Yeggy
Active Member
especially with other lines getting to places like WEM
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Capital Line LRT
- Thread starter Daveography
- Start date
Yeggy
Active Member
Tunnelling has historically been very problematic in edmonton.
The_Cat
Senior Member
When you have sand, it’s difficult to tunnel.
yeggator
Active Member
That shouldn’t create problems for trenching Ellerslie Road under the Capital Line Extension though, based on the visible alignment of the pipeline.
mcr
Active Member
I imagine it's possible, but it would have to be a pretty short trench, and a quick return to grade if this pipeline map is accurate. Red circle is approximately where the City has the station on their extension map (view here). I hope they find a way to do it, because I think it will be a major regret not grade-separating Ellerslie from the beginning.
BASE
Active Member
Would be a massive regret and short term budget thinking to not grade separate.
yeggator
Active Member
Based on measurements of the 137th Street underpass below the CN rail tracks on the North Side, the roadway needs to descend across ~200 m on each side of the LRT crossing to achieve sufficient clearance with a low-enough grade. Based on the renders, the station will be just west of the transit center, so that should leave enough space between the tracks and the pipeline for the road to dip down. However, there’s not enough space to climb back up and meat Heritage Valley trail at a small-enough grade, so the whole intersection needs to be lowered about halfway.
Hopefully, we’ll be proactive about this. A lot of the land around there is empty fields, so it’ll be pretty easy to build temporary roads to divert traffic onto, meaning we don’t need to worry about lane closures or anything. It won’t be as easy once we start building suburbs there…
Yeggy
Active Member
If you listened to Speaking Municipally there is some movement afoot to re examine heading straight north over the yards.
I suspect there is going to be an ask for a re-examine of the orientation of this line.
As for Ellerslie, If we can have an LRT at grade all around Bonnie Doon, whyte and DT… it can go on grade at Ellerslie. We need to point out that it was the Tunnelling, Brides and elevations that caused all (95+%) of the delays on the existing systems.
yeggator
Active Member
Wait, are you referring to the Metro Line over the Walker Yards?
I was referring to this:
Yeggy
Active Member
ya fair, but the two are intertwined
BASE
Active Member
Low floor is a different animal in a sense but one mistake does not mean another is justified. I understand tunneling and the cost is blamed partially (albeit I think more than it should be) for the stalled LRT development in town. But Looking back I think majority would agree the tunnel portions that were done was the right call.
Yeggy
Active Member
Its not. Low floor is definitely safer in an urban environment and more friendly to the people around it, but ultimately can be built to near same standards.
ChazYEG
Senior Member
There is some degree of concern regarding potential soil contamination, which is a bigger barrier than the technical aspect.
I am not saying I agree with their reasoning, also, I am just posting out the information that I heard from people involved in the decision to keep it at grade.
Yes, and no. Not just from a technical perspective, but from a conceptual one, low-floor is different from what is essentially a suburban metro. I do think we could've (or even should've) tunnelled Whyte on that intersection with 83 St, because it is one of our main routes for going to our largest bedroom community (Strathcona County), and maybe it can even be done in the future.
Also, as pointed out by someone else, there are much less impediments to grade separation on Ellerslie, since the land surrounding it is mostly empty, of very low density. you can have temporary roads for detours, etc, making it a lot cheaper and less disruptive. Another argument is that this line is supposed to connect the LRT to the airport, in the future, so it does need to be a faster, more streamlined trip than the Valley Line, which has a very different purpose. On top of this, tunnelling DT and Whyte is substantially harder, as it involves a much more complex environment, and would have generated, yes, substantially higher costs, be more disruptive and probably take longer.
Yeggy
Active Member
I dont see any of that really mattering tbh.
No god promised cars a divine right to be a priority. You have to accept our bias, re the existing system, it was built by engineers engineering. We didnt choose what was best for people. These idiotic centre alignments that prevent/inhibit all left hand turns to preserve right on reds was idiotic.
I have taken many trains from Airport to DT. Chicago, Dallas, San Fran, LA, Paris. None if them were some streamlined disney fantasy. Toronto may of come the closest but the initial concept for the Go train extension from person to Union has been greatly altered. Their elitist quick train wasn't economical.
ChazYEG
Senior Member
Left turning is a MUCH WORSE issue, in general, than right on reds. Not long ago someone posted a statistic here, and over 50% of the traffic accidents in Edmonton come from these. If we got rid of every single one of them, we'd be better off (not to mention that they're bad for traffic flow, and occupy more road space than necessary in many places where they could be replaced by better uses, such as bike lanes).
I honestly think you're just happy being a contrarian. if we CAN improve something, at a reasonable cost, with minimal disruption, WHY NOT DO IT?