I always thought this was the place to run the LRT and I say that as someone who grew up a stone's throw from the future Castle Downs stop.
When you want to build high capacity transit, look to where the buses are already running and build there (in this case, 97th St.).
But that debate is over and I don't see the city building two bridges when we can't get one funded (yet)
The best metro systems in the world have a bit of redundancy built into them because, realistically, most cities are not just one linear stretch where everything of note is a stone’s throw from one street.
I think having a line go down West Jasper, up 124th, then 127th, to 137 Ave, then over to St Albert Trail would be good for servicing that part of the NW. Then a second line (or maybe they meet up in the downtown tunnel and become a U-line, like Line 1 in Toronto?) down 97 St, branching off from under the CN Tower where it would remain tunnelled until 111 Ave. The west leg would similarly be tunnelled until 124 St/109 Ave.
This overall gets people far more places they’re likely to go in a fast, non-meandering way, and meets more people where they live, while also connecting to places with high redevelopment potential (Skyview, 97 St in general, West Jasper). It meets up with walkable neighbourhoods like McCauley and Alberta Ave. It goes through the main part of Calder, even, not to mention Inglewood and Westmount.
The problem with the current Metro Line is it snakes along this tiny spur and doesn’t connect well to the major destinations on the line. The new NAIT station is further from campus than the old, the Kingsway station is a mess to anyone actually trying to do some shopping. Instead of meeting people where they already live, the train has been built out to nowhere, with stations ready to go that aren’t in use due to where they’re located.
The city is building on the anticipation of demand, not meeting existing demand and building off of that. And then once it goes past the Yellowhead it skirts the edges of communities like Calder and Griesbach, away from the main cores of these neighbourhoods, and then passes down 153rd ave, which has low density tract housing built on inefficient road layouts that will not have the potential of having rapid transit down 137 ave.
The only issue with my proposed alternate (aside from the fact that it’ll never happen) is that it doesn’t connect to Kingsway, NAIT, or Blatchford. This could be alleviated by another LRT spur or BRT. I also don’t mind the idea of the existing line branching off down 97 St. More realistic than nuking the existing Metro Line and starting from scratch. McCauley could be served by a 95 St infill station.
