Valley Line LRT | TransEd/Marigold | City of Edmonton

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It's too bad the entire line could not have been elevated! I fail to see how this doesn't look urban or that it looks 'intrusive'. Instead of a slow tram, we would have had a fast train, automated, running at 90- second frequencies during rush hour. (with awesome views!)

But city hall, in its infinite wisdom, knows best, pretending that we're some European city with dense compact development instead of the reality of the suburban development we live in.

Portland, for all its accolades about its street-level trains, actually isn't a successful system based on ridership figures. It's too slow, too infrequent.

You really want to get people out of their cars: offer a solution that's faster than their car. And a slow tram is not that answer.
 
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whattheheck said:
It's too bad the entire line could not have been elevated! I fail to see how this doesn't look urban or that it looks 'intrusive'. Instead of a slow tram, we would have had a fast train, automated, running at 90- second frequencies during rush hour. (with awesome views!)

But city hall, in its infinite wisdom, knows best, pretending that we're some European city with dense compact development instead of the reality of the suburban development we live in.

Portland, for all its accolades about its street-level trains, actually isn't a successful system based on ridership figures. It's too slow, too infrequent.

You really want to get people out of their cars: offer a solution that's faster than their car. And a slow tram is not that answer.
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Good points. Was there anyone really advocating hard at that time for an elevated system either on council or community or business?
 
Well I would prefer an elevated system but for the amount of room we have everywhere and how much more it would have cost, at least that's what council was told, it didn't make too much sense. Just repeating the city administration talking points.
 
TAS said:
Good points. Was there anyone really advocating hard at that time for an elevated system either on council or community or business?
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Cost was a non starter I’m pretty sure. Figures were usually 3-5x what at grade would be. So this line being 3bil likely would have become 5-8bil if fully elevated, with larger stations, etc.

It’s sort of a double whammy. We’re too sprawled and low density to afford the best transit. But because we’re so sprawled, we especially need fast, grade separated transit.

So we get the worst of both.

Thankfully, as big as Edmonton is, people very much live in quadrants and many of our employment bases aren’t downtown. I suspect many valley line users will be travelling 4-6 stops often vs longer 10+ stop trips.

It’d be interesting to see how this compares to the C train or Toronto subways, skytrain etc in terms of average trip distance, how many people get off at what stop, etc. vancouver definitely mostly funnels people from suburbs to city centre.
 
Gronk! said:
For those of you who keep whining about an elevated LRT line, need I remind you of the substandard piers that kept delaying the SE line? Can you imagine if the entire line was like that?
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This is sort of a strawman.

Yes that was dumb and would have been brutal if the entire line was elevated.

That’s also irrelevant to the question of if elevated rail would have been superior. If all elevated rail globally consistently had pier issues, then sure, let’s talk. But a 1 off stupid mistake doesn’t have bearing on the discussion.
 
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