Capital Line LRT

[BASE]

How would option 2 be more expensive? It just involves digging up a ton of earth and building two relatively small train overpasses. Option 1 looks way more expensive with how big the road overpass is (from the rendering, it seems bigger than the new 50th Street overpasses). I’m all in favour of option 2

The report notes the projected costs. I think the greater expense is on the excavation, drainage, and retaining wall work being quite a bit more than building up.

 

[Glenco]

Wouldn’t it be easier to build an elevated station

 

[thommyjo]

Do you have a source for that?
The report to Council on the WEM Transit Centre building was expecting construction within 10-15 years, which in 2015 would have meant construction by 2030, and would have meant funding in place before that. Right now that timeline is right on.
"The current proposed alignment approved by Council incorporates an elevated LRT Station above the existing transit centre. The anticipated construction time frame is within 10-15 years, depending on the pace of future LRT expansion." CR_1978 April 22, 2015

By 2016, although I don't have a direct council report for this, the City said: "While there are no timelines for additional funding, the City hopes to be ready to initiate the procurement phase as early as 2018. Once additional funding is secured, it is planned to take about one year to select a contractor for the Valley Line West and another five years to complete construction."
Clearly the City figured they would be able to get funding a lot earlier than 2030.
edmonton.ca/projects_plans/transit/project-history

Besides, the refurb would have extended the life of the shelter building 10-15 years, sufficient to extend the life to 2030 so that still doesn't explain how they went back to doing a complete rebuild vs. the approved refurbishment.

I don’t have a digital source to link to sorry. That’s just from conversations with Knack over the years. The way he explained it was “we didn’t expect funding to come so soon, so we redid SPR and WEM transit centre….then money was available for the WVLRT, so we started it sooner than expected.”

I think it might have related to the conservatives vs liberals being in power? Liberals came in and boosted transit investments?