[bizaro86]

Originally Posted by Cleveland Steam Whistle

I actually have no idea to be honest, other than the constant complaints we here from our mayors over the years that Calgarian's don't give up our cars for our daily commute, .

You have the cause and effect backwards. Parking here is expensive because the city restricts its supply to force people to use transit.

Also, our transit is ridiculously good for a city of our size. I posted the following in the "Give back our $52 million" thread to a similar comment.

Calgary metro has a population of 1.278 million people. The US metros closest to us in population are Memphis, Oklahoma City, Louisville KY, and Richmond VA.

In 2011, Calgary Transit had 96.2 million passengers. (1)
In 2011 Memphis Transit Authority had just over 10 million passengers (2)
In 2011 Metro Transit (Oklahoma City) carried ~3 million passengers (3)
Transit Authority of River City (Louisville) carries ~15 million passengers (4)
Greater Richmond Transit serves "more than 10 million passengers" (5)

So compared to the closest in size N. American metro areas to Calgary, our transit is used ~10x more often. Maybe you have another way of determining that our transit is in fact appalingly bad for a city of our size?

1 http://www.calgarytransit.com/html/a...ridership.html
2 page 7 of annual report http://www.calgarytransit.com/html/a...ridership.html
3 http://www.gometro.org/about-us
4 http://www.ridetarc.org/about/mission/
5 http://www.ridegrtc.com/images/RFP%20116-13-09.pdf

Edited to add: Louiseville has only busses, Memphis has a small trolley system (partly for tourism), OKC has only buses and Richmond has only buses. We have a modern (and groundbreaking when originally built) light rail transit system. Our transit is light years ahead of similar sized North American cities.
http://forum.calgarypuck.com/showpos...1&postcount=48