I heard from the LRT operations director that the metro line and capital line could both run every five minutes through the downtown tunnels. The bottleneck is the university ave crossing.
Metro Line LRT | ?m | ?s | City of Edmonton
- Thread starter Daveography
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erudyk_29
Active Member
Here's hoping this new station will spark some development in the "Blatchford Market" area, hopefully of the high(er) density mixed-use variety.
Barnaby
Active Member
I wonder what would happen to traffic if this bottleneck was essentially ignored and the trains ran at whatever schedule the System decided. I'm of the opinion that line ups would be equivalent to today's after a few months of people adapting their behaviour.
I'm also fine with an underpass.
Seamusmuldrew
Active Member
That kind of got me thinking, I wonder what would happen if people used 87 Av to/from 114 st seeing as the majority of University Av traffic is coming from Groat. Could do this by only allowing E-W traffic through from University Av blocking opportunities to turn onto 114 st. While this would double 87 Av traffic levels (which aren't currently all that high) it would streamline N-S traffic once it reaches the University Av so there's far less priority needed for traffic crossing the tracks and more trains can be run. As for the 87av/114st intersection I think they can make adjustments with the space they currently have there like double turning lanes. Just a possibility off the top of my head obviously still with issues and definitely wouldn't solve traffic, but it'd get it out of the train's way.
EdmTrekker
Senior Member
I wonder if in 30 years time the tunnel at UofA could be extended and surface at Government Centre or surface east of Corbett Hall for a street line down Whyte. Yeah I know we will all be dead but Edmonton will have 3+M people in 30 years.
EdwardEdm
Active Member
The signal system can accommodate headways even closer than 2.5 minutes. I've seen trains 2 minutes apart. However, whether the system can reliably and constantly handle 2.5 minute frequencies is another matter. I think that was more or less what another poster said in regards to the current 6 minute headways on the Capital Line and 12 minutes on the Metro.
To the best of my knowledge, when the NLRT CBTC system was replaced with a more traditional block signal system, no upgrades were actually made to the existing Capital Line.
I'll be as brief as I can on how we came to where we are today the LRT's signal system.
The original NE LRT signal system from Central to Belvedere was pretty restrictive. A lot of unidirectional track which didn't allow easy bi-directional operation on one track.
Extensions to Clareview and Bay and Corona used the same type of components, but, allowed bi-directional operation. Kind of a requirement really as they both lead to terminus stations.
Ditto to Government Centre. All of this was Siemen's equipment, and used standard track circuits that had to be electrically isolated from each other with insulated rail joints.
The University extension might have used a different vendor for the track circuit equipment and signals.
The Health Sciences extension, I wish I knew!
I didn't start learning about the specific signal components until 2010-2011ish, so, I sort of missed out on some of the earlier configurations.
The first upgrades came in late August/ early September 2008. The LRT was shutdown between Corona/ Government Centre and HSS and replaced by a stub train between Government Centre and HSS leading into the weekend, a bus shuttle from Corona to HSS during the weekend and on the Monday, and after the upgrades didn't go smoothly, they ran the LRT on a 8 minute frequency. During this time the signal system was either red signals, or dark signals between Grandin and HSS. During the 8 minute frequency period they had quite the abnormal procedure. Normally trains can take a signal bypass to override the automatic stop features, but this limited speed, and I guess they needed the speed to keep service going as by now University was back in session. A senior LRT employee would throw some switches in the middle of the car to disable the safety devices, and then a LRT supervisor would have to ride in the cab of the train. Never seen an operation like that since.
Anyways, at this time they were installing General Electric audio frequency track circuit equipment, the same as was being installed on the rest of the SLRT extension. Audio frequency track circuits are more flexible and can be tuned so that you don't need insulated rail joints to separate track circuits. In practice, they still often have the insulated joints anyways, especially between blocks. While I don't recall exactly where the new signaling equipment started, it looks like there was an interface section of new and old at the north end of the Dudley B Menzies Bridge, and all new at the south end.
The next upgrades were from the midpoint of Central Station to Clareview. This project replaced the legacy Siemen's track circuits and signals with the same GE track circuits and new signals. This project also included converting any manual throw switches to power operated. This made the entire Capital line fully bi-directional, and all the same GE equipment except for the segment from the midpoint of Central to Government Centre.
An extension of this project then upgraded the equipment from the midpoint of Central to Government Centre, making the entire Capital Line using the same signaling equipment.
I'm doing this off of memory and it has been 10+ years now. I believe the NE Signals project include the design of the signaling for the Churchill Junction, regardless, the CBTC signal project intended to use the existing block signal system as an emergency fall back in case of a CBTC problem. It also required a back up signal system on the NLRT extension. This requirement meant that the GE signal equipment was installed from the Churchill Junction to the midpoint of McEwan Station, and of course, on the HSS tail track.
Since the intention at this point was just to use the existing system as a back up, there was never any work done on the Capital Line to support greater headways through the Downtown under the CBTC project as it was expect CBTC would support the required headways.
Of course, we all know what happened to CBTC. From my observations, CBTC was never used on the Capital Line outside of testing. Watching the motorman's screen on Metro Line trains you could see when the train would enter CBTC mode at McEwan.
Alstom, having purchased General Electric's railway signaling division, then got the sole source contract to replace the Thales CBTC. That I don't think included any modifications to the Capital Line however. There was already enough to deal with just getting the CBTC replaced.
Largely blocks Downtown are between stations, and then in the stations themselves. It's safe to say most trains can make a station stop and reach the next station in under 2.5 minutes. There are intermediate blocks between Government Centre and University given the longer distance. I'm guessing though that there a few locations where it would be preferable to have an intermediate block between stations, like between Churchill and Central.
Barnaby
Active Member
Quick update on the two Blatchford stations.
The heated waiting areas are an improvement from the Valley line. They offer wave open doors and warm heaters with timers, and interestingly there is now a card reader on the doors. I've spoken to LRT operations people about adding ARC card integration for heating area access, and I think this may be possible now with the new design. I hope the ARC card is deployed in this manner for more places, obviously fare gates on the underground being one of them.
Overall, these stations are a slight improvement over Stadium Station, albeit with less overall capacity. The sightlines are the best on the high floor line, you can essentially see everyone at the station from anywhere else.
The heated waiting areas are an improvement from the Valley line. They offer wave open doors and warm heaters with timers, and interestingly there is now a card reader on the doors. I've spoken to LRT operations people about adding ARC card integration for heating area access, and I think this may be possible now with the new design. I hope the ARC card is deployed in this manner for more places, obviously fare gates on the underground being one of them.
Overall, these stations are a slight improvement over Stadium Station, albeit with less overall capacity. The sightlines are the best on the high floor line, you can essentially see everyone at the station from anywhere else.
JuliallThat
Active Member
Is the idea being, with arc integration, that only with an active transit fare would the heaters work? Eg: you just tapped to access the train, and thus the heater would turn on for you. Or more like, just connecting an identity to the user of the heater? Eg: Any active card would turn on the heater, no associated fare or charge.
Barnaby
Active Member
The heaters are wave on, similar to a touch free door opener that you see anywhere. The exterior doors on the heated areas have card readers that could potentially be used to allow access if the doors are normally locked. I'm guessing that it's more difficult to only allow access to validated ARC cards on the backend, but this would be my preferred way of doing it.
The Cards themselves are just RFID tags, so allowing access to anyone with an ARC card should be very simple. The will to do it, and signage needs to be there to make it happen.
ewh1
New Member
Tickets should also have access but hopefully that's what you meant as well with ARC card access? This would be a smart system when its implemented.
Foolworm
Active Member
As long as it's not built, there's always the possibility. However, it has been considered and rejected before:
"The at-grade option would use a partial-priority train operation, where trains are held at the Castle Downs Station, allowing crossing traffic more green-time in the signalling cycle."
Hopefully there's another round of public engagement to update the design if (when) funding is announced.
yeggator
Active Member
Seems like it was narrowly rejected. Also, partial priority on the Metro Line 
This definitely needs to be revised, and I don’t mind delaying other phases of LRT expansion if we get more money to build this right.
This definitely needs to be revised, and I don’t mind delaying other phases of LRT expansion if we get more money to build this right.
Barnaby
Active Member
I think the high floor line should avoid all at grade crossings that wouldn't allow for complete signal priority. Adding a single elevated station at Castle Downs would solve this. The 137th Ave and 127th St stations are fine as planned, but could easily be swapped for elevated stations to streamline construction. A return to grade could be done west of 127th.
These underground stations can't be cheap though? I'm sure more basic elevated stations like Richmond Brighouse in Vancouver could be built for a similar price on this extension.
These underground stations can't be cheap though? I'm sure more basic elevated stations like Richmond Brighouse in Vancouver could be built for a similar price on this extension.
Foolworm
Active Member
Basic as in single-tracked? No thanks, that's one mistake Edmonton has avoided making so far.
Barnaby
Active Member
That's not what I meant, which I believe was obvious. Single entrance double escalator with a single staircase (and fare gates).