[frinkprof]

Warning: This will be a long multi-quote post. I'm late to the game and want to reply to a lot of posts. If you have posted in this thread, chances are I am replying to your post below.

Originally Posted by guzzy

THey have been looking at this for years. They want to extend C train lines into remote communities but it will be years before we see it

Not correct. Serving outlying communities with transit is the domain of the Calgary Regional Partnership. Their latest proposal is to have buses serving the larger communities in the short term and then eventually have commuter rail (not C-Train) similar to the GO system in the Greater Toronto Area and West Coast Express in the Greater Vancouver Regional District in the long term.

The City of Airdrie's Intercity Express (ICE) service was the first out of the chute, starting earlier this month. Cochrane is likely next.

Originally Posted by Super-Rye

I hope they get rid of it. Before charging for parking they should be making sure that everyone who uses the system is paying for it. This whole honor system is garbage and the fact that I now have to pay twice to use the c-train while other jack-offs just walk on is ridiculous.

Originally Posted by iggnuef

It's ridiculous that you can just walk on the train without paying! Its the biggest joke, but it fits in with their service which is a joke aswell!!

The incremental costs of providing almost any combination of large increases to enforcement patrols, station attendants, or turnstiles is more expensive than the revenue it would bring in via reduced fare evasion.

Fare evasion would not be curtailed completely even with turnstiles (which are impossible to implement on many stations in Calgary due to their design, by the way). Fare evasion still occurs on systems that have turnstiles. More than half of LRT users access the stations using feeder routes, so that demographic is already paying for a fare/pass before they even get to the station anyway.

See the link provided by SebC for more on this.

Originally Posted by Temporary_User

So the C-trains are being utilized less. The exact opposite of what Nenshi wants. I would also assume that the people who aren't using the c-train still have places to go, so the roads are busier than they were before.

Bolded is not exactly correct. Myriad factors contribute to less transit (and road) utilization over the past year or so. Biggest: recession. Due to this many people do in fact have less places to go.

Originally Posted by LGA

Keep the charge if you have to, just start selling a monthly version of it or something. It's annoying having to do the whole thing every morning, wish I just had a little tag or something I could hang off my rearview mirror.

Monthly parking pass, $60:

http://www.calgarytransit.com/html/p...ow_to_use.html

Originally Posted by kevman

Is it? Should it? Maybe it's just me but in my opinion you should be paying for the service you use (to an extent, it is "public" after all). Parking and riding from Crowfoot to downtown should cost more then just riding from Crowfoot which should cost more then riding from Sunnyside.

The operation of the service will be paid for. It used to be by all transit users and Calgary taxpayers, now it is those two plus those who pay the Park 'N Ride fee. As for the second part of your post, you are implying a zone system, which is a whole other can of worms in principle. Frankly, they have proven to be more unpopular than this parking fee is in other jurisdictions (Vancouver) and create other problems, such as the common case of someone taking the train/bus just over the imaginary zone line.

Originally Posted by Table 5

I think it's ridiculous, and frankly irresponsible, that the city is still using the honor system. The lost revenue must be staggering when you think about it going back 30 years. Who knows how many new trains, buses, or miles of track they've thrown out the window because of it.

Debunked above and link provided by SebC.

Originally Posted by Table 5

Time to step in to the 20th century and institute a proper metro card system (no stupid coins or tokens please) where you pay to play, and can do it conveniently. I think this is much more important then any park and ride fee.

Forthcoming. Should be in place by 2014 as far as I know.

Originally Posted by GGG

I think the transit Ridership drop had more to do with the recession than the park and ride fee. Park n ride users only accounted for 15% of transit use anyway.

Correct with a small fix. Park N' Ride only accounts for 10-15% of LRT users, and thus less for the overall system. Somewhere in the 5-8% range I'd guess. Also, the ridership drop really wasn't that much anyway, about 1%, while unemployment was up by considerably more than that.

Originally Posted by TylerSVT

Honestly im all for increasing transit safety and but the city just wants money. Why can they spend 20 million or whatever for that stupid pedestrian bridge but not bother putting proper heaters in the train.. or making it so that some Hobo dosent smokes dope on the train beside me...

The problem with this logic is that you are saying that it must be "A" (The Peace Bridge) that must be sacrificed to make "B" (heaters, or ostensibly police enforcement) happen. Why not, say:

- SE BRT ($25M)
- (half of) Metis Trail extension ($49M)
- (5/6ths of) Road/Rail grade separation on Barlow Trail at 50th Ave. ($30M)
- (~30% of) NW LRT extension to Tuscany ($92M)
- (a little more than) 16th Ave./68th St. NW intersection improvements ($19M)

Originally Posted by Chingas

I have a question regarding the C-train. Was it funded wholely by the city coffers?

I have no proof but I'm pretty sure that the province ponied up a large portion.

It is important to note the difference between capital expenses and operational expenses. The capital costs of the C-Train over the years is some combination of Province of Alberta, Government of Canada and the City of Calgary. It would take some significant number crunching to determine the exact split, but from what I know, the Province might have the edge on the City, with the feds making up only a small amount.

Operations is all City of Calgary. The Park N' Ride fee goes into the operation of the system, as do fares. They do not pay for capital projects. This is why it is a fallacy for those who do not pay City of Calgary taxes to think that they contribute the same amount to the system as those who do, in the context of the Park N' Ride fee debate. This is of course aside from the other fallacy pointed out by ken0042 that the Provincial and federal taxes everyone pays goes into projects all over the respective jurisdictions in proportion to population. I.e. provincial money buys both concrete and rails in Calgary, and health centres, pavement, etc. in Chestermere and Langdon.

Originally Posted by Dion

Before I moved to High River I paid taxes in the City of Calgary for over 25 years. My taxes helped to build most of the LRT system that Calgarians use today. So no, you're not subsidizing the few times I use the transit system.

False. Each time anyone steps on a bus or train, every Calgary taxpayer is subsidizing that ride. You no longer pay taxes in Calgary, so you no longer subsidize any ride you or anyone else takes. In those 25 years you mention, you subsidized, in part, every transit ride taken,
but not a single one since the day you stopped paying Calgary taxes.

Originally Posted by Slava

As another response, the reason that people are "entitled to free parking..." is because they are paying customers for the service. Same reason that you are given free parking at Chinook Centre or most other businesses in the city that rely on your being there.

There's no such thing as free parking. The price of parking you do or do not use at Chinook Mall is built into every pair of sunglasses or Rock and Republic jeans. The price of parking at LRT stations was being paid for by a combination of Calgary taxpayers and all transit users (90+% of which didn't use it). Now it is being paid for by those two plus those who pay the Park N' Ride fee.

Originally Posted by Dion

Both are looking for revenue. Charging a fee for parking only discourages transit use - I call it negitive re enforecement. Creative some incentives to get people to use public transit.

To the bolded, only for some. Arguably it encourages many to use more transit by taking feeder buses instead. Speaking generally about incentives, I agree.

Originally Posted by Dion

You're missing the point. Isn't Calgary transit always struggling to meet costs? Don't they need more revenue?

In a sense, never. The service isn't out to make a profit or to break even based solely on the user-paid revenues, hence the public in public transit. Operational costs are met via some combination of user paid revenues or municipal taxes, but never solely from one.

Originally Posted by Dion

That would be a great idea if the feeder bus system wasn't so crappy. Too many communities don't have a good feeder system to get them to the station. A good friend lives in one of those communities and drives to the station.

Chicken/egg.

Increased feeder bus usage (which the Park N' Ride fee has facilitated) can lead, in part, to better service.

Also, was research on transit service not factored into the choice to live in such a community? If it was, then it looks like that person accepted that reality.

Originally Posted by Rathji

Anyone know if there are any other free park and rides for BRT bus routes?

Yes. Westside (closed due to West LRT construction, will be replaced by parkade at 69th Street Station), Sircocco, and Northpointe. Symon's Valley and a few more in the southeast will be next.