Valley Line LRT/ Valley Line West | ?m | ?s | City of Edmonton

EdmTrekker said:
I am one of the "some people" and think if we do another complete line it should be on elevated tracks or underground tracks (yes the fricken big dig) with heated stations. Do it right, do it once and do it for the next 100 years or don't do it at all. The Valley line is nothing more than a street car but somewhat faster in some parts of the line. It is not a metro or subway or designed for mass transit. I do not know if the track needs to upgraded for higher speed trains, but do know infrastructure will need to be added if the line is upgraded to accommodate faster and more frequent trains to get through intersections. I think they added too many stops to pander to communities along the route.
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I've always thought the stop at Grey Nuns was unnecessary tbh. It's not much further from the hospital than Mill Woods. Plus, we made a major blunder by not elevating the line in the Bonnie Doon area. But at least there's lots of proposed and under-construction development around the line.
 
The TOD proposals are definitely the one thing that make me think this line might have a been a good investment and that I'm out to lunch in my worries about it... but until we see the Bonnie Doon and Strathern redevelopments start in earnest I'd still take the proposals with a grain of salt.
 
Aaron_Lloyd said:
It'll take 30 minutes they say, with some variability caused by the fact that the train stops at some traffic lights. A drive from Mill Woods Town Centre to City Centre mall is 23 min without much traffic to about 35 min with traffic, factor in the fact that you actually have to get to the station itself and during off-peak potentially wait as much as 10 min for a train to even leave the use case for the line is already looking kind of unfavourable in my view. Especially when the existing buses on this route make the trip in 34 min and for much less than $1.8b could have simply had their frequency increased.

Or ideally for some more money we could have just built a transit line that would actually outcompete a car in much more use cases (as the capital line already does).
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You have to get used to the idea that it is not a metro system but PRIMARILY an urban vehicle. The convenience of more frequent stops and easy access will make it very attractive encouraging infill in the inner city. It wouldn’t work as a commuter system out to Leduc or Spruce Grove.
 
Glenco said:
You have to get used to the idea that it is not a metro system but PRIMARILY an urban vehicle. The convenience of more frequent stops and easy access will make it very attractive encouraging infill in the inner city. It wouldn’t work as a commuter system out to Leduc or Spruce Grove.
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I think I mentioned it before in this thread, but I don't have any inherent problem with slower urban vehicles, if this line followed an old radial railway line route I'd have no qualms. But this line is clearly being built with commuters in mind, Millwoods isn't that close, but it's using a slower urban vehicle, I worry it's a mismatch. Keep in mind that the long-term logical extension of this line is to Beaumont.
 
Glenco said:
You have to get used to the idea that it is not a metro system but PRIMARILY an urban vehicle. The convenience of more frequent stops and easy access will make it very attractive encouraging infill in the inner city. It wouldn’t work as a commuter system out to Leduc or Spruce Grove.
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We shouldn't be using either type of LRT to serve places like Leduc or Spruce Grove. Those far out bedroom communities should be served by commuter rail. If we do build the Capital Line past the airport to Leduc, we need to supplement that with an express rail on the CP ROW to funnel people into the core, while the LRT helps workers in Leduc reach the airport. Serving the northern end of St. Albert with the Metro Line is pushing it to its limits. I also think a low-floor Energy Line could serve Sherwood Park well provided that it's built to be fast along Baseline Road. Serving Spruce Grove and Stony Plain with anything less than commuter rail is absurd.
 
yeggator said:
I've always thought the stop at Grey Nuns was unnecessary tbh. It's not much further from the hospital than Mill Woods. Plus, we made a major blunder by not elevating the line in the Bonnie Doon area. But at least there's lots of proposed and under-construction development around the line.
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Of which only some is under construction. Morguard at the mall 0%. NearArtic in Strathern 0% and Holyrood is a work in progress assuming they are still progressing.
 
Aaron_Lloyd said:
I think I mentioned it before in this thread, but I don't have any inherent problem with slower urban vehicles, if this line followed an old radial railway line route I'd have no qualms. But this line is clearly being built with commuters in mind, Millwoods isn't that close, but it's using a slower urban vehicle, I worry it's a mismatch. Keep in mind that the long-term logical extension of this line is to Beaumont.
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Beaumont is a stretch. In my humble opinion the line should branch at MWTC with the one line extending east to 50 street to 23 avenue then east to city limits with the other line continuing south to city limits.
 
Glenco said:
Beaumont is a stretch. In my humble opinion the line should branch at MWTC with the one line extending east to 50 street to 23 avenue then east to city limits with the other line continuing south to city limits.
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There are far more people to serve in the route you suggest than in Beaumont. We need to serve Edmonton's larger population first before thinking about lines to smaller regional centres.
 
As of 2016, Millwoods population is 120,000 people. There must be a reliable transportation to move that many people. Buses alone will not do that.
You can't put a suburban style train racks in the middle of our core neighbourhoods. Low floor trains fit perfectly and don't separate neighbourhoods, but tie them all together by a reliable transportation.
Again, to dig a tunnel under the core is ridiculous and extremely expensive.
 
Notes on the past few comments:

1 - The VLSE should take a little bit less than the bus to cover the same distance, but with a smaller headway (up to 5 min) and MUCH more reliability. One of the main reasons A LOT of people don't use transit, especially busses, is because they are not as reliable as rail (as slow as the low floor LRT might be), especially in winter. You add to that the heated stops that the LRT will have and you have yourself a good mix. Same thing goes for the VLW.

2 - My wildest dream would have underground LRT crisscrossing Edmonton's central areas, including:
- An extension to the west side of Jasper Ave (up to 124 St),
- A line under Whyte Ave stretching all the way from 75 St to Health Sciences, at the very least, but possibly crossing the river, stopping at the zoo and underground under 87 ave, reaching Meadowlark to connect(transfer) to the VLW.
- Burying the Metro and Capital lines between Churchill and Blatchford and Stadium, respectively,
- Fully grade separating the Capital and Metro lines, so we could have 2 min headways on these two lines
- An underground extension of the Capital line to Concordia University.

The cost of it would probably balloon the the tens of billions. Imagine, now, doing if for most of the route of the Valley Line as well. If someone can find some 30~40 Billion dollars laying around for LRT expansion, I'll take it, but that is VERY unlikely. Given this, building a suburban style, high-floor LRT would cut established neighborhoods in half (remember, there's no wide median like 111 St, for example, on the ay to Millwoods or to the West End).

3 - Low floor LRT also is a very good catalyst for urban renewal (and the examples are not just anecdotal, there are plenty of published and peer-reviewed studies about this phenomenon). Especially in core neighborhoods that are in need of a change in the urban fabric, like our Downtown, Boyle Street, Jasper Place, Meadowlark...

4 - My single BIGGEST beef with it is the use of catenary poles, instead of using things like Alstom's APS system (which they used very successfully in several cold locations around the globe, including Germany, Scandinavia...). In the more suburban/residential areas it doesn't look all that bad, but it looks terrible in the downtown core and, especially, in the Tawatina Bridge. It will also look hideous on 104 Ave/Stony Plain, especially up until 124 St.
 
EdmTrekker said:
Of which only some is under construction. Morguard at the mall 0%. NearArtic in Strathern 0% and Holyrood is a work in progress assuming they are still progressing.
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Hopefully Bonnie Doon progresses soon; the temporary transit plaza that's under construction was a city-mandated pre-requisite before any further development could proceed.

This made me decide to follow-up with their marketing manager, who I last spoke with in May. Turns out she's no longer with Morguard and her replacement just started, but she was very nice and open to talking. She didn't have much for me since she just started, but she'll try to find out more for me. However, she was able to let me know that they are indeed still moving ahead with Bonnie Doon's redevelopment.
 
Edmonchuk said:
It actually takes closer to 50 mins from millwoods to downtown by bus in the morning. You as well have to walk to the bus station.

Parking in downtown costs $300 a month on average. Not everyone can afford it. That's why our laughable LRT network is the busiest in North America.

We can cry out it as much as we want, but when this city approaches 2 mil and everyone will be stuck in a car on the way to downtown for 2 hours or more everyday (that's what it was from Terwillegar to downtown pre-pandemic).
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Calgary and Ottawa both have busier networks, more than double the ridership
 
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