road, the other half could include a pedestrian phase to get into the refuge. This should have been done on 111 ST south of 61 AV, as the train has priority at signals, which makes it quite frustrating to cross the line during peak hours.
 
Am I crazy for thinking better results could also be had in certain areas by routing ROWs along one side of arterials vs in the middle of them?

If VLW was aligned on the north side of 104 ave, then access to stations from Brewery District and MacEwan wouldn't require waiting to cross half of 104. It also would allow for easier left turn access off 104 going south into Wihkwentowin. It would also shorten the distance required to cross 104 ave in its entirely, esp if you had a refuge between the ROW and roadway. And at least in my mind, it could also shorten overall light cycles by not requiring a light cycle for each side crossing 104 ave to either go straight or turn left and could instead be just simply green light for each side since again, the intersection isn't as wide and the left turns aren't so awkward to make.

University Ave crossing aside, it's like how much less the LRT impedes 114th vs 111th. Way shorter light cycles, easier left turn access, and the pedestrian crossings over 114th only require crossing the roadway vs the roadway + ROW.
 
Personally I don't mind it being in the middle, because when you have the refuge in the middle you only have to cross one direction of traffic at a time which makes it quite easy to just cross against the light. I do it all the time on 111st and people will probably end up doing it here as well.

Not that we should be designing a roadway around people crossing illegally..
 
ChazYEG said:
I think it's only a mistake if you think of it in terms of vehicular traffic. Anyone expecting 104 ave to be as fast flowing as it was before the LRT is deluded, as it was always very clear that the LRT being there was going to make it slower, and part of it is having longer traffic light cycles to allow for increased pedestrian movement.
Nevertheless, most intersections actually have pedestrian refuge because of the staggered design of the LRT stops, so crossing can be done in 2, or even 3 stages, at points.
Click to expand...
Part of the problem is the LRT actually isn't really there yet, so we seem to have a confusing combination of delays and changes due to construction and signal changes that perhaps should have not been done until it was running.
 
And one way or the other the tracks down the middle of 104 th Avenue is a done deal. I think the only real thing that the city has to figure out is for future LRT, do we build LRT to move people quickly and efficiently with very little interaction with the roadway like a lot of the capital line is, or do we build more trams through the city that does interact with roads and can tend to be slower to a certain degree and can potentially slow traffic a bit more due to its design?
 
It should have been elevated over the entirety of 104th. And please spare me the tired arguments about the 'urban realm' or costs. Elevated over 104th (especially at what will forever now be the gong show at 109 st) would have looked quite urban. It seems to work in Vancouver. As for costs - when it comes to generational infrastructure like this, it's ALWAYS better to spend up front, rather than trying to fix it later on.
 
whattheheck said:
It should have been elevated over the entirety of 104th. And please spare me the tired arguments about the 'urban realm' or costs. Elevated over 104th (especially at what will forever now be the gong show at 109 st) would have looked quite urban. It seems to work in Vancouver. As for costs - when it comes to generational infrastructure like this, it's ALWAYS better to spend up front, rather than trying to fix it later on.
Click to expand...
The only real benefit for elevating it over 104 Ave would be to private vehicles, in an area of the city where the goal has been very overtly to reduce car dependency. God forbid they don't have the priority over every other transportation mode...
Not to mention that "looking urban" and being good for the urban realm are not the same thing. An elevated guideway through 104 Ave would have done nothing for walkability and would've probably made it even harder to spur residential development along that stretch by making it much less desirable.
 
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