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EllisDon to Lead Prairie Link High-Speed Rail Partners - Edm-RD-Cal

I was fanaticizing about future rail infrastructure in Edmonton, like I do on a daily basis, and I was thinking about a solution to the High Level Bridge being inadequate for heavy rail. Now one option would be to rehabilitate or replace the HLB. But I was thinking of another solution. What about a new river crossing? Where could we build a new rail alignment that wouldn't greatly affect existing neighbourhoods or parks? Here is the solution I came up with.


This could work for HSR or conventional regional trainsets. In my utopian fantasy, there would be a mix of HSR, regional/intercity and commuter lines all using the same tunnels/bridge. With some fancy signaling, you could have a significant amount of capacity with just two tracks.

So here's a breakdown of what I'm thinking.

First to be built would be the Strathcona Station on the current CPKC South Edmonton Yard. The platforms would be below grade to allow tunnel portals to be integrated at a future date. The only tracks connecting to the station at this time would be going south to Calgary (and possibly other smaller connections like Camrose) using CPKC's Leduc Subdivision. Also built in conjunction with this Phase 1 would be a streetcar extension from Whyte Ave to the new station using the old ROW behind MKT. I would also love to see the streetcar become a year-round service that would reliably get you from Strathcona to downtown via the HLB. I also envisage brownfield redevelopment adjacent to the station to help fund the project, and in the long-term, a new mass transit connection along either 82 Ave and 76 Ave.

Then for the expensive stuff! Starting from the Strathcona station, a twin bored tunnel would head under Strathcona in a north-northeast direction. The tunnels would lead to a portal next to Scona Road just north of 94 Avenue. The tracks would then transition onto a bridge/viaduct that would be about the same height above the river as the Tawatinâ Bridge. The viaduct would cross over a realigned Connors Road, 98 Avenue, and a daylighted Mill Creek and then cross the North Saskatchewan River. It would then head back into a tunnel just before crossing Grierson Hill. The alignment would pass under the proposed site for Alldritt's Quarters Hotel and Residences. There could be some cost savings if the tunnel portals are designed into the substructure of that project like the LRT tunnels were built into the basement of EPCOR Tower. The short tunnels would connect to an underground station built in The Quarters on mostly vacant land. This would be a great opportunity to redevelop the land by building the station below and mixed use towers above. The station would have a surface connection to the Quarters stop and an underground pedway connection to Churchill station. Finally, north of the station another series of tunnels would connect to the Capital Line LRT ROW allowing connections to CN's mainline (Jasper, Saskatoon) and other lines that CN owns (Lloydminster, Fort McMurray, Whitecourt, etc.)

I know this may sound like a very expensive project that seems like overkill, but in the end what we need is high quality intercity and regional transit, and right now we don't have that. I was inspired by Belgrade, Serbia when I was thinking of this plan. They are a city about our size, in a country that is not as wealthy, with crumbling rail infrastructure. But they built a new underground main station with tunnels, viaducts, and a new bridge similar to this. That project, along with renewal to their mainlines, means that travelling by rail in Serbia is becoming more reliable and efficient.
 
I would also love to see the streetcar become a year-round service that would reliably get you from Strathcona to downtown via the HLB.
Personally, I'd love that too. However, there are two big challenges facing winter service right now.

1. Ridership drops sharply after September Long Weekend, which is why they go down to 3-day/week service between then and Thanksgiving.

2. More challenging is that we don't have the ability to keep flangways at road crossings clear of ice and snow, aside from manually chipping/scrapping them. The snow and ice get very compacted by vehicles, and on the occasion that they do a winter event at the HLB Line (ie the stuff a streetcar thing with the foodbank) or at Fort Ed, they ask the city to send an LRT line crew with ice clearing equipment. Maybe they could make an arrangement for regular assistance from the LRT division if they did winter service, but it'd take a lot of resources that I'm guessing the city wouldn't want to provide for free, and I'm not sure the ERRS could afford. It'd be a tall task for volunteers to do that on a regular (perhaps weekly or bi-weekly) basis. The annual flangeway clearings are quite physically tasking, and there's no ice!

As an example of why money is tight for the ERRS: There are 2,000 bridge timbers on the HLB (basically special ties that are carved for the contour of the spot on the bridge they're placed). 75 of them need to be replaced this year or next, and each tie costs just over $3,000. The rest of the timbers will need to be replaced soon as well, these are just the highest priority.
 

Oh my God! This could be HUGE for the province. If a provincial transit authority is created and starts with Airport Rail Links (or by the sounds of the article also commuter services from Airdrie and Okotoks to downtown Calgary), this could open up our city and province to more passenger rail services. The first step is always the hardest. I am over the moon hearing about this news!
 
I fear false hopes are being raised.

The most feasible way to get rail transit between the Edmonton airport and the city core is by expanding LRT. Constructing an entirely new rail line and musing about new entry points into downtown will be massively more expensive and intrusive than simply extending the future Capital Line south from its Stage 2 endpoint. That being said, extending the Capital Line South to the airport cannot come at the expense of other areas of the city. Castle Downs has already been screwed over by having the Capital Line extended to Heritage Valley first before they receive the Metro Line. Imagine if the LRT is extended into Leduc County before Castle Downs gets any trains.

Secondly, it's true that other Canadian cities do have airport rail links to downtown. However, YYZ, YUL and YVR all have airports that are both major international hubs and which have much higher passenger counts than Edmonton's. Vancouver's in particular was able to kill multiple birds with one stone: the airport link is a spur off the line into Richmond which means the Canada Line doubles as a commuter route into one of the largest cities in the Lower Mainland. By contrast rail transit further south from 41 Avenue SW to the Edmonton airport would only serve the airport. And yes, Ottawa is getting LRT to its airport but again the Trillium Line was being extended anyway to serve the south portion of the city and an airport spur was fairly easy to add.

The metro area would benefit far more from getting the Metro Line into Castle Downs and then into St. Albert.
 
I am very cynical about this so called priority for this government. I think this is their way of saying we'll look into the feasibility of buying rail lines to both airports but following a study will decide that it only makes fiscal sense to do this for Calgary but not Edmonton airport. Mark my words
 
Oh my God! This could be HUGE for the province. If a provincial transit authority is created and starts with Airport Rail Links (or by the sounds of the article also commuter services from Airdrie and Okotoks to downtown Calgary), this could open up our city and province to more passenger rail services. The first step is always the hardest. I am over the moon hearing about this news!
I suppose time will tell how serious this is. I am hopeful that this is being talked about in conjunction with the Calgary airport connection.

The Capital Line goes a bit west, the Valley Line more east, so there is an up the middle approach here that makes some sense. It also makes use of an existing right of way and so may also preserve future options to expand inter city rail service. I would think the Feds would probably fund this too.
 
I am very cynical about this so called priority for this government. I think this is their way of saying we'll look into the feasibility of buying rail lines to both airports but following a study will decide that it only makes fiscal sense to do this for Calgary but not Edmonton airport. Mark my words
I'm also wondering how much this is going to cost the airport authority. Generally airports have to pay a big chunk of the costs--the Vancouver Airport Authority paid $300 million for its share of the Canada Line. (In return, it got a travel time guarantee--26 minutes from YVR-Airport to Waterfront).
 
I suppose time will tell how serious this is. I am hopeful that this is being talked about in conjunction with the Calgary airport connection.

The Capital Line goes a bit west, the Valley Line more east, so there is an up the middle approach here that makes some sense. It also makes use of an existing right of way and so may also preserve future options to expand inter city rail service. I would think the Feds would probably fund this too.
If it's going to be done, it needs to be done as an extension to the Capital Line. Using the CP rail line is a no-go. The last thing we need is having the crossing gates down on the CP rail line even more often.
 
If it's going to be done, it needs to be done as an extension to the Capital Line. Using the CP rail line is a no-go. The last thing we need is having the crossing gates down on the CP rail line even more often.
Disagree

Heavy rail is needed now, not just to the airport, but to the four corners of the region.

We need diverse options for diverse situations. LRT works well for certain applications, and LRT to the airport is important, but this should not displace heavy rail service as well.
 
^
interesting to see concerns being expressed about not allowing lrt to displace heavy rail but there doesn’t seem to be the same concern about hsr potentially displacing both lrt and heavy rail which, given the limited amount of capital available for transit (and/or anything else for that matter).
 
^
interesting to see concerns being expressed about not allowing lrt to displace heavy rail but there doesn’t seem to be the same concern about hsr potentially displacing both lrt and heavy rail which, given the limited amount of capital available for transit (and/or anything else for that matter).
I definitely have this concern and have raised it multiple times. Alberta’s population can’t support HSR. But it can support heavy rail regional trains. This and LRT is where capital should be spent. HSR should only be looked at once an extensive heavy rail passenger network serving all corners of the province is successful and well established.
 
If it's going to be done, it needs to be done as an extension to the Capital Line. Using the CP rail line is a no-go. The last thing we need is having the crossing gates down on the CP rail line even more often.
Utilizing the CPKC corridor would make grade separations more feasible than now, meaning less grade crossings to be blocked.
 

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