Of note that this line is also vast majority surface rail. Essentially could be as simple as running train tracks, at grade, in the prairies which is pretty damned feasible. lol They built the National dream in about the time it takes to build spur transit lines here and get them functioning. Nor is this rapid transit. Nor is this heavy shipping freight transit. This is lighweight streetcars essentially but building lines that are 100X over engineered for something you could basically build on standard rail and ties. Some of the first LRT line out to Clareview was that. But in the decades since they apparently need extensive concrete pad every inch of the line, massive overkill infrastructure, and take a decade to get it going.
100yrs ago with less equipment they built entire street car lines, in this city, in less time and without modern heavy equipment etc that we have today. They ripped them all down anyway even though they would be massive use today. The only one surviving being the highlevel streetcar. The streetcar speeds and operation are NO DIFFERENT than what these modern "rapid transit" lines bring. The streetcar lines were also very cheap. But they provided the same damn service and to many more regions and build out in a very short period of time. I'm old enough to have been on a lot of the trolley lines they had. Many of us here have been on them. The only problems those systems had was navigating 90degree sharp turns as the trolley lines would sometimes detach and have to be put back on by the operator. But even our "modern" lines wouldn't navigate such hairpin turns either.
Meanwhile in private industry they built the entire first phase of WEM including massive two level parking lots in 11-12mths. Finished.
But whatever the city touches is massive incompetency at every level. A city run by idiots. Doesn't matter. They'll build all these lines and in time some lunatics in the future will tear them down later in the name of something else.
100yrs ago you could take a train to Calgary, to Banff, a regular train to Jasper, to Camrose, Fort Sask, to Red Deer, To Drumheller, Medicine hat etc. People had so many rail commuter options it was silly. Now we have one poor passenger rail service through Yellowhead route that comes twice a week. This is the ONLY passenger rail line left. Most of the others were ripped out by such future thinkers that thought we should just have highways everywhere instead. How has that all worked out? Imagine if the Province and Western Canada just kept with all the commuter rail lines. They, and the towns and cities they served would be booming. So much of the population and industry would be served by energy efficient freight and passenger rail wherever they are. But it just made too much sense so in the name of progress they just ripped it all out and let the rails and stations rot..
