Quote:
Originally Posted by Hack&Lube
Well, Vancouver connected the Skytrain to the airport, are we going to be 10 years later than them on this?
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They also recently hosted the Olympics, which gave them the impetus to get theirs done. Without the Olympics would it have been built?
At this point, Vancouver is the only major airport in Canada with a passenger rail link. Toronto and Montreal are both still in the planning/financing/debating phase of getting rail links to Pearson and Trudeau, and they are both much larger cities with much more mature transit systems.
The thing is, what will the ridership of an Airport C-Train link be?
Calgary isn't a city you can really get around without a car, so unlike someone visiting a city like London, Paris, or New York, which you can realistically navigate using public transit, a tourist visiting Calgary is pretty much required to rent a car or take a tour of some type. As a result, visitors to Calgary are unlikely to use the train to any large degree.
That leaves locals. Anyone traveling on business will get reimbursed for their taxi trips to and from the airport or their parking costs at the airport, so most aren't going to take the extra time to take the train.
That leaves people traveling for pleasure. If I was traveling with limited baggage, I might consider taking the train, but if I had a large suitcase and was taking a long vacation, I would just consider the cost of a taxi part of the cost of my trip or I'd get someone to give me a ride.
As has been said, the people who would get the most use out of a train link would be airport employees, and there aren't enough of them to really justify the construction costs when there are more high-demand routes needed.