Valley Line LRT | TransEd/Marigold | City of Edmonton

[quit]

This might be true from a legal perspective, but not from a technical perspective, and that's my point. It is doable, just need the political will (and the need) to do so.

Also, if we did have to close some intersections to make 3 (or even 4) car trains, it wouldn't be in too many places, so in the long term, it could very well be doable as well, as @yeggator mentioned.

The only intersections that would actually need to be closed are 105 st/102 ave (Alex Decoteau stop) and 99 st/102 ave (Churchill). Out of these, the only one that could have some really significant impact is the Alex Decoteau one, since 99 st/102 ave isn't really a traffic corridor for anything, and we'd actually be Bette off with 99st closed to cars between 102 and 103 ave, IMO.

Other than these two, all other stops could be changed to accommodate longer trains, even if it wouldn't be without its challenges.

Fair enough. Under the current goalposts the city has agreed to, it would be tough to do without canceling the current agreement, likely with significant financial penalties and creating a new one. Like you said previously, I don't think this line will ever get to those ridership numbers if the city is projecting 31,000 riders per day upon opening, when the line can handle 6,500 per hour in one direction at max capacity. Think we'd have to get to something like 150,000 to 175,000 ridership per day on the line to hit planned max capacity?

 

[TAS]

This might be true from a legal perspective, but not from a technical perspective, and that's my point. It is doable, just need the political will (and the need) to do so.

Also, if we did have to close some intersections to make 3 (or even 4) car trains, it wouldn't be in too many places, so in the long term, it could very well be doable as well, as @yeggator mentioned.

The only intersections that would actually need to be closed are 105 st/102 ave (Alex Decoteau stop) and 99 st/102 ave (Churchill). Out of these, the only one that could have some really significant impact is the Alex Decoteau one, since 99 st/102 ave isn't really a traffic corridor for anything, and we'd actually be Bette off with 99st closed to cars between 102 and 103 ave, IMO.

Other than these two, all other stops could be changed to accommodate longer trains, even if it wouldn't be without its challenges.

I was recently in London and this is the first time I've experienced this on transit/trains, but because some of the trains were longer than the platforms , they had to make multiple announcements along the way that if you wanted to get off at certain stations, you had to be on certain cars.

 

[whatchyyc]

Um, that is called propaganda. I don't want my tax dollars to 'sell' the LRT or the Valley line. Just like I don't want my tax dollars to 'tell the feds' or force the APP on me.

Shame on anyone who supports such a concept. You want people to ride the line. Ensure convenience, safety. efficiency. THAT'S the city's role, not propaganda.

 

[quit]

Um, that is called propaganda. I don't want my tax dollars to 'sell' the LRT or the Valley line. Just like I don't want my tax dollars to 'tell the feds' or force the APP on me.

Shame on anyone who supports such a concept. You want people to ride the line. Ensure convenience, safety. efficiency. THAT'S the city's role, not propaganda.

Advertising and promotion aren't the same as propaganda. Public awareness is definitely the city's role and is one of the reasons they have a comms team.

 

[TAS]

Um, that is called propaganda. I don't want my tax dollars to 'sell' the LRT or the Valley line. Just like I don't want my tax dollars to 'tell the feds' or force the APP on me.

Shame on anyone who supports such a concept. You want people to ride the line. Ensure convenience, safety. efficiency. THAT'S the city's role, not propaganda.

@whattheheck there are lots of differences of opinion on this forum which makes it real, honest, engaging and educational as well as entertaining.

Good on anyone for expressing their opinion. Comments in the second paragraph like - "shame on anyone" comes across as rude and disrespectful when we're just talking about somebody's idea to improve the city. Maybe that's a more appropriate comment for somebody using racist terms or something of the like.

 

[ChazYEG]

Fair enough. Under the current goalposts the city has agreed to, it would be tough to do without canceling the current agreement, likely with significant financial penalties and creating a new one. Like you said previously, I don't think this line will ever get to those ridership numbers if the city is projecting 31,000 riders per day upon opening, when the line can handle 6,500 per hour in one direction at max capacity. Think we'd have to get to something like 150,000 to 175,000 ridership per day on the line to hit planned max capacity?

Not denying that. I don't remember now our ridership numbers, in terms of percentage of trips, but I suspect we'd have to more than triple the population AND ridership to even get close to these numbers. For instance, it would mean having 1.5x 2018's Metro + Capital line riderships in the Valley Line alone (and about 2x current ridership levels).

Also, these capacity numbers don't generally take into consideration shorter trips, which tend to be an inherent characteristic of low floor systems, with the closer stops, mostly because modelling this is an absolute mathematical nightmare, so they mostly base the numbers on the trips they expect to be the most consistent in the line (say, for example, trips between major nodes, like MWTC, Bonnie Door, Churchill, WEM...). Modelling the ridership including trips that could be for only 2, 3 stops is much harder, as these depend on smaller things that motivate these trips.

If anything, total capacity might be slightly underestimated, in this case. I wouldn't claim to know by how much, but 10-15% wouldn't shock me.

 

[occidentalcapital]

Personal prediction is that ridership will shoot up to about 70k/ day pretty quickly

 

[fungus_eater]

Let's wait and see how many daily riders there are first once the hype dies down before talking about less than 5 min frequencies and extending the trains. Too early to tell if there is be a need for higher capacity right now

 

[yeggator]

This might be true from a legal perspective, but not from a technical perspective, and that's my point. It is doable, just need the political will (and the need) to do so.

Also, if we did have to close some intersections to make 3 (or even 4) car trains, it wouldn't be in too many places, so in the long term, it could very well be doable as well, as @yeggator mentioned.

The only intersections that would actually need to be closed are 105 st/102 ave (Alex Decoteau stop) and 99 st/102 ave (Churchill). Out of these, the only one that could have some really significant impact is the Alex Decoteau one, since 99 st/102 ave isn't really a traffic corridor for anything, and we'd actually be Bette off with 99st closed to cars between 102 and 103 ave, IMO.

Other than these two, all other stops could be changed to accommodate longer trains, even if it wouldn't be without its challenges.

Made a map for where to close the roads to extend the stations.

Road Closures to Extend Valley Line Stations - Google My Maps

The Valley Line is being designed for 80-90 meter trains due to station length constraints resulting from Edmonton's road grid. Longer trains will inevitably be needed, so some minor roads will need to be closed to extend the stations. This map shows those road closures.

www.google.com

 

[ChazYEG]

Made a map for where to close the roads to extend the stations.

Road Closures to Extend Valley Line Stations - Google My Maps

The Valley Line is being designed for 80-90 meter trains due to station length constraints resulting from Edmonton's road grid. Longer trains will inevitably be needed, so some minor roads will need to be closed to extend the stations. This map shows those road closures.

www.google.com

This is good work, but if you go through the booklet, you'll notice that while the streets are not closed, the intersections will no longer have through traffic on most of these.

Other modifications would possibly need to be made (lane narrowing, remove parking, etc), but street closing would be minimal.

 

[ChazYEG]

Made a map for where to close the roads to extend the stations.

Road Closures to Extend Valley Line Stations - Google My Maps

The Valley Line is being designed for 80-90 meter trains due to station length constraints resulting from Edmonton's road grid. Longer trains will inevitably be needed, so some minor roads will need to be closed to extend the stations. This map shows those road closures.

www.google.com

Also, I love the Energy Line proposal, but I would add a few more stations to that, especially considering it's low floor.

I'd move the 109 St about a block down, to be between 110 and 111 st, and add one between 107 and 106 St.

I would also add a connection with Health Sciences (I am assuming you have the section between 112 st and 115 st underground, considering where the line is going through), as I believe that connecting this line to the high floor lines would make it much more useful, since it would connect a lot quicker to DT, and connecting it to the U of A hospital would be a big plus.

I'd add a station at the very end of this side of the river, on University Ave/Saskatchewan Dr.

I'd add a station just west of 150 St.

I'd add a station just east of 159 St, to connect with Meadowlark

@westcoastjos I would move this post to the thread about LRT Expansion (which I can't seem to find)

 

[Kosy123]

Also, I just saw that there's going to be a protest for Palestine at Churchill Square at 2 pm tomorrow, and I'm curious how many of them will take the train to that event.

 

[fungus_eater]

Um, that is called propaganda. I don't want my tax dollars to 'sell' the LRT or the Valley line. Just like I don't want my tax dollars to 'tell the feds' or force the APP on me.

Shame on anyone who supports such a concept. You want people to ride the line. Ensure convenience, safety. efficiency. THAT'S the city's role, not propaganda.

This take is a bit extreme...a $100 gift card from the city's budget is probably worth as much or even less than a penny and would probably come from the city's promotional budget. promotion is not propaganda.

 

[yeggator]

Also, I love the Energy Line proposal, but I would add a few more stations to that, especially considering it's low floor.

I'd move the 109 St about a block down, to be between 110 and 111 st, and add one between 107 and 106 St.

I would also add a connection with Health Sciences (I am assuming you have the section between 112 st and 115 st underground, considering where the line is going through), as I believe that connecting this line to the high floor lines would make it much more useful, since it would connect a lot quicker to DT, and connecting it to the U of A hospital would be a big plus.

I'd add a station at the very end of this side of the river, on University Ave/Saskatchewan Dr.

I'd add a station just west of 150 St.

I'd add a station just east of 159 St, to connect with Meadowlark

@westcoastjos I would move this post to the thread about LRT Expansion (which I can't seem to find)

Heh, I made this map a long time ago... since then, I've fallen more in love with the idea of a high-floor extension of the Metro Line down Whyte Ave to Capilano and Sherwood Park. But this is the ideal low-floor alternative for the Energy Line in my view.

 

[yeggator]