Commuter rail could easily be paid for by development of suburbs at the stations along the rail line. If anyone wanted to build a commuter rail line to the different satellite cities surrounding Calgary, they would do well also building housing developments at each point as well. Think about it - if a developer is a part owner of the rail system going to, say, Okotoks, and he owns land along the way, say, between De Winton and Okotoks, all he needs to do is build an additional station on that route and bam! that land is worth 10 times what it was previously. Think of it like the arena theory around owning a hockey team in the deep south - it don't matter if the team loses money as long as the real estate around the arena makes it for you instead. You use the town of Okotoks as the anchor for the train, with the commuters already coming from that town to help make the system pay for itself to some degree, and you make the gravy with the new town you just built with the construction of a station.
Particular interest should be made to the west, as this leg has the greatest potential for expansion. First Cochrane, then Canmore, and finally Banff. Commuter rail means that people who work in Banff don't need to live their, plus you get holiday traffic on a line that otherwise would be dead on the weekends.
Repeat in each of the different cardinal directions, and you have a billion dollar idea.
The city can make a load of money on this idea too. All those commuters are coming to one place - the downtown central train station. Almost certainly this station will be along the tracks between 9th and 10th. Right now that is a run down no mans land. CP rail uses it, but nowhere near it's potential. Find a block to the north of 9th towards the current C-train line, and build a new, vital development with loads of potential for new property taxes and increased revenue, while reducing commuter traffic on the road system.
The City wins, CP Rail wins, local developers win, the satellite towns win, the province wins, I'm frankly surprised no one has started up a consortium like this yet.
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