Valley Line LRT | TransEd/Marigold | City of Edmonton

I still think the numbers are undercounted, but we’ll probably see increased usage as the summer hits most likely. The nicer weather always brings out a significant amount of people in my experience during the weekends.
 
Kosy123 said:
I still think the numbers are undercounted, but we’ll probably see increased usage as the summer hits most likely. The nicer weather always brings out a significant amount of people in my experience during the weekends.
Click to expand...
It’s 10% or less of capital line ridership. So even if we are undercounting both, it’s dramatically less than it should be vs projections.
 
Is there any possibility of the VLSE getting full Transit Signal Priority (TSP)?

Seems like an easy way to increase average speed.

(I’m also hopeful that as the years progress we’ll see continued development along the line which will further increase ridership.)
 
Last edited:
fromyeg said:
Is there any possibility of the VLSE getting full Transit Signal Priority (TSP)?

Seems like an easy way to increase average speed.

(I’m also hopeful that as the years progress we’ll see continued development along the line which will further increase ridership.)
Click to expand...

I'm looking at Millwoods Town Centre, Davies Transit Centre and Bonnie Doon Shopping Centre.
 
I wonder what the Capital Line's historical ridership was.

Vancouver's Expo Line was 21,000 per weekday on average post Expo 86. Everyone starts from somewhere.

Many of the studies I see say that light rail, particularly traffic-integrated light rail, does not attract nearly as many passengers as higher speed metro options. I'm still hopeful there is potential along the corridor.
 
The_Cat said:
Edmonton's early LRT didn't start out strong either. Also, were these ARC card boardings, or were these achieved through statistical modelling. An example here.
Click to expand...
Didn’t say methodology unfortunately.

One hope is that these are from ARC data and capital line numbers are from head count extrapolations of sorts and that a good chunk of discrepancies could be non paying, or non tapping customers.

But even still, say the real number is 12k, not 6k. There’s no way it’s anywhere close to 50% or projections. Which feels like a massive failure.

New rail, for billions, should also increase overall transit use, not just replace buses. So hopefully at the end of 2024 we have a sense of if overall net trips increased vs just trains replacing buses but ridership/use staying flat.

If we want to hit our 50% goal of non car travel for all trips, we likely need 25% of that to be transit, 3-4% biking, and 12% walking.

We’re around 9-11% transit right now if I remember correctly. So this line needs to boost us a few percent, and WVLRT another few too. If these two can’t get us close to 20%, then I don’t think the 50% goal will be reached. Capital south barely opens up much more ridership. Metro NW will be good, but likely only a few % bump too.
 
The_Cat said:
Growing up in the late 70s and early 80s, I remember seeing two-car trains on the tracks.
Click to expand...
Don't think we could have run much more than 2 cars at the time, only 14 cars to start.
Also it was much shorter than the tram line.
Can't add cars to the tram line as that will block off downtown intersections. Increasing speed might help a bit, until we have a 2 car train every block downtown.
The Western line will be great, southside s/b designed as a commuter line imho
 
Last edited:
I think it can be difficult to convince people to change from cars to LRT, whether it’s convenience, multiple errands or other needs. I’m sure once people start complaining about $1.50 gas, this could change.
 
You must log in or register to post here.

Back
Top