Quote:
Originally Posted by GGG
Absolutely agree with you on all the problems of internal transportation within the park. Where I disagree is that it is a chicken and egg thing. You need to convince people they are better off parking their car in Banff and using park transit before it makes any sense to pursue a way to get them to Banff without cars. Where people seemed to take issue with me is saying there wasn't a good way to get around the park without a car. There isn't currently. Its a work in progress. Once you get up to a sustainable amount of trips using transit within the park then you can work on the easier problem of convincing people not to drive to the park in the first place.
Where I disagree is that Bus Service is bad to Banff. You have hourly service from the airport with the expensive air porter. and hourly service on weekends from downtown and Crowfoot on weekends with On-It. Right now On-It offers $10 trips that is subsidized by government. You can get a ticket for this Saturday, bus isn't even half full for any of the trips. Until these services are bulging at the seems there is no evidence that the demand for trains is there even with peoples train preference.
So government funding for a train should be dismissed out of hand until you can prove demand for the very similar bus service and you have convinced people within Banff that a car is not required. Then you can start studying the feasibility.
Using the Olympics on boondoggle projects is how you have huge debts from Olympics. Spend the infrastructure money on an airport link, or accelerating the North and Southeast line. Even the high-speed boondoggle proposed between Edmonton and Calgary is a better boondoggle to invest in.
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It is a chicken and egg thing.
Once you have visitors arriving to Banff without cars looking to get further into the park, then you have created more demand, allowing those services to increase their capacities, routes, distances and service quality.
Then it goes back the other way, when there are more functional transportation options available they will entice those that came by car to leave it in a parkade to get to other destinations.
It's funny you suggest infrastructure money would be better put towards an airport link, which studies have outlined that the projected ridership wouldn't cover its operating costs and payback of the build out.