UTL is about exploring past, present and future urban technologies in science and fiction, etc...
Thursday, August 20, 2015
Why is the Canada (embarrassment) Line built the way it is?
Sunday, February 12, 2023
C Train Blue Line
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x2AJJ7KYs-c
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Line_(Calgary)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westbrook_station_(Calgary)
"Up until the completion of the Red Line's Fish Creek–Lacombe station, all platforms for the CTrain were originally designed to service three-car trains, although there had been enough space allotted to allow four-car trains. Beginning in 2007 construction on station platforms began to expand the entire network to allow four-car trains, with the project being completed in 2017..." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Line_(Calgary)#Capacity_upgrade
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Line_(Calgary)#Stations_and_route
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CTrain#Rolling_stock
Thursday, October 16, 2025
Edmonton LRT and Calgary C Train
https://jfdatalinks.blogspot.com/search?q=Edmonton+LRT While Edmonton had a good head start over Calgary, they understood even back in the 1970s to build their underground stations to be at least 125 m.
https://jfdatalinks.blogspot.com/search?q=Calgary+C+Train Fortunately, Calgary will follow the Edmonton example to have underground stations that are longer than what foolish Vancouver has.
https://jfdatalinks.blogspot.com/search?q=LRT
Friday, January 10, 2025
Calgary’s drives, roads, streets and trails
https://www.reddit.com/r/Calgary/comments/bkevpf/memorial_drive_year_1900 Wow, one waggon road each way back then. If it were possible in the 2020s, Vancouver would like to go back to one waggon road each way.
https://cc-production-uploads-bucket.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/2025/01/Calgary-courtesy-of-City-of-CalgaryMainWEB.png This is what Cambie Street in Vancouver could have become. Especially, since the Canada embarrassment Line was only designed to have 2.5 car trains. At least there should be an express bus line along Cambie. Eventually, there still might have to be an LRT line just south of the Cambie+Street+Bridge to Richmond. It would have been better to just build the Canada embarrassment Line to eventually handle a 5, 7 & 9 car train, not a 2.5 car joke of a train.
Sarcastically...
At least no one from Vancouver has been able to convince Winnipeg to reduce Portage_and_Main to 4 lanes or even just 2 waggon roads in width.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f1/Portage_and_Main_as_seen_from_Portage_Ave_Eastbound.JPG Wow, 5 lanes in 1 direction is very tough to find in Vancouver. Being from Vancouver, its difficult to comprehend how so many cities around the world have such wide streets & boulavards.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arc_de_Triomphe
So far, Vancouver hasn't sent a delegation to Paris advising that The Avenue des Champs-Élysées should be turned into a width of only 2 or 4 waggon roads.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6d/Avenue_des_Champs-%C3%89lys%C3%A9es_July_24%2C_2009_N1.jpg Several wide streets around the world were done in the horse & waggon era. Thus, wide streets weren't for cars & trucks, they were part of a symbolic bustling city.Wednesday, November 26, 2025
Calgary's Green Line LRT
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hfQTjvFFMUY
The Biggest Pain Point of Calgary's CTrain (and how to fix it for less than the cost of a subway) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ObWf2SwO-OY
The Evolution and Review of the Calgary C-Train https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=th44KLfAwJA
Tuesday, February 18, 2025
The Valley LRT Line in Edmonton
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valley_Line_(Edmonton)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valley_Line_(Edmonton)#Valley_Line_Southeast
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Churchill_station_(Edmonton) A nice, long underground train station with a surface line connecting station above it.
https://majorprojects.alberta.ca/details/Valley-Line-West-LRT/3692
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valley_Line_(Edmonton)#Valley_Line_West_(under_construction)
Friday, July 25, 2025
Wednesday, January 14, 2026
SkyTrain's Canada Line service disruption
(service disruption ends after 14 hours) https://dailyhive.com/vancouver/skytrain-canada-line-service-disruptions-january-14-2026
For a rapid transit line that opened in 2009, on the surface, it sure wasn't designed to be an efficient high capacity line for the future. It's still just a 2 car joke of a train. Fortunately, most real cities around the world planned for not only 6 car trains, but even 8-10 car trains.
Unfortunatly, Vancouver has been hit very hard with a multigenerational agenda of continually imposed small scale infrastructure. Vancouver has water on 3 sides, as its on a peninsula. Since the powers that be couldn't build a Boundary+Road moat or trench, the next best thing was to symbolically show the reluctance to build proper big city size infrastructure. This stunted approach to things is about symbolically holding the scale of the city back for as long as possible.
Despite backwards Vancouver not being able to apply a castle-moat-and-drawbridge control system, the next best thing was to symbolically keep things smaller than what normal or proper big cities allow.
Here are some of the best examples of holding the size of things back. The 3 lane joke that is the Lions+Gate+Bridge has never had a rapid transit rail tunnel and no express bus tunnel next to it. Especially, no 6 lane highway tunnel. It's a classic BC bottleneck-chokepoint, by design.
From a 3 lane joke of a bridge to a two car Canada+Line joke of a train. It met the symbolic requirement to be shorter than the LRT in Edmonton, the C Train in Calgary and the trains in Seattle and Portland.
The+Post+building+complex could have been Vancouver's first 50 story office tower, it's not even 25 floors. It would be impressive if it were in Victoria, Kelowna, Kamloops or Prince George. That's the unfortunate thing about Vancouver, so much is done to only be impressive to small cities or towns.
https://jfdatalinks.blogspot.com/search?q=The+small+Westin+Bayshore+Hotel+in+Vancouver
Things have been kept so small in Vancouver throughout its history, that any big city stuff might seem overwhelming. There has been an unofficial KEEP THEM OUT mentality, but since the city cant have checkpoints, building things small symbolically demonstrates the perpetual reluctance to not allow a big city in backwater BC.
Since Vancouver can't control Burnaby and can't stop Surrey from eventually becoming the biggest city in BC, they are able to build things on a larger scale than Vancouver.
Saturday, October 5, 2013
Calgary and Seattle, etc.
http://www.calgarytransit.com/pdf/ct_lrt_network_plan.pdf
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C-Train#Further_underground_infrastructure,
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=eeb_1379746189,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V7YBZvhVwgk&feature=player_embedded
http://www.barp.ca/bus/lrt/calgary/anderson.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Downtown_Seattle_Transit_Tunnel,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=etT_wVuKy_I
http://vimeo.com/67444394,
http://cablecarguy.blogspot.ca/2010/08/transit-tunnel-august-20-2010.html,
http://www.flickr.com/photos/pasa/5883321327/in/set-72157626932997637
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Link#Stations,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beacon_Hill_(Link_station)
http://www.pugetsoundmagazine.com/articles/a001/10004.php,
http://railforthevalley.wordpress.com/2010/05/03/seattle-transit-kemper-freeman-is-suing-to-stop-light-rail-expansion-to-eastside
https://www.google.ca/search?q=seattle+bus+tunnel
http://www.calgaryherald.com/news/Calgarians+envision+their+communities+years+into+future/5994332/story.html
Saturday, April 6, 2024
The SkyTrain - Canada Line in Richmond to close early for seven weeks due to construction
https://dailyhive.com/vancouver/skytrain-canada-line-capstan-station-spring-2024-service
An entire section of the line has to close early, due to a new station being added. If or whenever all the stations are lengthened, the entire system might have to close early.
Fortunately, all the underground stations in Toronto & Montreal & even Edmonton, were built to be much longer, in the first place. Fortunately, any new underground C-Train stations in Calgary won't be Vancouverized. They will be as long as any underground LRT station in Edmonton.
The biggest mistake for the Skytrain was not building 152 m or 500 ft long stations. Then as longer trains are required, the longer stations would already exist.
The 3rd line or the Canada+Line, is such a fine example of BC congestive planning. Why bother to have long big city trains? https://dailyhive.com/vancouver/canada-line-skytrain
Aparenty, short trains help to match the many narrow bridges in BC. Of course narrow bridges make it tougher to have bus & HOV lanes.
"The five busiest stations have platforms 50 metres (160 ft) long, while the rest of the stations have 40-metre (130 ft) platforms that can be easily extended to 50 metres." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canada_Line#Stations
https://dailyhive.com/vancouver/skytrain-canada-line-rebuilding
https://dailyhive.com/vancouver/north-shore-burrard-innlet-rapid-transit-brt-translink
Greater_Vancouver has been stunted or thwarted for several decades, in so many ways.
https://jfdatalinks.blogspot.com/search?q=SkyTrain-Canada+Line
Saturday, December 14, 2024
Denver RTD vs. the C-Train of Calgary
The $6 Billion Transit Project with No Ridership https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TkI6Fmet4FE
Of course there needs to be more things built close to the stations to increase ridership.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Denver_RTD_rail_stations
Silverliner V trains are used on the RTD's A, B, G and N lines. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silverliner_V#RTD_Commuter_Rail
| Car length | 85 ft 0 in (25.91 m) |
|---|
Tuesday, January 28, 2025
SF, Melbourne and Toronto...
https://googlemapsmania.blogspot.com/2018/08/the-streetcars-of-san-francisco.html
Streetcars and trams were gotten rid of in Vancouver & Victoria by the mid 1950s. Vancouver will likely be one of the last major cities to bring them back. It's such a backwards mentality to totally block out a key mode of transit.
Its cool how the CTrain runs down the middle of Memorial-Drive. Just like the C_Line and_Interstate_105 in LA go well together. Unfortunatly, backwards Vancouver isn't allowed to function like a proper big city like SF, Melbourne and Toronto...
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c9/Inbound_N_Judah_train_boarding_at_48th_Avenue%2C_September_2019.JPG Almost like a tram-train in Melbourn, but it's in SF.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c9/S200_CTrain_leaving_City_Hall_Station.jpg
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CTrain Calgary
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C_Line_(Los_Angeles_Metro)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Line_(Los_Angeles_Metro)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E_Line_(Los_Angeles_Metro)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K_Line_(Los_Angeles_Metro)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G:link GC
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inner_West_Light_Rail Sydney
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Premetro_(Buenos_Aires)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streetcars_in_New_Orleans
Its always amazing to see what other cities are allowed to do, simply because they aren't in BC.


