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LRT Expansion Planning

Ironically enough the CN/CP Rapid Transit scheme in the 1960's took care of this with a loop of stations along 127 Ave just north of the CN ROW amongst others. I'm still trying to find this particular map amongst the old files/schemes. Mandel also mused about using the AHD corridor for a bypass rail line for commuters so none of you are that far off... Neither is Iveson with the Downtown-Airport Express concept... From The 1967 Edmonton General Plan
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Side note, if someone at COE is reading this please please PLEASE do a train design competition like they did in Calgary for their new LRT's!! I think the plain white with the blue stripe is alright but it's getting kinda tired for my liking, y'know...
 
Haha! It's not that I don't like the colours themselves, I just think they could be used in a more interesting way to make the trains look more sleek and modern. Getting more specific, I think it'd be neat it if they could take the "Buffalo" design from the C-train design competition, modify it slightly and put a blue-green-grey-white ETS livery on it! Skip to 1:50 in this video to see what I'm talking about.

Edit: Thanks @Daveography for moving this convo, we were kinda derailing that thread lmao
 
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This was posted a few years ago for sure, but the search function isn't great for links or headlines so I can't see if it was posted more recently. I want to share this to be safe, because it truly is a must-read for anyone who is interested in our LRT network. A few years ago, the Edmonton Journal put together a compilation of all the articles they published in the 1990s that relate to the funding and development of our LRT system. It encompasses much of Klein's reign, and it is truly fascinating to see how the lines and stops that the city was pushing for back then are just being realized, or seriously planned, today. Some highlights for me included discussions about the city's goal to extend the LRT to the McKernan Belgravia neighbourhood, Heritage Mall, and West Edmonton Mall.

The History of the Funding of Edmonton's LRT: The 1990s

If Edmonton’s LRT is ever going to charge forward, it might be helpful to look back and see what has pushed it ahead in the past. Here’s the first in a series of po…
edmontonjournal.com edmontonjournal.com
 
It is something to think about, how things could've been soo much father ahead with our LRT system if there wasn't that massive 12-year pause in between 1994 and 2006, with piecemeal expansion happening every few years beforehand. If they had gotten started on the next extension right after university station, VL southeast could've already been built years ago, and today we'd be excited for VL West to open! Then again, things may have gone differently with the system buildout if that momentum didn't stop and we could have something totally different now...
 
@The_Cat After reading the funding history article all the way through, I can assure you that the LRT interfered with Ralph Klein's puny wallet more than any hospital experiment 😂 But seriously, what was going on in that decade before I was born?? Maybe their experiment was seeing how much money they could save by leaving a city's transit infrastructure in shambles before it actually collapsed completely. I get being fiscally responsible but come on, you've gotta have some sort of balance here. It's like one day we're in the midst of an apocalypse and the penny-pinching branch of the conservatives are like "We know our cities are crumbling and that people are killing each other in the streets, but at least we balanced the books this term!!"
 
Platinum107 said:
@The_Cat After reading the funding history article all the way through, I can assure you that the LRT interfered with Ralph Klein's puny wallet more than any hospital experiment 😂 But seriously, what was going on in that decade before I was born?? Maybe their experiment was seeing how much money they could save by leaving a city's transit infrastructure in shambles before it actually collapsed completely. I get being fiscally responsible but come on, you've gotta have some sort of balance here. It's like one day we're in the midst of an apocalypse and the penny-pinching branch of the conservatives are like "We know our cities are crumbling and that people are killing each other in the streets, but at least we balanced the books this term!!"
Click to expand...
Honestly! When I first came here as a young wee child I remember asking myself "where are the trains?" "Wouldn't people want to just take the train and avoid driving in snow, etc" and as I grew over the years I got really confused why there weren't any considering the city does have the population size for something else besides one train line.

I'm glad there's progress being made now and in the next 10 years thankfully but it's still a lost decade of expansion in my opinion and now it's just a game of catch up.

A lot of people get so riled up at fiscal responsibility when responsibility easily dictates to proper long term investments rather than short term successes.
 
CplKlinger said:
This was posted a few years ago for sure, but the search function isn't great for links or headlines so I can't see if it was posted more recently. I want to share this to be safe, because it truly is a must-read for anyone who is interested in our LRT network. A few years ago, the Edmonton Journal put together a compilation of all the articles they published in the 1990s that relate to the funding and development of our LRT system. It encompasses much of Klein's reign, and it is truly fascinating to see how the lines and stops that the city was pushing for back then are just being realized, or seriously planned, today. Some highlights for me included discussions about the city's goal to extend the LRT to the McKernan Belgravia neighbourhood, Heritage Mall, and West Edmonton Mall.

The History of the Funding of Edmonton's LRT: The 1990s

If Edmonton’s LRT is ever going to charge forward, it might be helpful to look back and see what has pushed it ahead in the past. Here’s the first in a series of po…
edmontonjournal.com edmontonjournal.com
Click to expand...
god, reading that was depressing. the 90s truly were terrible, weren't they? Seeing the lack of leadership and vision, particularly when Bill Smith comes into the picture, was really striking. Also reading all the critique of the decision to build the downtown section underground, and the massive costs that incurred. Reading the cost and ridership numbers was really interesting as well. Edmonton's LRT, despite paling in ridership in comparison to the C-Train today, is still well ahead of a lot of american systems, and has strong riders/mile, which helps comparison account for the shorter system (With this metric, our system now does very well) i wonder if, had they used the same long-term planning, projections, and metrics we use today, LRT would have been seen as a bigger priority and more sound investment. Reading at the end where they say 'Edmonton and Calgary are no longer twins, Calgary has exploded and Edmonton has become the second city' seemed short-sighted and downer-ish. if only they knew what we know now!
Thanks for sharing!
 
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