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

What a dumbass. Unfortunately this is nothing new. I've witnessed quite a few cars turning right against a red light even when there's a sign that specifically forbids such an action (e.g. Jasper Ave/104 St, Whyte Ave/Calgary Trail). There should be a media blitz about illegal right turns, and there should be law enforcement cracking down.
 
Gronk! said:
What a dumbass. Unfortunately this is nothing new. I've witnessed quite a few cars turning right against a red light even when there's a sign that specifically forbids such an action (e.g. Jasper Ave/104 St, Whyte Ave/Calgary Trail). There should be a media blitz about illegal right turns, and there should be law enforcement cracking down.
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There was a bit of media blitz around when the LRT line was supposed to have opened, I believe. Of course, with trains being so sporadic and infrequent due to the repairs dragging on and on for months since then, some people probably either forgot about it or didn't think about it.

We also have signage pollution - there are so many road signs and the city is definitely an offender, so sometimes people get overwhelmed and miss the important ones.

We can't have a law enforcement person at every corner all the time. First of all, I don't think most people want that type of police state and second, the cost of it would be incredible. The real deterrent to others doing things like this, are results like this which happened to the driver.

I expect there may be another media blitz when/if the Valley Line LRT finally opens and is in full service. I am not sure their already over budget for repairs can afford one in the meantime.
 
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MattBerryOfficial on SSP
 
awstott said:
The stations can't handle longer trains, nor can the city blocks downtown. What do they mean by larger trains? Are the Valley line West trains going to be that much heavier?
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Stevey_G said:
That’s what I was thinking. The line might be able to handle higher frequency but the entire line is designed for 3 car trains.
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Indeed, the trains are limited to the size of block between 99 St and 100 St from what I recall reading.
It doesn't make any sense that West line trains would be heavier. The specs that were tendered would have required they fit within the same loadings as the Bombardier vehicles.

My thought was that increased frequency = more trains on elevated section = strengthen piers. Personally, I think that before we could see a frequency increase, we would need to full blown proper signal system to control train movements, rather than the current (primarily) Line of Sight operation. Maybe with some/ all grade crossing protection, maybe not.

I went to dig up in the project agreement any information on how close headways could be. While I don't think I found what I recall reading before with train spacing, recovery time etc, the traffic signal system is supposed to have a 4 minute countdown before it is available for the next train heading in the same direction, so, I guess theoretically the closest 2 trains could be is 4 minutes apart. I would imagine worst case scenario they would have had to have planned for 4 fully loaded trains on the elevated section at one time, 2 per direction, 2 cars per train for a total of 8 cars moving in 4 trains.

At least I hope worst case scenarios were planned for. I'm guessing they weren't if they're going back to strength more piers, which really leaves me wondering what TransEd was expecting. Granted, TransEd also didn't build enough cars to even allow full 2 car operation from Day 1.
 
While I'm happy to see they've gone with a gantry and precast segments, it's weird they've erected the gantry part way through the elevated section, and looks like short of West Edmonton Mall Station. I would have started it off at Misericordia and had the viaduct built all the way to Aldergrove Park. Now it seems like they're going to have to dismantle the gantry and reposition it to another section.
 
I was thinking the same thing…..why not get it going on one of the ends and work towards the other end…..starting in the middle seems strange indeed
 
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Hm look like they did the same thing in Vancouver. Repositioning the gantry may not be a huge deal. There's a gap from 1:49 to to the 2:20 mark when Skytrain briefly goes down to at grade below the BCTV transmission satelites.
 
Barricades, grounding cables and lock out tags at 51 Ave for both tracks, and the same at the north end of the elevated guideway. So, now that they got their PR stunt done with work announced as largely complete, some shots of trains on the elevated section, it's back to the way it has been with no trains allowed on the elevated section, and then the recent admittance of work being done on and increasing number of piers.

They seemed to be doing some sort of emergency scenario in the river valley today with 2, 2 car trains. Didn't observe any cars running either on the north or south ends of the line.
 
I probably won’t ride this train. With what looks like stress and flexure cracking happening at Davis station and no third party inspection done, I can’t be convinced of the safety of the elevated portions of this line.

I hate to sound like an alarmist beating on stranded when they’re down, it just feels suspicious that they so confidently stated they’re surface cracks when a visual inspection clearly calls for further investigation.

I so hope I am wrong.
 
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