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

@The_Cat I wonder what went wrong in the making of these slabs that they've now had to replace at least 3? 🤔
 
Grabbed a couple quick shots today of the flyover replacement.

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@The_Cat My guess to the meaning behind the "didn't fit our standards" sentiment is that they estimated that those sections of track would've needed to be fixed or retrofitted within the span of their 30-year contract, and they took these measures to avoid that headache down the line.
 
@itom987 Um... kay? 🤨 Those are pretty standard for the scale of station they are going for. Don't want people standing under wooden chopsticks either, now do we, or even worse under open air in our current climate.
 
itom987 said:
Those canopies are stronger than they need to be. What are they preparing for? A hurricane?
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Are you referring to the black steel frames? They are probably a bit overbuilt, but likely not by much. the stations have full roofs on them, instead of the thin assemblies used on bus stops, mostly to allow for more insulation if i had to guess. the heating system only works with some kind of insulation, of course. the storefront glazing system is also non-structural; systems like what are being installed can barely support themselves, and rely on an underlying structure (the black steel in this case) to support them. From what i saw, it looks like these will be double-glazed as well, which adds weight. these shelters will need to house lighting, heaters, motorized doors, and any ticketing machines, TVs, etc. they function a lot more like a full building than a bus stop. I think this justifies the heavier construction to a degree. even though the literature calls them 'bus-stop like' they really are station buildings, with functions akin to say Belvedere, Century Park, or Southgate stations all housed inside. Making the canopies match the station buildings, and building them out of the same kit of parts, is probably cheaper than building something completely different, and certainly gonna be easier to maintain. I would guess making all the stations (except for the two downtown ones) match throughout is gonna save a bit of money.
It's also been said here that P3s tend to overbuild infrastructure to reduce maintenance costs. I don't know much about this aspect, there's other people on here who know more about that than i would, but i would assume overbuilding the black steel 'skeleton' of the stations reduces the financial liability of future maintenance. If it can get rained on, frozen, beat up by delinquents, rust a bit, and survive a tornado without needing to be replaced, liabilities and costs go down for the P3 consortium.
IDK, its an interesting question to ask and think about. I think they are perhaps a bit taller than they absolutely needed to be, but not unreasonable to my eye. having more permanent station buidings and canopies seems prudent imo.

edit. I realize you were asking about the canopies which are a bit more overbuilt than the shelters. having a moment. sorry
 
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cliffapotamus said:
edit. I realize you were asking about the canopies which are a bit more overbuilt than the shelters. having a moment. sorry
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Good read though! :p
 
itom987 said:
Those canopies are stronger than they need to be. What are they preparing for? A hurricane?
Click to expand...
A friend of mine worked for a company that was doing steel for much of this project including Davies Station - they overbuilt a lot of things simply because they were/are so far behind schedule and didn't want to go back for revisions. I think he made reference to driving tanks on Davies Station rather than LRT cars at one point. I mean, Davies looks good, but it is relatively massive compared to anything else on the line and seems to be at odds with the rest of the design language. I guess it makes sense for the neighborhood context in a way.
 
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Like everything else on the line, the canopies are designed to withstand a maximum potential load and then some. Sure, they are probably over-engineered for a warm, sunny day with a gentle, summer breeze, but that is not the case during a freak snow-storm with the potential for high winds and very heavy, wet snow on the roof.

Being a cantilevered design, I’m sure whomever designed it spent a lot of time to determine the optimal dimensions of the structure to ensure durability, usability, and longevity. Always assuming everything is overbuilt purely based on aesthetics and suggesting that designers arbitrarily determine sizing based on what they “think” it should be is unfortunately not how it works. A lot of thought and planning goes into these things, from more than one party.
 
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