Valley Line LRT | TransEd/Marigold | City of Edmonton

Having lived in Vancouver for over two decades and access to Skytrain, I've gathered my thoughts on how the two systems (high level vs low level) compare.

Our high level system is very similar to Skytrain, however Vancouver has been blessed with all the developments happening around stations by virtue of having no land to sprawl into, while Edmonton's outer stations are largely suburban wasteland surrounded by parking lots that serve the ever-expanding city boundaries. The Metro Line is better integrated into the urban landscape but it's a stub line that the City has been too afraid to take advantage of (feed the suburban express buses to NAIT/Blatchford, increase the frequency to 6 minutes).

Valley Line has done something our high-level system couldn't truly do, bring mass transit into the neighbourhoods where people actually live. For transit to be effective, it has to serve where people want to go, but it also has to serve where those same people live. In my mind it's time competitive with driving. I do agree with adding crossing arms south of Davies to increase system speed but in terms of safety, most of the collisions happened in the first month of testing and Edmonton drivers to their credit have quickly adapted.

Now my analysis of Vancouver. Translink runs a tight ship, they've been very good at getting commuters and students to where they need to get to very quickly. They've thrown all their eggs in Skytrain and it's good to see it reaching far out places, and they're also throwing eggs into Bus Rapid Transit, but their refusal to entertain any sort of light rail transit has been frustrating. I really thought their Stanley Park to Granville Island and Davie streetcar would've been a huge success and light rail from Guildford to Whalley to Newton would've supplemented Skytrain to Langley quite nicely but they won't look at it. Translink operates like a business and is ok with people walking up to 1.6 km to transit. It's not community-oriented transit and car dependency will remain high in Metro Vancouver because of it. They (EDIT: a private developer) dug an 11-storey underground parkade adjacent to Gilmore Station, a marvelous feat of engineering sure but why?

Edmonton Transit has their issues too, but their new initiatives like Valley Line and On Demand Transit is far from it.
 
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daka_x said:
Holy moly. OK, I'm just going to chime in as an out-of-towner but good grief, I cannot believe how disappointed I am with the discussion taking place here. .

…

Yes, this is a threat.

There are plenty of other cities in Canada in transit crisis (including mine) that need infrastructure money now.
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Started pretty weak, crashed and burned at the end. I’m not going to dignify this with a real, thorough response, but I’ll tell you that Edmonton is not Vancouver. The skytrain service, design, and priorities are superb for a place like Vancouver, but they just don’t make sense here. I don’t want the collective response to what you said make people weary of non-Edmontonians discussing transit on here, but they should take inspiration from people like RM Transit who are excellent at doing what you’re attempting and failing to do, which is assess transit in a city from an outside perspective. Now please, go dream about having skytrain to UBC
 
Seamusmuldrew said:
Started pretty weak, crashed and burned at the end. I’m not going to dignify this with a real, thorough response, but I’ll tell you that Edmonton is not Vancouver. The skytrain service, design, and priorities are superb for a place like Vancouver, but they just don’t make sense here. I don’t want the collective response to what you said make people weary of non-Edmontonians discussing transit on here, but they should take inspiration from people like RM Transit who are excellent at doing what you’re attempting and failing to do, which is assess transit in a city from an outside perspective. Now please, go dream about having skytrain to UBC
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Don't feed the guy that is apparently "threatening us?" Not sure what he's talking about.....can this guy be deleted?
 
As a reminder for the Vancouver comparisons, everything south of 23rd ave in Edmonton is basically not Vancouver anymore. It’s Richmond, tricities, Burnaby, new west.

It’s 25 minutes from Richmond to downtown Van.
It’s 45 minutes to bus from downtown van to Burnaby and Richmond areas, our equivalent to windemere, summerside, secord.

Our transit times aren’t far off city wide. It’s mostly just the frequency and coverage in our central areas that majorly lack vs a city like Van. Our inner ring road area of mature neighborhoods need 5-10min frequencies and better coverage imo, which would get us close to on par with Vancouver for quality. They just have 4x our density still in central areas.

So MWTC to downtown in 30 is not much different than skytrain. Handful of minutes of difference at most.
 
daka_x said:
This is about maximizing your billion+ dollar investment, and personally, I would be happy to write to ministers (and organize others to do the same) about withholding future transit funding from Edmonton projects if this is the way you're going to continue planning them.

Yes, this is a threat.

There are plenty of other cities in Canada in transit crisis (including mine) that need infrastructure money now.
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First off, We just added 30 thousand people to the city we need transit badly to accommodate this growth. I wouldn't advocate the same for Toronto or Vancouver, we're either all Canadians or we're not and each city has unique needs and designs that work differently.

Now on the design itself, I think that if we look at this as a train that shuttles people to downtown and back like the capital line, it isn't the right design. But it's a light rail designed to connect multiple points of interest for suburban communities. I think with work from home being so prevalent you need less a office commuter shuttle but one that takes you to shopping centres, schools, hospitals, and restaurant districts in and outside your neighborhood.

The Valley Line is a light rail designed to connect areas of interest and allow for gentle TOD around stations. It's not Vancouver SkyTrain, but it doesn't have to be.
 
For me, the Valley Line is a kind of hybrid type of rail system -- with tradeoffs and pros and cons of both. But if it works for people, it works. Just because something is different, doesn't necessarily mean it's bad. Every city has unique variables and conditions. Edmonton is not Vancouver, or Toronto, or Paris, or London. And that's okay. A made-in-Edmonton system that works for us is still a success -- and we can still push for better design, quality and accountability.
 
Friendmonton said:
For me, the Valley Line is a kind of hybrid type of rail system -- with tradeoffs and pros and cons of both. But if it works for people, it works. Just because something is different, doesn't necessarily mean it's bad. Every city has unique variables and conditions. Edmonton is not Vancouver, or Toronto, or Paris, or London. And that's okay. A made-in-Edmonton system that works for us is still a success -- and we can still push for better design, quality and accountability.
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Edmonton may not be Paris, but the Valley Line is a Paris(esque) system.

Comparison of Skytrain to LRT of any form is flawed from the start. A heavy rail system is designed to rail standards and is best used as a regional system IMO.

I live near, and am loving, the new system. I have absolutely no complaints.

Toronto’s tearing down of its transit city plans remains one of public transit’s biggest losses.
 
dkazzed said:
Valley Line has done something our high-level system couldn't truly do, bring mass transit into the neighbourhoods where people actually live.
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This inspired me to plot the Valley Line against a map of population density. Avoiding Connor's Road (Red) was definitely a big mistake. The chosen alignment (Green) bypasses the high density French Quarter, is way slower and adds a gnarly 90 degree turn that cuts down the lifespan of the track very substantially.
1700721798705.png
 
soupcrate said:
This inspired me to plot the Valley Line against a map of population density. Avoiding Connor's Road (Red) was definitely a big mistake. The chosen alignment (Green) bypasses the high density French Quarter, is way slower and adds a gnarly 90 degree turn that cuts down the lifespan of the track very substantially.
View attachment 522388
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Wouldn’t part of the consideration be the 10min radius? How many households can they serve within 10min walk of a station.

Not saying that fixes all the problems with speed and such, but staying on connors, the density to the west won’t improve a ton beyond the mall redevelopment and the ravine is a big boundary.

Whereas the redevelopment potential to the east is higher and the current alignment allowed a lot more homes to be within walking distance. Holyrood would barely be served with the other alignment. And ottwell, forest heights, etc would be forgotten.
 
I wonder if there was a reason? The red alignment would've cut costs and travel time a little. They could have still had two stop, Holyrood to the southeast then a combined French Quarter/Strathearn to the northwest. Was there pushback from residents? More potential for TOD along the green alignment?
 
Edmonton is going to have to get used to Vancouverites and many others starting to comment on Edmonton-related stuff like transit. It's just part of growing up and becoming a major city. If the current population growth rate holds we might even end up as a bigger city than metro Vancouver (and lots of other places).
 
soupcrate said:
This inspired me to plot the Valley Line against a map of population density. Avoiding Connor's Road (Red) was definitely a big mistake. The chosen alignment (Green) bypasses the high density French Quarter, is way slower and adds a gnarly 90 degree turn that cuts down the lifespan of the track very substantially.
View attachment 522388
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I live in bonnie Doon, Strathern station is my closest station, the alignment doesn't “ignore” me.

Your chart doesnt take into consideration the development opportunities nor the 2000 living units that are zoned for Strathern Heights.

Track is replaceable, 90 degree turns take place in other systems. Besides its not the degrees that matter its the turn radius that does.

Lastly. Bonnie Doon (the community) will ultimately be served by not only 3 stops but an additional 1-2 stops on the line that is to travel 82ave.
 
Excuse my quick mark up on my phone, Please note the full build out, this doesnt include the district plans that will work to increase density on both sides of 82 ave.

IMG_5696.jpeg


Currently my house is 700m from Strathern and 800m from Holyrood a 10 and 12 min (non Adhd) walk respectively. I make it in 8/10 respectively.
 
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