Calgary Public Transit - Discussion

[stevinder]

Originally Posted by NSFL

Hey frink, do you know if the train stations will have turnstools forcing you to pay before you get on the platform or will they just be stations for payment?

No. There won't be turnstiles or turnstools (whatever those are) at the stations.

[NSFL]

Originally Posted by stevinder

No. There won't be turnstiles or turnstools (whatever those are) at the stations.

Bah! I was close.

[frinkprof]

Route Ahead

Here's a pretty important initiative for the future of transit in Calgary. "Route Ahead" is a process that will lead to a long term (30 year) comprehensive plan and strategy for Calgary Transit. This will develop a network and capital infrastructure plan, fiscal strategy, capital plan, customer service and service delivery plan, and governance structure for the organization.

Basically, there's never been a long-term plan specifically for transit in Calgary. This will be a big step in letting citizens know how the future will be mapped out and they will have an active part in forming how it will be done.

A lot of the issues discussed in this thread will be addressed as this goes along. The website will be one focal point where people can have their thoughts and ideas heard. There will be also more traditional engagement events in the next year or so such as open houses. Route Ahead will also be a big topic at the upcoming "Better Transit in Calgary" event in April that I brought up a couple weeks ago.

http://www.routeahead.ca/

[Bunk]

This is a really important initiative. If there was every anything you felt about Transit that you've wanted to express, this process is an opportunity.

This is something that the Mayor really initiated, so his office has a lot of involvement in it. The Mayor is on the steering committee, and I am present for the committee meetings, so you can consider this thread a conduit for ideas. Frink also is involved in the Transit Customer Advisory Committee, so he is a conduit as well.

RouteAhead is comprehensive, so it touches on every element of the service. Capital and network planning, service delivery, customer service, communication, governance and organizational structure, fiscal strategies.

Have at it.

[frinkprof]

Just a reminder that the spring service changes come into effect tomorrow, March 12th. Lots of routes have seen service changes (mostly for the worse, unfortunately), so you may want to check it out:

http://www.calgarytransit.com/html/s...ions_2012.html

[Rathji]

As far as the RouteAhead, I really find it is hard to grasp what I could possibly suggest for a 30 year plan that would be meaningful. The scope is really too large for me to make a meaningful comment. Ask me about 5-10 years from now, and I can give some input but anything more than that and I am at a loss.

Short term, I think the SE LRT should be a priority but in the meantime the BRT should be maximized to it's full potential. This stuff could easily apply to other areas but I am most familiar with the 302, so I will use it as an example.

It shouldn't take longer to take the BRT into downtown than it does to drive to Anderson and hop on a train. I realize this will mean cutting out more stops and possibly diverting the route and utilizing more community shuttles - for example routing the 302 up 24th ST rather than Quarry Park and then having a shuttle that handles the rest. With a route that small, it should't take more than a bus or two to maintain a 5-10 min wait/travel time. The same could be done at the deep SE end, cutting out multiple stops and adding a dedicated shuttle to the park and ride.

I do realize that just doing that would be more expensive, since you have more buses and drivers in play, so it's not that simple. If you make the BRT routes more efficient, then you can alter existing routes that feed the LRT line or go directly downtown like community express shuttles and instead focus on the BRT and increase the routes that feed it.

Also related to BRT routes is the fact that there are not many options to travel from deep in a quadrant to deep in another quadrant that does not directly route through downtown. The 72/73 kind of serves this purpose, but the city has long since outgrown it. Perhaps an "Outer Circle route" or a box of BRT's that go from deep SE->SW->NW->NE-> SE, and maybe utilizing the ring road. I know I have seen long term plans (don't know if they are official or not) that involve a couple concentric rings of LRT routes, so kind of something that might mirror that setup.

On more of a financing and long term thing, I think there should be involvement from feeder communities. It might make financial sense for places like Airdrie and Okotoks to be involved in our transit future. Many 'leeches', as some people on this board already point out with much disgust, use our transit every day but don't contribute in taxes. If we had a rail solution from these places, then it would encourage growth of those cities and help reduce the spawl problem within Calgary, so even if we took a bit of a hit on the long term deal, it might make more financial sense to do that rather than losing money on every house that is built by financing transportation and utility services to these communities.

I guess now that I think of it, some of these ideas might fall into the 10-30 year range.

[bizaro86]

Originally Posted by Rathji

On more of a financing and long term thing, I think there should be involvement from feeder communities. It might make financial sense for places like Airdrie and Okotoks to be involved in our transit future. Many 'leeches', as some people on this board already point out with much disgust, use our transit every day but don't contribute in taxes. If we had a rail solution from these places, then it would encourage growth of those cities and help reduce the spawl problem within Calgary, so even if we took a bit of a hit on the long term deal, it might make more financial sense to do that rather than losing money on every house that is built by financing transportation and utility services to these communities.

That was one of the big pros of the $3/day parking. One guy at my office lives in Cochrane and parks at the CTrain every morning, and never buys a pass either. At least with the parking he was putting something into the system.

While I'm not opposed to extending to train to the satellite communities on principal, it'll just move the sprawl from the edge of Calgary to the edge of those communities. (see the Go Train in the GTA)

[Rathji]

Originally Posted by bizaro86

That was one of the big pros of the $3/day parking. One guy at my office lives in Cochrane and parks at the CTrain every morning, and never buys a pass either. At least with the parking he was putting something into the system.

While I'm not opposed to extending to train to the satellite communities on principal, it'll just move the sprawl from the edge of Calgary to the edge of those communities. (see the Go Train in the GTA)

Of course it would. If it helps people who don't want to live in 'inner city living' or in high density housing by making it easier for them to live elsewhere, then it solves the problem of the city losing money on infrastructure every time one of these homes is build inside the city. That means that even if we foot a good portion of the bill for getting trains to those communities, we might come out ahead (or maybe just not as far behind). Then the taxes from those communities would go into operation of transit. I don't know anything about the Go Train in GTA, so excuse my ignorance, but has it's implementation not met its desired goals or had any negative side effects?

I am not saying it is a silver bullet, by any means, but in the scope of 30 years down the road, I think the idea and its discussion has lots of merit. Especially if you consider that in 30 years the city could very well have nearly eclipsed one or both of those communities.

[Knalus]

Commuter rail could easily be paid for by development of suburbs at the stations along the rail line. If anyone wanted to build a commuter rail line to the different satellite cities surrounding Calgary, they would do well also building housing developments at each point as well. Think about it - if a developer is a part owner of the rail system going to, say, Okotoks, and he owns land along the way, say, between De Winton and Okotoks, all he needs to do is build an additional station on that route and bam! that land is worth 10 times what it was previously. Think of it like the arena theory around owning a hockey team in the deep south - it don't matter if the team loses money as long as the real estate around the arena makes it for you instead. You use the town of Okotoks as the anchor for the train, with the commuters already coming from that town to help make the system pay for itself to some degree, and you make the gravy with the new town you just built with the construction of a station.

Particular interest should be made to the west, as this leg has the greatest potential for expansion. First Cochrane, then Canmore, and finally Banff. Commuter rail means that people who work in Banff don't need to live their, plus you get holiday traffic on a line that otherwise would be dead on the weekends.

Repeat in each of the different cardinal directions, and you have a billion dollar idea.

The city can make a load of money on this idea too. All those commuters are coming to one place - the downtown central train station. Almost certainly this station will be along the tracks between 9th and 10th. Right now that is a run down no mans land. CP rail uses it, but nowhere near it's potential. Find a block to the north of 9th towards the current C-train line, and build a new, vital development with loads of potential for new property taxes and increased revenue, while reducing commuter traffic on the road system.

The City wins, CP Rail wins, local developers win, the satellite towns win, the province wins, I'm frankly surprised no one has started up a consortium like this yet.

[frinkprof]

I have some other news items and I'd like to respond to some of the discussion above, but that might have to wait.

For now, here's an update on the upcoming "Better Transit in Calgary event" put on by Transit Camp:



Last I'd heard, we have already had 125+ people register to attend, which is already more than I thought we might get for a first-time event like this and there's still almost a month to go.

Here's the direct link to the registration page: http://bettertransitincalgary.eventbrite.com/?ebtv=C
Registration is free.

We have also launched a new website: http://transitcamp.ca

Remember that this event will be a big part of the "Route Ahead" process that will lead to real changes to transit in Calgary with the creation of a comprehensive long-term strategy.

[frinkprof]

Getting to some other news.

City urged to revisit north-central LRT route




By Sherri Zickefoose, Calgary Herald March 21, 2012

Calgary commuters longing to ride the rails of the north-central LRT will be waiting until 2014 to learn where the route may go.


The city is revisiting planning ideas for a long-awaited LRT route Wednesday. But instead of running commuter trains along Nose Creek - an idea that received a cool reception last year - it's back to the drawing board.


City hall is being urged by administrators Wednesday to give planners until the end of 2014 to study route planning and ridership projections, and get the public's input.


Calgary Transit is recommending a more central alignment involving either Centre Street N. or Edmonton Trail N.E.


[...]


The price tag for the north-central LRT leg is unknown, but it would likely cost billions to reach the city's northern boundary.

Link to the rest of the article


..................


Tele-Text



"Tele-text" has been launched. It is an SMS messaging service that will provide scheduled bus times via text message by the user texting stop numbers to the service.


http://www.calgarytransit.com/sms/

[woob]

frink - FYI, your TransitCamp links are broken. You're missing the : after http.

[RW99]

Any thoughts on the Next Bus text messages? I kind of like the idea, it can be a lot faster than calling and also I wouldn't have to interrupt my music.

[MrMastodonFarm]

Originally Posted by RW99

Any thoughts on the Next Bus text messages? I kind of like the idea, it can be a lot faster than calling and also I wouldn't have to interrupt my music.

I guess it's fine if you don't have a smart phone. Both iOS and Android have great Calgary Transit apps that I found to be great on both for bus times.

[You Need a Thneed]

Originally Posted by RW99

Any thoughts on the Next Bus text messages? I kind of like the idea, it can be a lot faster than calling and also I wouldn't have to interrupt my music.

It's much faster than calling, or even opening an app.

[SebC]

Originally Posted by MrMastodonFarm

I guess it's fine if you don't have a smart phone. Both iOS and Android have great Calgary Transit apps that I found to be great on both for bus times.

My favorite Calgary Transit app is Google Maps.

[MrMastodonFarm]

Originally Posted by SebC

My favorite Calgary Transit app is Google Maps.

Yup it's great for pre trip planning.

Minus the two weeks of every new year it's down.

[SebC]

Originally Posted by MrMastodonFarm

Minus the two weeks of every new year it's down.

LOL, so true. I don't know if it's CT's fault or Google's, but if I had to guess I'd say CT.

[bizaro86]

Is there a reason the C-Train displays are constantly wrong about which train is coming next? The one at 4th St SW station displays either "Crowfoot" or "10th St West" and seems to be only slightly more accurate in which train is coming next than someone flipping a coin. Do they really change the dispatching of where the trains are going on short notice very regularly, or is it just bad info?

[Rathji]

Originally Posted by bizaro86

Is there a reason the C-Train displays are constantly wrong about which train is coming next? The one at 4th St SW station displays either "Crowfoot" or "10th St West" and seems to be only slightly more accurate in which train is coming next than someone flipping a coin. Do they really change the dispatching of where the trains are going on short notice very regularly, or is it just bad info?

AFAIK those displays are still running on the scheduled times, and not on GPS yet. As such, you can probably expect as much accuracy with them as with a paper schedule I am afraid.