Calgary Public Transit - Discussion

[frinkprof]

Originally Posted by Senator Clay Davis

Fine increases coming?

http://www.calgaryherald.com/news/ca...#ixzz20eBk1KG6

“This isn’t a good way to generate more revenue,” he said. Chabot prefers beefed-up enforcement, which could net more fine dollars through more tickets, he suggested.

Typical boneheaded Chabot. He must assume beefed-up enforcement comes at no cost.

In other news, as I mentioned earlier, Chinook Station will be closing for 8 months as part of its refurbishment. Closes in January.

Transit users brace for up to eight-month closure of Chinook station for construction




By Jason Markusoff, Calgary Herald July 2, 2012



Transit users will have to go without one of the city’s busiest LRT stations for most of 2013, causing the biggest headaches in a decade of train platform extension projects.


Chinook station is slated to close from January to as late as August because Calgary Transit is doing much more than platform work to allow future four-car trains.


Crews will rebuild or refurbish nearly every part of Chinook station, from the bulky brick station entryway and platform canopy to the bus waiting area — about $17-million worth of work, according to a provincial projects inventory.


Officials are still devising the strategy for relief shuttle buses for the thousands who use Chinook LRT. Daily commuters hope it’s a good plan, but predict it won’t be easy at a station already bursting with riders.


[...]



Calgary Transit has spent years and tens of millions of dollars on upgrading LRT stations for four-car service that will make train use less sardine-like by 2014.


Work begins in mid-July to extend platforms at Heritage and Fish Creek-Lacombe stations, but both will remain open during construction.


To date, the longest suburban station closure has been last year’s seven weeks without service at Southland station, when the stop’s regular users had to take shuttle buses from Anderson or Heritage. Chinook is one of the few others that must close during construction.


“We have no choice but to extend the platform. We have no choice but to rebuild the station,” Ald. Brian Pincott said.


“It’s going to be really, really rough.”


About 15,600 passengers used the Chinook platform every weekday in 2007, the last year for which Calgary Transit LRT ridership counts were released publicly.

[...]

Clad in beige brick and orange metal siding, the 31-year-old station building regularly faces long lineups for its narrow escalators during peak hours. Bus riders routinely join the park-and-ride users in taking the street-level ramp at the south side instead of climbing through the station, daily commuter Pat Hirsche said.


To the north, a sagging and derelict chain-link fence slices across the sidewalk along 61st Avenue, one of the city’s busiest suburban pedestrian routes.


[...]

Link to full article

[frinkprof]

Southeast LRT cost estimate soars to $2.7 billion



Project won’t be finished for 27 years, city report says



By Amanda Stephenson, Calgary Herald July 14, 2012 9:08 PM



City politicians are calling on the federal and provincial governments to help fund Calgary’s proposed southeast LRT line after a new report suggests the project will cost a whopping $2.7 billion and take until 2039 to complete.


Ward 12 Ald. Shane Keating said both the time frame and the price tag laid out in the report are unacceptable, given the anticipated extra traffic that will come with the opening of the South Health Campus and rapid population growth in the region.


“My ward alone has grown by 25,000 people in the past three years,” Keating said.


The $2.7 billion price tag stands even if the project is done in the most affordable way — a staged-in effort starting with a busway in a dedicated corridor that can later be converted to an LRT line.


The report recommends completing the first phase — a busway from 4th Street S.E. to Douglas Glen — by 2019 and then converting that route to a partial LRT track by 2029. By 2039, the report envisions a full-scale LRT line with 18 stations and 11 park-and-ride lots running from the downtown to Seton.


Keating is convinced council will push the project forward because of a “desperate need” in the southeast.


[...]

Link to full article

[You Need a Thneed]

Sooo... Without help from other levels of government, 27 years before full SELRT, and then likely another 25 years before a NCLRT. By then, another 4 lines might be required.

[Bunk]

Originally Posted by You Need a Thneed

Sooo... Without help from other levels of government, 27 years before full SELRT, and then likely another 25 years before a NCLRT. By then, another 4 lines might be required.

Really, without new funding agreements with the Province and Feds, the line simply will never be built.

The City just does not have the mechanisms to get funding for major capital projects like this. $2.7 billion is basically the operating budget for the entire city, unless we raise property taxes massively, we need the other levels of government to commit to long term, sustained, reliable funding programs for infrastructure.

We need to solve the root of the issue (particularly through upcoming City Charter discussions). If Calgary is responsible for delivering transit service, we should be given the ability to actually deliver that service. That includes the massive amount of capital required to build LRT lines. We probably need something in the order of $300-$350 million per year, every year, forever to build the transit infrastructure this city is going to require.

[frinkprof]

One fact that I've always felt summed up the federal government's negligence on this front:

Canada is the only G8 nation that doesn't have a national transit funding strategy.

[MrMastodonFarm]

Originally Posted by fotze

Well that timing is A OK with me. A little aggressive if you want to really know the truth.

Thats a 108 peace bridges.

For that price they should just make 108 peace bridges and join them together for the SE.

Maybe put in a moving floor for the lazy.

[GirlySports]

Originally Posted by Ironhorse

Still the greatest subway map going, once you know how to use it:




http://www.mta.info/nyct/maps/subwaymap.pdf

how bout this one?

Large

NSFW!

[mykalberta]

So I took alot of Calgary Transit over the last week and a bit for stampede and here are my grades.

CTrain - 9/10 - full but it was expected. Didnt have to wait more train to get to the Stampede and while there got on at Erlton and got a seat every time and waited less than 5 minutes.

Bus - 5/10 bus service between 11.30 and midnight seems non existent on Centre Street. 3 times around that time waited for 20 minutes with no busses going North, then decided to walk/stumble home and after 15 minutes then 5 busses come racing by.

[bizaro86]

Originally Posted by mykalberta

So I took alot of Calgary Transit over the last week and a bit for stampede and here are my grades.

CTrain - 9/10 - full but it was expected. Didnt have to wait more train to get to the Stampede and while there got on at Erlton and got a seat every time and waited less than 5 minutes.

Bus - 5/10 bus service between 11.30 and midnight seems non existent on Centre Street. 3 times around that time waited for 20 minutes with no busses going North, then decided to walk/stumble home and after 15 minutes then 5 busses come racing by.

I don't know about 9/10 for the CTrain. Last Sat. at ~12:30 the Somerset train was packed full before it got to Banff Trail station. The sign indicated that the next train was 10 minutes away.

It seems to me that we might be well served increasing weekend frequency during Stampede. It puts a better foot forward for visitors, and they should be making money on absolutely full trains, one would think.

[mykalberta]

I only took the train from downtown to Stampede so my travel is limited. They had trains running just from downtown to Stamepede so that could have helped.

The last night I went the same thing happened with the Bus on Centre street and I wondered why 3 of us paid 5.50 each round trip/day when we could have parked for $20

[shermanator]

Originally Posted by Arsenal14

Survey on the new C-Train route maps and proposed color scheme (blue for the NE line, red for NW/S): https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/CTrainMap

Or if you just want to see the proposed map: http://www.calgarytransit.com/pdf/In...ard_CT_MAP.pdf

I'm late to the party, but I really don't think that places like "Shawnessy Towne Centre" and "Dalhousie Shopping Centre" are attractions. What's there, a freaking Safeway. WOW LET'S CHECK IT OUT!

[Regular_John]

CTrain LRV Seating and Mobility Survey
New survey specifically related to seating/car design.
http://www.calgarytransit.com/survey...-mobility.html

The survey itself is the typical mess (seriously 1-7 ratings? 1 being the best?) you'd expect from the city. But at it's core it's our opportunity to register opinion on the dreaded SD-160 Gen 8 cars:



I can't even articulate how much I hate those cars, I sometimes wonder if in a past life I wronged the designer of those cars and they've opted to take it out on my elbow room.

[Jimmy Stang]

Take this with an "occasional rider who doesn't mind standing grain of salt", but this configuration doesn't bother me. There are almost as many seats (4 less, IIRC), but more capacity for standing. Because the system in Calgary sees huge swells at rush hour, these cars are better equipped to handle the increase in riders. I'm not saying that you have to like 'em, though, and since they are seeking input you're probably not the only one that doesn't.

[bizaro86]

Originally Posted by Jimmy Stang

Take this with an "occasional rider who doesn't mind standing grain of salt", but this configuration doesn't bother me. There are almost as many seats (4 less, IIRC), but more capacity for standing. Because the system in Calgary sees huge swells at rush hour, these cars are better equipped to handle the increase in riders. I'm not saying that you have to like 'em, though, and since they are seeking input you're probably not the only one that doesn't.

I like that they get more people on, which is a pretty big benefit on a -20 evening when the platform is full. But why not take one seat off each row so the people sitting there are comfortable. As it is now usually 1 goes unused because they're simply too small.

[Senator Clay Davis]

The new cars are perfect for rush hours, especially compared to the really old school cars. Saw more than a few people unable to get off at their stops last week on the old cars because once you are in the middle of the isle it's insanely difficult to get off.

[NuclearPizzaMan]

Just make it a bloody bench and be done with it.

Get rid of the 3 hand-hold pole design at the same time.

Fix the crazy squeal all these new trains seem afflicted with on turns (seriously, it sounds like it is going to tear itself apart)

[You Need a Thneed]

Just remove all the seats, and only have standing room. That or recliners for all.

Seriously, I haven't had any problems with the new seating configurations, but I normally don't ride the train during peak times. I imagine that the seat width is every bit as much as the older trains, but you don't have an aisle or a window to lean slightly into.

Hopefully, when the next order comes in (non-siemens), they don't waste space with gaps between cars and with redundant operator cabs. That will do more to increase capacity than any seating configuration.

[Table 5]

The seats that have the individually marked spots for people are terrible. They are never the right size, and you either end up having empty seats or end up having to sit on the ridge.

I've experienced all kinds of formats over the years in the NYC subway, and the best one was the most simplest: the plastic bench along the sides.

Spoiler!

It allows you to sit with lots of room when possible, and also packs them in when busy. Plus it always leaves a lot of room for standing. Let's face it, you're riding a train, you're not on a Rocky Mountaineer pleasure cruise. The more people that can fit on, the better.

Not sure why they need to even waste time on this. Just look at what the biggest transit cities are doing, and copy it.

[TurnedTheCorner]

I'll be dead by then, so they should put it off as long as possible.

[TurnedTheCorner]

Originally Posted by You Need a Thneed

Just remove all the seats, and only have standing room.

CT will wait to announce this at the same time as a fare increase, while talking about value and great service with a straight face.