Quote:
Originally Posted by Addick
By going with quantity over quality, Calgary was able to develop a Transit City mentality for commuting. By hitting more communities Calgary is able to convince over 300k people a day to use the CTrain while Edmonton can only get just over 100k. The medium-term benefits of going along the surface of 7th outweighed the long-term benefits of going underground.
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Getting it to wide swaths of the city (comparatively, and at the time starting in the early 80s) quickly is a big part of it.
However, so too was having a densely developed downtown with a parking policy that restricts the build-able supply, as well as other relatively transit-friendly destinations/trip generators outside the downtown (NW post-secondary corridor, Stampede/Saddledome, Chinook).