Valley Line LRT | TransEd/Marigold | City of Edmonton

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Railing started on the elevated guideway
 
129,000 projected daily boardings by 2047 I read in one report. Then in a blog by knack I see 49,000 for SE and 51,000 for west by 2044.

It’ll be interesting to watch how it does. I suspect west will be a massive jump like everyone is saying.

Tbh, if the SE leg terminus had been Macewan, and not 102st, I think that would have helped a lot too.
 
129,000 projected daily boardings by 2047 I read in one report. Then in a blog by knack I see 49,000 for SE and 51,000 for west by 2044.

It’ll be interesting to watch how it does. I suspect west will be a massive jump like everyone is saying.

Tbh, if the SE leg terminus had been Macewan, and not 102st, I think that would have helped a lot too.
Or even the Norquest stop. That would completely change ridership levels.

I'm pretty certain that the new residential buildings at Millwoods Town Center will help the numbers too.
 
There will be 17 new stations on the Valley West extension, and I’m thinking five or six (MacEwan, 124 Street, 156 Street, Misericordia, WEM and Lewis Farms) will be major stops. There are perhaps four (Churchill, Bonnie Doon, Davies and Mill Woods) on the SE line.
 
There will be 17 new stations on the Valley West extension, and I’m thinking five or six (MacEwan, 124 Street, 156 Street, Misericordia, WEM and Lewis Farms) will be major stops. There are perhaps four (Churchill, Bonnie Doon, Davies and Mill Woods) on the SE line.

I will put my money on Brewery/120st stop to outperform 124st - just to be argumentative/spark debate 😁
 
Or even the Norquest stop. That would completely change ridership levels.

I'm pretty certain that the new residential buildings at Millwoods Town Center will help the numbers too.
As much as TOD is important, it actually doesn’t boost ridership that much until it’s substantially built out. The millwoods towers will likely only add a few hundred daily users.

The long term vision of 6000 homes for MWTC will likely take 20+ years to build out. And with 6000 homes, I doubt you get more than 5000 more daily users.

So growing from 10k to 40k for this line will need a lot more than a few dozen TOD buildings.
 
One stat that I read about was that 37% of Vancouver's growth was in close proximity to Skytrain lines.
Now that they’re out of land, yeah, it’s basically just 40-60 story projects next to the skytrain, or smaller missing middle along arterials and infills.

Sadly our 20+ years of greenfield inventory will continue to compete with densification efforts.
 
The west extension certainly has more destinations along the route compared to the south east valley line like brewery, west ed, macewan, and 124th so I think its pretty easy to predict that it will generate way more daily rides than the SE section. Even just the fact that it will serve Edmonton densest neighborhood will be a big boost to the whole system.
This has probably been answered in the past but I don't understand why the SE was built before the west?
 
The west extension certainly has more destinations along the route compared to the south east valley line like brewery, west ed, macewan, and 124th so I think its pretty easy to predict that it will generate way more daily rides than the SE section. Even just the fact that it will serve Edmonton densest neighborhood will be a big boost to the whole system.
This has probably been answered in the past but I don't understand why the SE was built before the west?
I'm sure that there are many reasons why SE was built before West, but one major constraint is the placement of the maintenance and storage facility which needs to be built somewhere on the initial alignment.
 
I'm sure that there are many reasons why SE was built before West, but one major constraint is the placement of the maintenance and storage facility which needs to be built somewhere on the initial alignment.

On top of where to put the OMF, I think the bridge, tunnel, Whitemud overpass and guideway over freight rail lines were also factors in prioritizing the southeast, since the costs to build them would have inflated significantly over time. Hence it was better to get that out of the way as soon as possible. And in hindsight, looking at the inflation post-COVID and the mess with the Green Line, we made the right choice.

As a side note, they should have gone bigger with the Lewis Farms OMF, considering it has the empty land around it with the TUC (they’re doing that for the Capital Line extension). Putting both main OMFs near the southeast end will lead to some operational challenges (especially if they want to call mulligans and grade separate some spots).
 
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Lots of the history is here. Interesting to read how they initially saw the SE line as going to Macewan/109st.

Couldn’t see anything that outlined the change to 102st. Anyone else know the reasoning? Would have made this initial line a lot more effective off the start.

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