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

One thing about some of these stations could depend on the climate. We have five months of winter in Edmonton.
Yup, those examples above don't obviously have to be built for snow loads in mind, let alone the HVAC requirements of interior spaces in a winter climate. It also helps having the considerably lower labour and materials costs of Asia that allows more budget to be directed to overall architectural design. Here in Edmonton, all costs are higher, which makes it more expensive to build unique, funky buildings/infrastructure, which is why many things we build here look more utilitarian.
 
Part of it is sadly I think there is still a do it on the cheap mentality that pervades this city which we haven't completely got rid of, over a decade after our Mayor said no more crap.

Yes, climate is a factor, but should not become an excuse. Some Nordic cities deal with it much better than we do and I think there is some recognition here we can look to them at times on how to do things better.
 
Yup, those examples above don't obviously have to be built for snow loads in mind, let alone the HVAC requirements of interior spaces in a winter climate. It also helps having the considerably lower labour and materials costs of Asia that allows more budget to be directed to overall architectural design. Here in Edmonton, all costs are higher, which makes it more expensive to build unique, funky buildings/infrastructure, which is why many things we build here look more utilitarian.
what HVAC requirements?

LRT stations don't have any real HVAC, just overhead resistance heaters. (I believe they should have full HVAC, but point being they don't and so I don't see how this would be a limiting factor here)
 
Huh? They have more HVAC requirements than most uses/places/spaces.

-Pressurization differentials
-Makeup air on various levels
-Significant temperature variation in the entrance stairwells
-Just look at any of the new doorways they added top of stairs (~3yrs ago - see Bay) and how hard it is to distribute or control
 
I believe the Bay LRT station is a very large somewhat heated space and the new doorways are helpful to maintain that (much more so than the old ones).

I expect its HVAC may be significantly different than the new much smaller and more numerous LRT stops (as they are called) on the Valley Line LRT.

I can see how this discussion could relate to both, but they really are different.
 
Part of it is sadly I think there is still a do it on the cheap mentality that pervades this city which we haven't completely got rid of, over a decade after our Mayor said no more crap.

Part of this can be blamed in provincial legislation. Cities in Alberta are obligated by law to go with the cheapest RFP when tendering contracts
 
what HVAC requirements?

LRT stations don't have any real HVAC, just overhead resistance heaters. (I believe they should have full HVAC, but point being they don't and so I don't see how this would be a limiting factor here)
Belvedere Station has A/C, granted, it was added as an after thought. In particular it seems to be concentrated around the ticket vending machines, and also had tinting applied to Windows around the TVM's.

Surface stations have long since had resistance heaters replaced with radiant natural gas powered units.

McEwan and Kingsway/ RAH have some form of forced air heating system.
 
Part of this can be blamed in provincial legislation. Cities in Alberta are obligated by law to go with the cheapest RFP when tendering contracts
Are you able to reference a source for this? I have read many transit related RFP's and don't ever recall reading that lowest price wins. There is usually a scoring system were price is a factor. Sometimes it is a higher factor, other times it is a lower factor in the scoring.
 
The donation boards have been completed

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Trans Canada Trail information board has been installed

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Muttart LRT station - next 4 pics

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The excuses....

and we wonder why edmonton is lame. It's cause people think like this. All excuses. Have some vision people!

Here's some train stations form Norway, Sweden, and Finland so ya'll can stop blaming our climate for everything. View attachment 389291View attachment 389292View attachment 389293View attachment 389294
Everyone in Edmonton thinks Edmonton is lame cause they’re stuck in an echo chamber of constant complaining and dissatisfaction, comparing anything and everything to somewhere they think is better. Personally, I couldn’t care less about the Churchill connector being mediocre. If it accomplishes what it’s supposed to, that’s fine. Also, it’s not as if the VL is void of great design. The tunnel entrance in the Quarters is absolutely stunning with its detailing and lives up to its rendering. I’d also argue that Davies is really nice. I understand that people are allowed to be disappointed obviously but maybe (yup I’m gonna say it) lower the expectations a bit. Edmonton isn’t a world class city and we don’t have a world class transit system. These amazing examples just aren’t a fare comparison to Edmonton’s situation. Once we have 50+ stations, 4+ lines and 300,000+ ridership, then let’s explore how we can improve the aesthetics of station entrances.
 
Also a bit of cherry picking going on here. Do you think ALL stations in the cities you posted are nice and architecturally stunning? Hardly. For all you know there's a poster in Norway bitching that their new bridge looks like a piece of crap compared to this fantastic Tawatina Bridge that was just build in this world class city called Edmonton.
In my mind Edmonton IS world class...we just need to start believing it. FWIW, world-class does not mean every single new public piece of infrastructure is top notch design. If that were the case, there would be no world class cities in the world.
 

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