Quote:
Originally Posted by 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.
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Great numbers, and it does put my mind at ease a bit,but consider a few things:
Calgary Transit estimates PRACTICAL single direction capacity per car is actually 162. 162 people x 3 cars per train x 10 trains per hour = 4860 capacity.
A full train (shoulder-to-shoulder) would be = 226 x 3 cars per train x 10 trains per hour = 6780 capacity.
Of course, this is assuming three cars, and that we are using the newer models, which half the trains are not (Older models have a load capacity of 200). Therefore, lets assume, to support your side of the argument, half are old trains, half are new:
200 x 3 x 5 = 3,000
226 x 3 x 5 = 3,390
Which is to say, 6390. Slightly smaller, but still a difference.
Now, that is assuming 3 cars. Of course, 4 cars would increase load capacity, but now they will likely be delayed until at least 2014.
You also forgot to add the 72 / 73 crowd, which also feeds through the West LRT area, and many regulars will adjust now to take these buses to catch the LRT route downtown. Let's assume half of each bus gets off at Westbrook to go downtown, and that 6 buses run during peak hour:
2 bus routes x 12 buses per hour x 35 passengers : 840 extra passengers.
So, 4,445 + 840 = 5285 passengers per hour.
This number doesn't include the "snow crowd" that take the LRT on cold days because they don't want to drive. So lets bump that up to about 6,000 assuming 700 more fair-weathered transit users.
So, roughly 6,000 people are going to be using the service in the winter (which is upcoming), and we have a PRACTICAL capacity of 4860.
We aren't even considering a general Calgary population growth rate over a 5-year period of roughly 12% either.
We certainly fall in the
theoretical capacity loads, but given my original grief is the shoulder-to-shoulder crowd, I believe the next two years are going to be a crowded, unpleasant clusterfudge that will only marginally improve my transit time.
Like Fotze said, if you get on on the 69th station or Sirocco, there isn't an issue. But I hate crowds, I hate standing shoulder-to-shoulder with people, and I don't exactly see how this is going to improve my commute.
It should improve my property value though, telling a potential buyer I'm on an LRT line.