Quote:
Originally Posted by getbak
Just curious, are there any cities that would be good examples of following that sort of strategy?
Ottawa is one city I can think of that did it. In the early 80s, Ottawa opened their Transitway, which was a network of dedicated busways and transit priority lanes to improve movement into and through downtown, similar to 7th Avenue for the C-Train in Calgary.
Here are the latest stats I could find for each system (Calgary's are 2 years more recent):
For Calgary Transit, the annual ridership is 106.5 million individual trips, with an average trip length of 14.7km. For OC Transpo, it's 94.4 million trips and an average trip length of 10km.
Despite Calgary's much more-extensive LRT system, Calgary Transit also has 20 more total bus routes than Ottawa (169 compared to 149). Calgary also has more bus shelters and stops with benches. |
It is interesting to compare the different approaches and outcomes of Ottawa/Edmonton/Calgary. I haven't been able to find contemporary numbers, but it seems Calgary has managed to deliver more services for less money (of course it's possible there are some discrepancies in detailed accounting).
That said, past decisions do not necessarily serve any purpose in evaluating today's plans. I've posted a few times opinion pieces authored by past transit managers (responsible for many of the good decisions we can laud compared to our competitor cities) who are arguing that SE BRT is a far more sensible solution for that route.