[frinkprof]

Alright, I'll take a different approach with you Muta.

Instead of the projected ridership table, which you either don't believe, you think isn't convincing, or both, here's some numbers.

During the hour between 5:00 - 6:00 (one PM rush hour), there are the following buses serving the general West LRT catchment area:

9 x 301 West BRT (let's assume them all to be the 60 foot D60LFR articulated)

8 x 101 Coach Hill (some of these are run as 60 footers as well, let's be generous and assume they all are)

8 x 104 Strathcona (40 foot buses of varying models, all other routes below are also served with 40 footers)

8 x 108 Richmond Hill

5 x 112 Sarcee Road

2 x 166 Glenbrook Express

2 x 179 Cougar Ridge Express

6 x 2 17th Avenue

3 x 67 Signal Hill Express

4 x 17 Spruce Cliff

Let's assume they are all running at crush load capacity. That's 38 40 foot buses and 17 60 foot buses. While there are a few different bus models in play here, the capacity of a 40 foot bus tops out at about 70 passengers, while for a 60 foot bus it is 105 passengers.

That's 4445 passengers per direction per hour.

Now, the NE LRT line is running 3 car trains at a headway of 5-6 minutes at rush (for the sake of interest, the south - northwest line is running at a little less headway, 4-5 minutes). For the benefit of your side of the argument, let's handicap it at 6 minutes, so an even 10 per hour. That's 10 three car trains per hour. The practical passenger capacity for a single LRV is 226 (so 678 per 3 car train).

That's a capacity of 6780 p.p.d.p.h.

Now, I should also mention that I've made another assumption here that would benefit your side of the argument. The people taking the 108 and 112 will, for the most part, not be transferring to the LRT. Many will end up taking the other routes that have been created and/or changed as part of the new bus network. Mostly the #18 or the remaining #112.