Calgary Public Transit - Discussion

[bizaro86]

Originally Posted by fredr123

I agree. In the former case, if the train comes every 10 minutes, and there is a 10 minute delay, wouldn't only that first train be delayed by 10 minutes? After that, the train that shows up now is the train that should have been there 10 minutes ago but you wouldn't know it from any other train, right? They would still be spaced out every 10 minutes, theoretically, right? Or is this similar to the phenomenon where bad traffic will somehow cause 3 or 4 #301 buses to travel together for some reason?

The other factor is that when the first delayed train shows up 30 minutes late, it's full, because there were 30 minutes of people waiting at the upline stations. This is another way giving people the information to potentially make alternate plans is good, as some would be home by then, and their space would be free for someone else.

When there is a big delay like that it takes a couple of trains just to clear the backlog. (during rush hour, anyway)

[frinkprof]

Originally Posted by Boblobla

The thing that got to me was they announced the trains were running 10 minutes late but it was WAAAAAAAY later than that. I got to the stop by Quincy's downtown at 4PM and got to Somerset at 5:15. If they had said the trains were running 45minutes late I would have grabbed a beer and had my wife come pick me up...

Originally Posted by bizaro86

I was going to put this in the GMG thread. If they're way behind, just tell people, and those who can will make alternate plans. If you tell people "10 more minutes" every ten minutes for 30 or 40 minutes, don't be surprised when they're pissed off.

I think part of the problem is determining what the delay might be in the first place. If, as in this case, a section of catenary wire goes down, it takes some time to figure out what the delay might look like, and you don't know what the true delay is until after the fact when service is restored.

So a section of wire is found to be faulty in some way, that doesn't mean someone immediately goes "Okay, get on the intercom and twitter, the delay will be X minutes." Lots of things have to be determined and planned out - What section of track is affected by this? How far do we have to single-track? Where are the trains, and how many of them are "trapped" on either side of the unusable section of track? How fast can the Enmax crew get there? How long can we estimate that it will take to fix it? What buses are available to run shuttles? How many spare drivers do we have to drive them? How many buses do we have to take off other routes to run shuttles?

People demand more clear communication which is more than understandable - especially on bitterly cold winter days or sweltering heat like earlier this week. However the biggest problem is the problem itself - the cause for the delay. A lot of causes for delay are just difficult to get a grasp on and estimates of the extent of the delays are often way off just by the nature of the situation.

Something like Monday is just frustrating for everyone involved because all anyone can really do is throw their hands up until the time is put in to rectify all of the individual problems involved, modify the mitigation plan, and then repeat until everything is finally back to normal. One big problem occurred and subsequently a plan was put in place to get people to their destination. All bets were off when another problem, however small, occurs. Then something else. Even the best communications strategy for customers is going to sound uncoordinated and confusing because, well, it is.

All that said though, there were definitely communications issues highlighted over the last couple days. For instance, I had heard that customers in the northwest didn't get proper intercom messages and were left wondering what was going on. Certainly some improvements should be made.

[frinkprof]

I got a report from someone that attended an open house in Sunnyside regarding the upcoming work to extend the Sunnyside Station to 4 car length.

One interesting thing that was mentioned is that when it comes time to do Chinook Station, the entire station will be closed and demolished and a new station will be constructed without the large station head portion. This will mean that riders will access the station via a level crossing of the tracks on the north side of the station by the bus loop, rather than climbing and descending stairs in the building over the tracks. The south side level crossing will no longer be in use.

[cam_wmh]

Gosh how I loathe CT for any longhaul.
I live walking distance to work now & love it. Sometimes I take the #3 for a quick winter ride in

I found it so "amusing" when they would constantly have an east Indian FOB, giving the delay or re-routing information.

[Mazrim]

Originally Posted by frinkprof

One interesting thing that was mentioned is that when it comes time to do Chinook Station, the entire station will be closed and demolished and a new station will be constructed without the large station head portion. This will mean that riders will access the station via a level crossing of the tracks on the north side of the station by the bus loop, rather than climbing and descending stairs in the building over the tracks. The south side level crossing will no longer be in use.

Makes sense...lots of stair climbing for nothing there.

[You Need a Thneed]

Saddletowne Station with it's lighting on:



Sorry for poor quality.

[bizaro86]

Originally Posted by frinkprof

I think part of the problem is determining what the delay might be in the first place. If, as in this case, a section of catenary wire goes down, it takes some time to figure out what the delay might look like, and you don't know what the true delay is until after the fact when service is restored.

If they don't know how long it will take to get things running again, they shouldn't make an estimate. Just say "we are experiencing a mechanical problem and expecting delays" or something.

Picking a bad number at random is worse than not having a number at all.

[Boblobla]

Originally Posted by frinkprof

Something like Monday is just frustrating for everyone involved because all anyone can really do is throw their hands up until the time is put in to rectify all of the individual problems involved, modify the mitigation plan, and then repeat until everything is finally back to normal. One big problem occurred and subsequently a plan was put in place to get people to their destination. All bets were off when another problem, however small, occurs. Then something else. Even the best communications strategy for customers is going to sound uncoordinated and confusing because, well, it is.

All that said though, there were definitely communications issues highlighted over the last couple days. For instance, I had heard that customers in the northwest didn't get proper intercom messages and were left wondering what was going on. Certainly some improvements should be made.

On Monday there were tons of people sitting on a train at Shawnessey waiting to go to Somerset. There was an announcement made by the driver but no one could understand what he was saying until the 3rd attempt. I know the speakers go loud enough based on the station announcement, maybe they need to get these drivers some speaking correctly into a mic courses.

My complaints about the delay announcement were from Tuesday. In my opinion, CT should have had an idea of what they delays looked like as they had already been through a morning and evening rush hour with the problem. If the communication had been better, I would have found another way home. I am sure I would not have been alone in this and it would have eased the load on the trains marginally.

[frinkprof]

Erlton/Stampede Station will soon join the list of those under construction to complete 4 car extension work. Work starts on July 29th and the south level-crossing will be closed for the duration of the work. So, outside of downtown, the following stations are under construction:

Brentwood
Canyon Meadows
Erlton/Stampede

While work is complete at Southland. As noted earlier, Chinook will join the list soon, perhaps by the end of the year. It will be closed, demolished and rebuilt without the station head building.

[MrMastodonFarm]

Originally Posted by frinkprof

While work is complete at Southland. As noted earlier, Chinook will join the list soon, perhaps by the end of the year. It will be closed, demolished and rebuilt without the station head building.

That is going to be one heck of a gong show when it's shut down to be rebuilt. I hope "by the end of the year" means starting this after the holiday season.

[frinkprof]

More news and notes.

A page detailing all the scheduled LRT service changes for the next couple months, presumably will be continually updated.

http://www.calgarytransit.com/html/lrt_mtce_2011.html

Basically almost every weekend from now until the middle of September will have some sort of disruption to complete maintenance work of one kind or another.

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

You may have also been hearing/reading various media stories about possible changes to the fare structure and/or service cuts to deal with a discepency between expected revenues and costs of the system. Several possibilities could arise including increases to seniors' passes, low-income passes, regular monthly passes, transit tickets, cash fares, or just an across-the-board increase. Zone systems are also up for discussion. The shortfall could also be covered by service cuts or subsidy increases (i.e. more tax revenue).

I'll leave the relevant report here. The matter has been through committee and will soon go through council, where any solutions will be decided.

Calgary Transit Funding and Fare Strategy

----------

Finally here is some of the capital infrastructure project information currently working its way through to council. The 3-year budget cycle is coming up, so you'll be hearing a lot more about this in the coming weeks/months. Some of it has already received some press (possible delay of Tuscany Station).

Transportation Shovel-Ready Unfunded Projects List - At the top of the transit portion of the list are the SW BRT ($43.6M) and a Natural Gas Bus Project ($62.4M)

Transportation 2012-2014 Capital Infrastructure Plan - Among other projects, WestLRT, Saddletown extension, Tuscany extension, SE Transitway predesign, new LRVs (50) appear on this list.

[You Need a Thneed]

Originally Posted by frinkprof

Erlton/Stampede Station will soon join the list of those under construction to complete 4 car extension work. Work starts on July 29th and the south level-crossing will be closed for the duration of the work. So, outside of downtown, the following stations are under construction:

Brentwood
Canyon Meadows
Erlton/Stampede

While work is complete at Southland. As noted earlier, Chinook will join the list soon, perhaps by the end of the year. It will be closed, demolished and rebuilt without the station head building.

Whitehorn is still U/C too.

Here are some iPhone pictures from this evening:

Brentwood Station extension:


Centre Street Station - fencing for extension area:


Olympic Plaza Station demolition:


64th Ave tunnel - North of MKWW station:



Martindale Station outbound (inbound station lights are not on yet):




I got off the train at MKWW, walked the wrong direction to halfway over the pedestrian bridge to take the tunnel pic, then started walking home, stopping for a slurpee, and taking some pics of Martindale station before getting on the bus close to Martindale Station - the very same bus I'd have got on had I just waited for it at MKWW.

Ticket stamped at Brentwood at 8:50 pm, got home at 10:35 pm.

[SeoulFire]

Originally Posted by frinkprof

More news and notes.

...

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

You may have also been hearing/reading various media stories about possible changes to the fare structure and/or service cuts to deal with a discepency between expected revenues and costs of the system. Several possibilities could arise including increases to seniors' passes, low-income passes, regular monthly passes, transit tickets, cash fares, or just an across-the-board increase. Zone systems are also up for discussion. The shortfall could also be covered by service cuts or subsidy increases (i.e. more tax revenue).

I'll leave the relevant report here. The matter has been through committee and will soon go through council, where any solutions will be decided.

Calgary Transit Funding and Fare Strategy

----------

....

For me this is incredibly discouraging. It is already borderline cheaper to drive (and much much faster) for most things.

[JustAnotherGuy]

Originally Posted by SeoulFire

For me this is incredibly discouraging. It is already borderline cheaper to drive (and much much faster) for most things.

I rarely go downtown but I had an appointment the other day. Typically I would just take the transit but that day I did the math and decided it was more convenient for me to drive.

So instead of $5.50 for transit I drove and paid $8 for parking. Yes, I know I could have bought a book of tickets to make it $4.80. But I rarely take transit these days so I don't have a book of tickets.

Then as I was driving down Crowchild I noticed the C-Trains were stopped. Just sitting on the track. I think that was the day there was a problem in the South. I was walking downtown by one of the stations and heard the announcement about delays.

If I worked downtown I would take transit for sure because it makes more sense. But otherwise I try to justify it but it just doesn't make sense to use it.

[frinkprof]

A couple of reports recently added to the CT Website:

Southwest BRT Functional Planning Study

- Goes over stop locations

- Cost is estimated to be just shy of $40M, including exclusive right of way on west side of 14th Street, 90th Ave. underpass and expansion of Crowchild Trail shoulder operation. It is mentioned that this estimate could vary wildly depending on the exact implementation of a few of the measures.

- Suggests possible shoulder operation on Glenmore Trail and/or southbound to eastbound flyover from Crowchild Trail to Glenmore Trail. These aren't included in cost estimate

- The terminus would be in Woodbine, a couple options are given for how that would operate.

- The study concludes that it would be a beneficial project to implement.



http://www.calgarytransit.com/pdf/ca...y_20110802.pdf

The Southeast BRT - Year One Report

For those that live in McDouglasdaleTowne - or worse - there was a report done to evaluate the SE BRT after one year of service, which was in August 2010. The report was published in June 2011, but was just added to the website.

It's fairly short, but the major points are:

- Travel time reliability improved

- Overall transit ridership in the southeast improved by 10% during a period where the system as a whole saw static ridership. Meanwhile service hours in the Southeast increased by 37%.

- Community routes in the southeast lost some ridership - likely due to people boarding the SE BRT directly instead.

- Tweaks to alleviate choke points are being looked at

- Service will be extended to the South Hospital area when it opens in late 2012 or early 2013

http://www.calgarytransit.com/pdf/se...w_20110802.pdf

[firebug]

Originally Posted by frinkprof

A couple of reports recently added to the CT Website:

Southwest BRT Functional Planning Study

Downtown commuters will not be happy with the detour into Mount Royal 'Hospital'.

[frinkprof]

Fall Service revision information is up. The changes come into effect September 5th.

http://www.calgarytransit.com/html/f...ions_2011.html

Fall usually sees the biggest changes of all the seasonal service changes. Service is increased to coincide with school stating up again, so many routes see a bump in frequency during the morning and afternoon.

There is one new route, which will be initially operating only a few times in the morning and afternoon weekday peak periods. This is the route 425 - Sage Hill.

http://www.calgarytransit.com/route_maps/rte425.html

[First Lady]

Originally Posted by frinkprof

Fall Service revision information is up. The changes come into effect September 5th.

Fall usually sees the biggest changes of all the seasonal service changes. Service is increased to coincide with school stating up again, so many routes see a bump in frequency during the morning and afternoon.

There is one new route, which will be initially operating only a few times in the morning and afternoon weekday peak periods. This is the route 425 - Sage Hill.

Sorry, meant to quote, not Thanks... LOL

The 72/73 is within walking distance of my home and my place of business, which would mean no transfers. Problem is both points are right about the mid-point of the route. Thus it would be a 90 minute journey.

Funny thing about the transit site; one of the suggested routes it gives me is to take the 72 to a certain point and transfer to the 73 (go back in direction I just came from) which turns the 90 minute trip into a 137 minutes..... crazy.

Aside from that, the last time I was on transit someone spat a loogie <sp> into their hand and wiped it on the seat next to them..... pretty much turned me into a confirmed vehicle commuter.

[frinkprof]

Originally Posted by First Lady

Aside from that, the last time I was on transit someone spat a loogie <sp> into their hand and wiped it on the seat next to them..... pretty much turned me into a confirmed vehicle commuter.

Sorry about that.

Seriously though, yeah the 72/73 is good if you have to use it for short stints of its route - say a 5th of the circle at most. Certainly not a long-distance commuting option though.

Don't get me started on the trip planner on the website. It comes up with some wacky solutions far too often. I think it's probably discouraged a lot of people from taking transit just because it comes up with some wildly inaccurate and unintuitive results. Apparently it's supposed to be replaced with something else, and the whole website will see a revamp as well. Not sure when though.

[Rathji]

Originally Posted by frinkprof

Sorry about that.

Seriously though, yeah the 72/73 is good if you have to use it for short stints of its route - say a 5th of the circle at most. Certainly not a long-distance commuting option though.

Don't get me started on the trip planner on the website. It comes up with some wacky solutions far too often. I think it's probably discouraged a lot of people from taking transit just because it comes up with some wildly inaccurate and unintuitive results. Apparently it's supposed to be replaced with something else, and the whole website will see a revamp as well. Not sure when though.

Its crazy painful if you dont already know exactly which bus you need to take from exactly which stop.