Calgary Public Transit - Discussion

[billybob123]

In Ottawa, they ran the public transit rail line along an existing freight train line; it went from essentially nowhere, through nowhere, to nowhere. Granted, it ran through Carleton University and I'm sure they provide a large number of passengers, and also near a large government complex on Heron Road (which required a fairly long walk), the rail line didn't get you downtown (needed a transfer) and some of the stations aren't near anything of particular significance.

It has something like 15,000 passengers a day, which isn't a lot - OC Transpo buses serve 500,000ish riders a day.

They want to expand the light rail network to where people will actually take it, since these numbers are unlikely to improve.

An example of what happens when you build a rail line based on conveience rather than ridership. I hope someone brings this up in these open houses. I'd hate to see the NC LRT wind up being useless. Centre Street will cost a lot more but will be a heck of a lot more useful.

[frinkprof]

^Well the original philosophy on the existing O-Train was strictly as a low-cost pilot project. It uses diesel-powered cars (DMUs) and operates along an existing and little-used (if at all?) rail corridor. A more robust and serious undertaking of rail transit in Ottawa was actually supposed to have been up and running by now. City Council approved the project in 2006, but after the election later that year, the project was cancelled. The problem was that some contracts for the project had already been signed, and the city ended up having to pay out for at least a few things, including a portion of the cancelled order of LRT cars.

Anyway, Ottawa actually has one of the best BRT systems on the Americas, but the limitations of that system have been reached and the transition to LRT is now seen as the solution along some of the corridors.

[Thrillingbroom]

Originally Posted by billybob123

In Ottawa, they ran the public transit rail line along an existing freight train line; it went from essentially nowhere, through nowhere, to nowhere. Granted, it ran through Carleton University and I'm sure they provide a large number of passengers, and also near a large government complex on Heron Road (which required a fairly long walk), the rail line didn't get you downtown (needed a transfer) and some of the stations aren't near anything of particular significance.

It has something like 15,000 passengers a day, which isn't a lot - OC Transpo buses serve 500,000ish riders a day.

They want to expand the light rail network to where people will actually take it, since these numbers are unlikely to improve.

An example of what happens when you build a rail line based on conveience rather than ridership. I hope someone brings this up in these open houses. I'd hate to see the NC LRT wind up being useless. Centre Street will cost a lot more but will be a heck of a lot more useful.

The Ottawa LRT is joke. It only goes North South, where most people in Ottawa live in the East or West end. Even their proposed LRT expansion is pretty limited. They plan on tunneling under downtown but almost as soon as soon it gets outside of downtown the LRT ends. So basically everyone on the LRT has to get off and get on a bus to reach their final destination. It would basically like the C-Train ending at the Stampede and SAIT. Downtown Ottawa has reached its capacity for buses, last summer there was some construction and it took buses an hour or two to get out of downtown.

[billybob123]

Originally Posted by frinkprof

A more robust and serious undertaking of rail transit in Ottawa was actually supposed to have been up and running by now. City Council approved the project in 2006, but after the election later that year, the project was cancelled.

True; unfortunately the main reason that the contract was cancelled was the routing - they were going to continue to use the freight line alignment of the O-Train out to one southwest suburb of the city (Barrhaven), ignoring the huge populations east and west of the centre of the city (also ignoring the huge population across the river in Quebec)! When you let dreamers run the show rather than realists, that's what you end up with.

I hope that someone makes Calgary Transit come to their senses about that alignment. Who will take transit from the North if you have one station between Beddington and 8 Ave?! The buses will have to keep running and they'll be packed.

This is a great thread - I hadn't been paying attention to the "future" of CT.

Anyway, Ottawa actually has one of the best BRT systems on the Americas, but the limitations of that system have been reached and the transition to LRT is now seen as the solution along some of the corridors.

Like Thrillingbroom said, the only real capacity problem on the transitway in Ottawa is where the buses leave the "protected" section and onto regular streets (Past the U of O in the east and past Lebreton station in the west) - too many buses with too many traffic lights. Especially the buses running to the east in the afternoon rush - those lineups can be nuts. I grew up in the west end of Ottawa (not the suburbs) so the Transitway was great for me - I lived a 15-minute walk from one of the stations. And the rush bus crunch wasn't nearly as bad going my way. (of course I moved closer to work so I could walk, so my info is from 2001-ish, that was the last time I regularly took the bus there!)

[frinkprof]

There's some open houses ongoing this week for the 7th Avenue Refurbishment project.

7 Avenue LRT Refurbishment Project Information Session, Phase Four


Join us for an inforamtion session on Phase 4 of the 7 Avenue LRT Refubishment Project:
Time: Information boards will be on display from April 11 – 15, with the opportunity to ask questions from 11 a.m. – 2 p.m. on Tuesday, April 12 and Thursday, April 14.
Location: Municipal Building Atrium
The 7 Avenue LRT Refurbishment Project aims to revitalize an inner city corridor by upgrading the downtown CTrain platforms to accommodate four car CTrains, and creating a pedestrian friendly environment with wider sidewalks, improved lighting and enhanced streetscapes. Phase four covers the blocks from Centre Street to 4 Street SE, and will be under construction throughout this year. This information session will give people the opportunity to see the plans for work on these blocks and ask questions.

Website: www.calgary.ca/ti

http://www.calgarytransit.com/html/7_Ave_Phase_4.html

Seems a little late to be having open houses for this, but this does seem to indicate that Centre Street Station will be extended sometime this year. Centre Street Station will be the last one needing to be extended, and it shouldn't take very long at all.

I've heard that City Hall Station (both sides) will be open in June.

[frinkprof]

So there's been a couple things recently that have given me quite a bit of information, which I'll share below.

First off, I and a few other people have founded a group called "Transit Camp" that aims to be a citizen's group that will advocate for better transit in Calgary, speak to ongoing issues, and tackle new ones that develop from the standpoint of the riders and other interested public parties. The name comes from being an aligned with and an arm of Calgary Civic Camp. We've been meeting for about 4 months now.

At our last meeting, we were able to meet with some representatives from Calgary Transit. It was mostly to present our purpose and goals thus far and to establish a relationship and dialog with CT. We were able to present some ideas and issues and get some feedback, as well as to get some rudimentary information about some hot topics that are current and upcoming with CT.

The other thing was that I stopped by the 7th Avenue Refurbishment open house setup at City Hall today.

I've tried to break all the information up by topic, which I'll share below.


7th Ave. Refurbishment

Both sides of City Hall Station will be open for Stampede 2011. Opening should be late June. The south side may have to close again after Stampede for a short time to finish up some work. There will be a new +15 connecting the two sides of the station (and City Hall building) that will be built just to the west of the station platforms. Removal of Olympic Plaza Station will follow City Hall opening.

Centre Street Station extension starts construction Spring 2011, ends Fall 2011. No closure needed (save for maybe a weekend closure or two).

11th Street Station will be open by Fall 2012.



Realtime Arrival Information (aka "GPS" implementation, but not really that simple)

Still on track for 2012 completion and rollout

Equipment has been on portion of the bus fleet for some time now, and information has been used internally by CT. With full implementation, goal is to analyze routes for pinch points and then help with decisions regarding scheduling, route planning and infrastructure improvements.

System elements will eventually be integrated with "Opticom" signal control system. This system has been in place since start of route 301 in 2003, allows buses on certain routes to allow for longer green lights or shorter red lights. Realtime information will help optimize system, which includes 160+ intersections.

Realtime data from GPS/RFID systems will be available to third-party developers for use in web/smartphone applications, research, etc.


Fare Payment Systems (aka smartcard implementation)

On track for 2012 rollout


Public Engagment

Calgary Transit putting much more focus on engaging public, especially through web and social media

Website will receive overhaul soon

Policy, procedure, planning, etc. information will be made more available to public. For example, documents detailing how and why routes, schedules, stop locations, etc. are planned and implemented will be made available on website soon

Public Engagement process for future NE LRT extensions (past Saddletown on toward Country Hills, Skyview, Stoney Trail and beyond) will be upcoming soon. Focus will be on areas around future stations, design themes, access, providing information, etc.

Open houses for North Central LRT upcoming, detailed more below


Bikes on Transit

One of the people at the meeting was from BikeCalgary, and made a presentation for a proposal for bike racks on buses serving route 3, BRT routes, and route 72/73, based off research from Vancouver and Victoria among other cities

Various attempts at implementing bike racks on certain routes have been tried over last 10 years with very little success

Problems with putting bike racks on are chiefly nuances with assigning buses to routes on a day-to-day basis, an ever-changing bus fleet, and the biggest being a huge storage space crunch at garages.


North Central LRT

Open houses upcoming. This was prompted by what was seen as a need to take a step back regarding the philosophy of the route selection. So, focus of these open houses will mostly be on route, primarily between downtown and Beddington Trail, and presentation of various trade-offs between routes.

3 corridors will be presented - Centre Street, Edmonton Trail and Nose Creek. Attendees are encouraged to provide thoughts on their preferred routes. E-mails and phone call responses also encouraged if unable to attend.

Ideally, this will help narrow down to 2 routes.

CT representatives strongly hinted that they hope to see people show preference for more central routing (Centre, Edmonton Trail) rather than Nose Creek

Original selection of Nose Creek alignment in 2006 report was influenced by need to put something on paper and other pressures. Route has since been further complicated by CP Rail corridor becoming unavailable in favour of future High Speed Rail route.


Fleet and Fleet Management

As noted above, there's huge space crunch for growing fleet. New garages needed and expansions to existing garages.

Spring Gardens facility (32nd Ave. North connector) will be expanded, timeline undetermined.

Several new garage locations (both bus and LRV) in various stages of development. 30 acre parcel on 194th Ave. south purchased several years ago, but waiting for site to be serviced by City.

Congestion and operational constraints for LRVs at Anderson garage is growing issue. LRVs may be moved out of Anderson altogether to new facility near 212th Ave. south. Need to wait until LRT line is extended there. If that happens, Anderson would convert fully to bus storage.

This didn't come up at the meeting, but the Oliver Bowen Maintenance Facility (SW of McKnight-Westwinds Station) will need to be expanded (as per plans) to accommodate next order of LRVs, and new LRV storage/maintenance facilities will be part of new SE and North Central lines.

U2 LRV refurbishment (old LRT cars) was proposed by Bombardier and is currently working its way through City Hall for potential approval. New numbers show possible $2.2M cost per car, to achieve maximum 40-50% increase on lifespan of vehicle. Seeing as how average cost of new cars is $3.6M per, this is unlikely to happen, and new cars will be purchased sooner than later to replace U2s. Report with new numbers will be online Friday afternoon.

GM New Look buses (c. 1977-1982, aka "fishbowl" buses) should all be retired by next year.

Calgary Transit has ~$310M total annual operating cost, this is before revenues (primarily fares) are subtracted to get the net. Unfortunately I didn't write down the net figure, but I think it's on the order of $160M.


----------------------------------------

I think that's everything. If anyone has any questions I'll try and answer them based on what I have learned or ask them at my next opportunity to speak with someone at CT.

Also, if you're interested in being involved in Transit Camp, PM me. Involvement can range from just being on the mailing list or contacting one of us with questions, or attending our (so far) rather informal meetings and working on developing responses to various issues that arise.

[frinkprof]

Further to the above, this is what the new City Hall Station will look like.



From here.

[Jimmy Stang]

I think that it would have been better to have the West gateway station between 8th and 9th Streets so it could serve both the NW and W lines the same way that the East gateway serves both the NE and S lines. That would make it a true gateway, if that makes sense. Easier for transfers and that sort of thing.

Of course, one day that won't matter as much as 7th will have one line, and the other will be underground below Stephen Avenue. One day...

[SebC]

Originally Posted by frinkprof

Further to the above, this is what the new City Hall Station will look like.



From here.

I always though having the platforms on the same block reduces the utility of 7th Ave as an emergency corridor.

[Jimmy Stang]

Originally Posted by SebC

I always though having the platforms on the same block reduces the utility of 7th Ave as an emergency corridor.

That's actually a good point. I was trying to think of a reason why they aren't all like this, to be honest, and what you've said makes the most sense. On the other hand, downtown is probably the only place where every single block (OK - approximately every other block because of the one-ways) is a "main road". In rush hour, however, all of them can be fairly bunged up.

[frinkprof]

Originally Posted by Jimmy Stang

I think that it would have been better to have the West gateway station between 8th and 9th Streets so it could serve both the NW and W lines the same way that the East gateway serves both the NE and S lines. That would make it a true gateway, if that makes sense. Easier for transfers and that sort of thing.

Of course, one day that won't matter as much as 7th will have one line, and the other will be underground below Stephen Avenue. One day...

A lot of the station placements depend on block lengths, rendering at least one side of the block between 8th and 9th streets impossible. The south side, where the old 8th Street Station location was, is too short to fit a 4 car platform.

With this restriction in place, a configuration of stations was sought that would enable lower headways along the Avenue. That same old 8th Street Station was problematic for headways due to it's location relative to the lights at cross streets, and especially the interlocking area where the two train lines enter the shared stretch of track.

[frinkprof]

I found this on CT's website. It shows the tentative schedule for 4 car train extensions. I presume it will be updated sometime later this year to show a more firm date on the ones listed as "2012 or 2013." Also note the ones which need to be closed. If no more are added, I must say I'm surprised that it is only 3 total including Southland. The Chinook closure will be a bitch to deal with since a lot of bus routes (especially crosstown routes like 72/73 and 23) connect through that station.



This is in addition to the following assumptions:

- Victoria Park/Stampede will be extended during the hockey offseason, and not during Stampede
- SAIT and University will be extended during the months of May-August
- Banff Trail will be extended during the months of December-May

[MrMastodonFarm]

Chinook having to close for any stretch of time could be interesting.

Question... does Calgary Transit or Chinook Mall pay for that free shuttle that runs from the Mall to the station?

[Sr. Mints]

Originally Posted by MrMastodonFarm

Chinook having to close for any stretch of time could be interesting.

SAIT closing would be interesting too. I suppose both Sunnyside and Lion's Park are only a hop away, but with ridiculously expensive parking, it'd be chaos if the SAIT station wasn't renovated when classes are out.

[frinkprof]

There is a significant committee going on today at City Hall. The Land Use Planning and Transportation (LPT) committee meets and will be presented with a series of reports that Calgary Transit was directed to prepare, largely dealing with the LRV fleet. The reports include:

- LRV fleet plan
- Whether to refurbish the old U2 trains, or to replace them with new ones
- Delivering 4 car CTrain service
- LRV storage and maintenance facilities.

I'll provide a brief summary. Lots more information, graphs, cool pictures of various LRV parts, etc. in the actual reports. I was going to pull some graphs and pictures, but I might save that for another time.

LRV Fleet Plan

Current fleet is 154 units, projected 2030 fleet is 233 units

Left out of assumptions are the possibility of SE and North Central lines, although it does assume extensions to Silverado and 212th Avenue in the south by 2021, and Stoney Trail in the NE by 2019, with the obvious extra LRVs needed to serve those extensions

Current U2s are to be progressively retired from 2013 until 2022 (based on replacing them rather than refurbishing them, see below)

Oldest SD160 units (32 of them, c. 2001) will undergo a mid-life refurbishment between 2015-2020 that will basically give them all the specifications of the new cars (interior cameras, side-mounted displays, new couplers to enable running them together), although not necessarily seating arrangement

Fleet total includes provision for extra cars needed for 4-car operation (see below)

U2 Refurbishment

Cost/benefit overrules refurbishment of U2s given the estimated $2.2M cost/unit versus $3.6M for a new car, and the marginal lifespan and reliability gains that the refurbishment would give

Delivering 4 car CTrain service

System will be 4-car capable by 2014.

2010 ridership numbers show that during certain segments of the peak morning and evening rushes on the various lines, 4 car service could be used now. More needed given 2020 ridership forecasts

When 2014 comes along, strategy will be to add 4 car trains to the schedule during these trouble spots

South Line during morning rush is busiest, with NE and NW lines being less, but roughly equal in terms of ridership

By end of 2014, a projection of 8 additional LRVs would be needed to be assigned to the 201 South-NW line, and 4 to the 202 NE line

More would be needed to accommodate future ridership over time for a total of 19 additional LRVs assigned to the 201, and 8 to the 202 line by 2020.

This amounts to what will be a incomplete peak system coverage by 4 car trains (meaning some trains at peak will be 3 car, some will be 4), so that leaves room for future growth

LRV Storage and Maintenance Facilities

This report was brief as apparently there is already a study regarding bus and LRV maintenance facilities being conducted by Calgary Transit and Transportation Infrastructure

Nature of operations, particularly at Anderson and Haysboro facilities will make 4-car train operation problematic for those facilities to cope

Currently, expansion is taking place at the Oliver Bowen Maintenance Facility (OBMF) in the NE, which should accommodate the current order of LRVs, and almost all of the projected 233 needed by 2030, but any more than that and capacity is constrained

Basically, new facility is needed to store LRVs in long term, and perhaps medium term to cope with 4 car operation.

Results

It is recommended that 50 more LRVs be ordered immediately for 2013-2015 arrival and commission.

20 are to replace least reliable U2s in current fleet, and 30 would be for growth (4 car trains)

Provincial GreenTRIP funding is recommend to cover the procurement costs

As many as 76 units are projected to be procured by 2017 to accommodate further U2 replacement, expansion of 4 car service, and future extensions to Stoney Trail and 212th Avenue.

Here's the link to the LPT agenda, if you click the last item listed (LPT2011-044), the report PDFs will pop up on the right hand side. The summary above is from these reports.

http://agendaminutes.calgary.ca/sire...doctype=AGENDA

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SE Transitway is also on the LPT agenda today, but I haven't gone over that yet. I may get to that later.

[Cowboy89]

I hate the new LRT cars. The passenger emergency buttons/strips are way too easy to mistakenly press, which casuses the driver to have to get out of his seat and unlock the sensor in whatever car the infraction occured in. I have experienced delays each time I rode on a train with those cars.

[frinkprof]

Originally Posted by Cowboy89

I hate the new LRT cars. The passenger emergency buttons/strips are way too easy to mistakenly press, which casuses the driver to have to get out of his seat and unlock the sensor in whatever car the infraction occured in. I have experienced delays each time I rode on a train with those cars.

Yeah that's been a problem. The rumour I hear is that there is a fix in the works, so that the cars that haven't arrived yet will be modified before they go into service, and the ones that are already in service will also be modified. Not sure what the fix is yet or when it will happen.

[frinkprof]

As posted by CTrainDude on CPTDB:

Southland station reopens with start of service on Friday, May 6. The south pedestrian crossing and ramp will not open till the end of June.

[boogerz]

Thank f***** god Southland reopens in a week. That closure is ridiculous.

Between the Heritage-Southland shuttle that comes every half an hour, and the lack of a Southland-Anderson shuttle, it's incredibly inconvenient for carless people whose main station is Southland.

Transit sucks

[RougeUnderoos]

Originally Posted by Cowboy89

I hate the new LRT cars. The passenger emergency buttons/strips are way too easy to mistakenly press, which casuses the driver to have to get out of his seat and unlock the sensor in whatever car the infraction occured in. I have experienced delays each time I rode on a train with those cars.

Those strips are ridiculous. The only worse place they could have put 'em would have been on the seats.