Calgary Public Transit - Discussion

[calgarygeologist]

I think that at this point the most critical section is Beddington to Seton. The deep south is much more populated and has had more growth than the far north. Running a BRT service with dedicated buses lanes from the new Beddington Station up Beddington Trail/Symons Valley Road should be sufficient for many years after a Beddington Terminal is built.

I know that an Airport Link is something that has been talked about for quite some time as well and maybe that link would be better running from Beddington instead of Metis Trail. I wonder if they could utilize the CP right of way between Beddington Trail and Airport Trail and then run the LRT along Airport Trail to the terminal. This could also benefit all the new hotels that have been built NW of the terminal along Airport Trail and the future businesses.

[Wormius]

Originally Posted by GGG

What age group are you looking for. Under 5 or 6 is free and you see that if you take the train later in the day.

I might have misremembered Vancouver, unless they changed their fare structure, but Kelowna still allows up to 4 kids under 12 to ride for free with a paid adult.

[GGG]

Originally Posted by calgarygeologist

I think that at this point the most critical section is Beddington to Seton. The deep south is much more populated and has had more growth than the far north. Running a BRT service with dedicated buses lanes from the new Beddington Station up Beddington Trail/Symons Valley Road should be sufficient for many years after a Beddington Terminal is built.

I know that an Airport Link is something that has been talked about for quite some time as well and maybe that link would be better running from Beddington instead of Metis Trail. I wonder if they could utilize the CP right of way between Beddington Trail and Airport Trail and then run the LRT along Airport Trail to the terminal. This could also benefit all the new hotels that have been built NW of the terminal along Airport Trail and the future businesses.

I've probably complained about this before but they really should cut down on the number of stations. 21 stations in 26 km is too many.

Between 16th and McKnight should only be one station.
9th ave is questionable and with the tunnelling option a huge expense but I can see the logic in having people at the river not having to cross the river to get on the train. But having 2nd Ave and 9th ave doesn't need make sense.

72nd shouldn't be there as a single station between 64th and 96th is sufficient.

It's basicly recreating the bridlewood, shawneasy, fish creek, canyon meadows, Anderson problem where at least 1 if not 2 of those should never have been built.

The south looks Much better with only Seton and hospital likely too close together.

[calgarygeologist]

Originally Posted by GGG

I've probably complained about this before but they really should cut down on the number of stations. 21 stations in 26 km is too many.

Between 16th and McKnight should only be one station.
9th ave is questionable and with the tunnelling option a huge expense but I can see the logic in having people at the river not having to cross the river to get on the train. But having 2nd Ave and 9th ave doesn't need make sense.

72nd shouldn't be there as a single station between 64th and 96th is sufficient.

It's basicly recreating the bridlewood, shawneasy, fish creek, canyon meadows, Anderson problem where at least 1 if not 2 of those should never have been built.

The south looks Much better with only Seton and hospital likely too close together.

64 and 72 shouldn't exist. They should just drop a station between the two (68th) and that way they can service the Superstore, rec centre and the schools across the field.

40th Ave makes sense because of the proximity to the Center Street Chruch (that place is huge and draws in a lot of people.)

[Wormius]

I dunno. 16th and McKnight are pretty far apart to have just one station between them.

Some of these stations, I am envision could be pretty basic. Hopefully they won't be as elaborate as Sunalta or some of the NW stations after Sunnyside.

[Fuzz]

They need the 40th av station to intersect with the 72/73 route.

[MrMastodonFarm]

Originally Posted by Wormius

I dunno. 16th and McKnight are pretty far apart to have just one station between them.

Some of these stations, I am envision could be pretty basic. Hopefully they won't be as elaborate as Sunalta or some of the NW stations after Sunnyside.

Most of them are designed to be sidewalk stations IIRC. Low floor trains are being used. Bunk can expand on that.

Disagree with less stations too (from another post). 9th ave is going to busy community station with the school nearby (depends on location) but 16th ave is going to be super busy with cross routes.

[RW99]

Yeah I'm not a fan of a 9th Ave station. It's a lot of money to spend for just a school near by. I'm also curious as to what they plan for the SW BRT at Crowchild and 33rd SW. There is no space at the interchange, not sure if all the condo folks want to walk all the way to the golf course on the other side.

[GGG]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

They need the 40th av station to intersect with the 72/73 route.

Couldn't you get rid of McKnight then which is effectively 48th? It's 800m between the two. That's a 10 minute walk station to station.

[MrMastodonFarm]

Originally Posted by RW99

Yeah I'm not a fan of a 9th Ave station. It's a lot of money to spend for just a school near by. I'm also curious as to what they plan for the SW BRT at Crowchild and 33rd SW. There is no space at the interchange, not sure if all the condo folks want to walk all the way to the golf course on the other side.

Ever taken center street downtown during the rush, or any time? Have you seen the amount of people that get on the insane amount of buses that use that route? Route 2, 3, 17, Airport route 300, BRT 301.. very busy route, lots of buses per route, and they're always picking people up in this stretch.

8th/9th/10th ave... what a miss it would be to not have a station south of 16th all the way to the core.

[MrMastodonFarm]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

They need the 40th av station to intersect with the 72/73 route.

Pretty sure it would. The BRT stop rights beside that Tims and the 72/73 stop just across the street north of it IIRC.

Originally Posted by GGG

Couldn't you get rid of McKnight then which is effectively 48th? It's 800m between the two. That's a 10 minute walk station to station.

That'd leave a pretty big hole from 40th to 64th.

[GGG]

If you model the Ctrain after the BRT you get a very reasonable number of stations.

16 ave, 40th, 56, 64, though 64 and 56 are to close together.

[MrMastodonFarm]

Greenline is replacing all transit along this route IIRC, not just the BRTs. They can't have those sizeable gaps or it's a massive failure. These are low floor trains and will have much smaller stations. It would be pointless to miss all those users with limited stops. There won't be an massive Park and Ride structures in the areas we're talking about here.

[GGG]

Originally Posted by MrMastodonFarm

Greenline is replacing all transit along this route IIRC, not just the BRTs. They can't have those sizeable gaps or it's a massive failure. These are low floor trains and will have much smaller stations. It would be pointless to miss all those users with limited stops. There won't be an massive Park and Ride structures in the areas we're talking about here.

Time to downtown will be a major determining factor in the usage of the train. You aren't missing out on users you get different users.. You are marginally increasing the walk or bus time to get people to a station while decreasing the train transit time for every rider. The lack of park and rides shouldn't have an impact on spacing as they represent a small portion of the users.

1 mile is not sizable. Just look at the southern half of the route. Calgary C-train has world class ridership numbers because it is so advanced for a city of its size. The system got to where it was by making prudent low cost decisions that accomplished 90% of the goals.

It goes beside rather than through the university, above ground downtown, at grade crossings and so on. These cost saving choices and prudent decision making led to the system the way it is now.

The green line got to expensive, it's time to take a hard look at the design and cut a billion dollars from the 7 budget billion TIC.

[Wormius]

Originally Posted by GGG

If you model the Ctrain after the BRT you get a very reasonable number of stations.

16 ave, 40th, 56, 64, though 64 and 56 are to close together.

I don't think you can model it solely on the BRT though. That serves a specific group of people who pretty much just want to get up to the far north end of the city with as few stops as possible. Whenever I have taken the 301, very few people even bother with those stops. The bus fills up downtown and pretty much starts pouring out starting at Harvest Hills and is empty by North Pointe.

The 2 and 3 have high ridership too, and is maybe a better indicator of where the rest of the riders would want stops along most of Center St.

In any case, there aren't that many stations from the north to downtown, if you are comparing it the redline from the NW to downtown. I think the time to downtown or vice-versa should be pretty fast.

[Fuzz]

Originally Posted by GGG

Couldn't you get rid of McKnight then which is effectively 48th? It's 800m between the two. That's a 10 minute walk station to station.

It's 900m from Brentwood to University, and another 1km to Banff Trail, so 800m isn't all that much shorter. I don't think it is a big deal having 2 stops close together for good reasons, as long as they don't have a stop every 800m.

[calgarygeologist]

Originally Posted by GGG

Couldn't you get rid of McKnight then which is effectively 48th? It's 800m between the two. That's a 10 minute walk station to station.

But if the City gives the okay for that big condo development project at the old golf course the McKnight station will be very important to those people. I think that project is supposed to house a few thousand people.

[GGG]

Originally Posted by Wormius

I don't think you can model it solely on the BRT though. That serves a specific group of people who pretty much just want to get up to the far north end of the city with as few stops as possible. Whenever I have taken the 301, very few people even bother with those stops. The bus fills up downtown and pretty much starts pouring out starting at Harvest Hills and is empty by North Pointe.

The 2 and 3 have high ridership too, and is maybe a better indicator of where the rest of the riders would want stops along most of Center St.

In any case, there aren't that many stations from the north to downtown, if you are comparing it the redline from the NW to downtown. I think the time to downtown or vice-versa should be pretty fast.

That's how the train works to though. On the south train I'd say 75% of the riders are going Anderson or South. And probably 95% are Chinook or south. Adding these stations at the time of hurts ridability as the station expands and consumes capital.

I haven't lived up there for a bunch of years but doesn't that golf course run from McKnight to like 42nd or do. So an 800m walk is not unreasonable from the far side of the station. The BRT is the model of the trains because buses handle the in between trips of the hubs getting people to the stations which are capital intensive. (I understand less so than the current station.

Banff trail, Brentwood university already are to close together. Beyond that they serve the second largest destination in the city. Outside of downtown no other area should have spacing like that. If you accept that as the minimum spacing your most high denand area should have then spacing should be greater, not equal or lower on the rest of the network.

(Too lazy to multi quote on my phone)

[MrMastodonFarm]

The brt isn't the model from this line, at least not the north part. It's replacing a critical amount of routes and buses. The low floor trains inconjuctuon with the lower sidewalk like stations (which are much much much.. Much cheaper) then the massive ones make it easier to do it this way.

Yes the project is expensive but that's because we're doing it the right way with tunneling and underground stations downtown. If you truly want to model it the old way then fight against subway'ing it.

More stations along center St is a must, all the ridership is there already. Yeah, it might add 8-10 minutes per trip from the furtherest route but that's fine.

Someone like frink or Bunk can speak better to all this though.

[GGG]

In general we have too much access because people cave to public pressure. This is true on free ways, trains and intersections with traffic lights.

So I'll end my argument here:

The underground portion under the river past 16th ave makes sense to do now because unlike other portions of the line chosen not to bury this cannot be done later so pre-investment is required. Building costly limited use stations however seems to be a prudent cut. 2 less stations one of which is buried will have a minimal affect on day 1 use and reduce capital investment and improve long term service.