Calgary Public Transit - Discussion

[jwslam]

Originally Posted by para transit fellow

I don't recall Calgary transit announcing something like this tap tp pay system which was recently unveiled in Edmonton.

https://globalnews.ca/video/11569344...dmonton-region

There's also an AMEX promotion in the AMEX app if anyone's living there / using transit.

Spend $6, get $2 credit. Up to 5 times.

[para transit fellow]

Originally Posted by Locke

Didn't they try and roll something like this out a few years ago and it was just a horrible mess?

that was a closed system. they ran into trouble trying to allow passengers refill their card immediately/ anywhere on any bus.

edmonton's system allow's direct use of the tap feature of your bank card/ credit card/ nfc -enabled phone

[Locke]

Originally Posted by para transit fellow

that was a closed system. they ran into trouble trying to allow passengers refill their card immediately/ anywhere on any bus.

edmonton's system allow's direct use of the tap feature of your bank card/ credit card/ nfc -enabled phone

Yeah, I remember hearing something about that. Is there a reason Calgary cant manage the same?

[powderjunkie]

Originally Posted by para transit fellow

I don't recall Calgary transit announcing something like this tap tp pay system which was recently unveiled in Edmonton.

https://globalnews.ca/video/11569344...dmonton-region

Our transit system is still way better than theirs, but it won't be for long at this rate.

[Locke]

Originally Posted by para transit fellow

that was a closed system. they ran into trouble trying to allow passengers refill their card immediately/ anywhere on any bus.

edmonton's system allow's direct use of the tap feature of your bank card/ credit card/ nfc -enabled phone

Yes, yes...that system was the payment equivalent of an Accordion Bus trying to go up a slightly slippery incline...a complete disaster.

[Jimmy Stang]

Originally Posted by Locke

Yeah, I remember hearing something about that. Is there a reason Calgary cant manage the same?

Toronto has it too. Just tap your credit card and you’re good to go. Presumably enforcement is done by presenting your card that you used to purchase the fare and they can scan their system to see the transaction. Is that correct?

[para transit fellow]

Originally Posted by Jimmy Stang

Toronto has it too. Just tap your credit card and you’re good to go. Presumably enforcement is done by presenting your card that you used to purchase the fare and they can scan their system to see the transaction. Is that correct?

That is how I understand it. Transit properties out there have also implemented something called fare capping. As long as you use the same payment media, your transactions are tallied, and after a certain number of trips (equivalent to a monthly pass), You are not charged your transit trips in the rest of the pass period.

The technology has evolved since calgary had their unsuccessful prototype.

[Amethyst]

Originally Posted by para transit fellow

That is how I understand it. Transit properties out there have also implemented something called fare capping. As long as you use the same payment media, your transactions are tallied, and after a certain number of trips (equivalent to a monthly pass), You are not charged your transit trips in the rest of the pass period.

The technology has evolved since calgary had their unsuccessful prototype.

This would be great! Last year I took the train to work a lot, but occasionally had to drive. Each month was a pain trying to figure out whether or not a pass was the better option.

[Jiggy]

Originally Posted by powderjunkie

I used to benefit really nicely from an express bus, but the operational challenges of running them are pretty significant. Lots of deadhead costs, and the return trip is useless.

3 of these routes are duplicative of the SE 302 (and shuttle routes feeding it), so this is just eliminating the one seat ride. 5 others feed into the 301 (Centre St). Then there's the 70, serving two of the lowest density 'hoods in the city.

All this really does is eliminate the one seat ride, which is probably a bigger psychological impact than the actual time penalty. These all serve fairly new low density burbs that don't really 'deserve' this kind of white glove service.


But it's totally reasonable to be annoyed if this affects you. And the city should have given more notice and made better arguments. This is simply what 'finding efficiencies' looks like

I wouldn't call it white glove service. A lot of these areas don't have transit service going to downtown. The ones I take are from older neighborhoods and without these buses the city will just end up with more cars on the road.

A lot of school kids end up on these express routes as well as the other buses fill up.

[Locke]

How do they assign Calgary Transit jobs? Do you just get an acceptance letter as the prize at the bottom of a cereal box? And then the good citizens of Calgary pay your salary for their useless work?

[jwslam]

Originally Posted by powderjunkie

5 others feed into the 301 (Centre St).

Have you ever TRIED to take the 301?
1) It never actually comes at the scheduled time.
2) When it does come, if you are not on in the first 3 stops, you are standing room only
3) Many people use the express buses to avoid the 301 and not actually go to their neighbourhoods when they get off at or before 78Ave. The express bus capacity actually alleviates pressures on the 301.
4) Hidden valley for example, you're replacing the express bus with, when going southbound,
-The 118 comes as a handibus that comes every half hour.
-Takes you to the 3 Sandstone terminal, where you ride a bunch of small stops all the way to 78
-Get off at 78 and wait for the 301 that arrives at Max capacity. So instead you have to wait for the next bus; oh wait, they've eliminated all the express busses with capacity. Other option is to ride the 3 all the way out adding 10+ minutes with all the stops on the way down center street.

[Jiggy]

Originally Posted by jwslam

Have you ever TRIED to take the 301?
1) It never actually comes at the scheduled time.
2) When it does come, if you are not on in the first 3 stops, you are standing room only
3) Many people use the express buses to avoid the 301 and not actually go to their neighbourhoods when they get off at or before 78Ave. The express bus capacity actually alleviates pressures on the 301.
4) Hidden valley for example, you're replacing the express bus with, when going southbound,
-The 118 comes as a handibus that comes every half hour.
-Takes you to the 3 Sandstone terminal, where you ride a bunch of small stops all the way to 78
-Get off at 78 and wait for the 301 that arrives at Max capacity. So instead you have to wait for the next bus; oh wait, they've eliminated all the express busses with capacity. Other option is to ride the 3 all the way out adding 10+ minutes with all the stops on the way down center street.

Good post.

I would say the 3 adds more than 10+ minutes. It's probably closer to 20 minutes. And I agree with 301 (MG) always being full, it pretty much fills up at it's first stop at the North Point terminal.

This will add a lot more cars on the road down Deerfoot and center.

For 3-5 express buses (each route) in the morning, and 3-5 in the afternoon, it alleviates traffic congestion a lot.

[surferguy]

Originally Posted by Locke

How do they assign Calgary Transit jobs? Do you just get an acceptance letter as the prize at the bottom of a cereal box? And then the good citizens of Calgary pay your salary for their useless work?

Locke this is a dink comment. Don’t be a dink

[mogg]

Originally Posted by Amethyst

This would be great! Last year I took the train to work a lot, but occasionally had to drive. Each month was a pain trying to figure out whether or not a pass was the better option.

Vancouver has this as well. It’s a dream. Just take transit when you need to and pay by whatever means is most convenient, knowing you’ll automatically be charged the lowest possible fare.

[powderjunkie]

Originally Posted by Jiggy

I wouldn't call it white glove service. A lot of these areas don't have transit service going to downtown. The ones I take are from older neighborhoods and without these buses the city will just end up with more cars on the road.

A lot of school kids end up on these express routes as well as the other buses fill up.

Most neighbourhoods don't have transit service going to DT. They have service feeding into corridors that do run to DT. I think just ~22 (+these 9 express) of the ~160 bus routes in the city go to DT

Originally Posted by jwslam

Have you ever TRIED to take the 301?
1) It never actually comes at the scheduled time.
2) When it does come, if you are not on in the first 3 stops, you are standing room only
3) Many people use the express buses to avoid the 301 and not actually go to their neighbourhoods when they get off at or before 78Ave. The express bus capacity actually alleviates pressures on the 301.
4) Hidden valley for example, you're replacing the express bus with, when going southbound,
-The 118 comes as a handibus that comes every half hour.
-Takes you to the 3 Sandstone terminal, where you ride a bunch of small stops all the way to 78
-Get off at 78 and wait for the 301 that arrives at Max capacity. So instead you have to wait for the next bus; oh wait, they've eliminated all the express busses with capacity. Other option is to ride the 3 all the way out adding 10+ minutes with all the stops on the way down center street.

We absolutely should have built Centre St LRT first! Fully automated! But a bunch of bumble####s kept electing a moronic rapist, so here we are.

The hope would be that the express bus resources get redirected to 301 to make it better for everyone. It sucks to lose express service when you live in a very low density neighbourhood where your lifestyle is subsidized by everyone else. It sucks even more to live in med-higher density where you are part of the solution, but can't access services because they are catered to the first group and overloaded. And I say this as a member of this group who thinks I should pay property taxes which should be based on land-value + servicing costs rather than primarily factoring improvements.

The whole point of RouteAhead is to redirect from crappy low frequency coverage everywhere to higher frequency service corridors with faster travel times (fewer stops). There will be winners and losers in this, but there will be more winners than losers.

It's easy to look at these express busses and say "look how full they are!". But every bus is similarly full at these times - the difference is that less than 50% of the time/resources for these express bus actually goes to revenue service, while the rest is deadhead time.

[Jiggy]

Originally Posted by powderjunkie

Most neighbourhoods don't have transit service going to DT. They have service feeding into corridors that do run to DT. I think just ~22 (+these 9 express) of the ~160 bus routes in the city go to DT



We absolutely should have built Centre St LRT first! Fully automated! But a bunch of bumble####s kept electing a moronic rapist, so here we are.

The hope would be that the express bus resources get redirected to 301 to make it better for everyone. It sucks to lose express service when you live in a very low density neighbourhood where your lifestyle is subsidized by everyone else. It sucks even more to live in med-higher density where you are part of the solution, but can't access services because they are catered to the first group and overloaded. And I say this as a member of this group who thinks I should pay property taxes which should be based on land-value + servicing costs rather than primarily factoring improvements.

The whole point of RouteAhead is to redirect from crappy low frequency coverage everywhere to higher frequency service corridors with faster travel times (fewer stops). There will be winners and losers in this, but there will be more winners than losers.

It's easy to look at these express busses and say "look how full they are!". But every bus is similarly full at these times - the difference is that less than 50% of the time/resources for these express bus actually goes to revenue service, while the rest is deadhead time.

I'm guessing you haven't actually taken transit in a lot of these areas?

Routes 3, 46 and 118 have buses that run empty throughout the day. You could easily reduce 2-3 on each route and keep 62 and 64 running.

[powderjunkie]

Originally Posted by Jiggy

I'm guessing you haven't actually taken transit in a lot of these areas?

Routes 3, 46 and 118 have buses that run empty throughout the day. You could easily reduce 2-3 on each route and keep 62 and 64 running.

Welcome to the challenges of scheduling transit.

Ridership patterns have been changing to be a little more steady throughout the day (but still nowhere close to rush hour peaks) and less focused on downtown than before. There was a time when it made some sense to focus on rush hour DT riders and ignore the rest of the day, but it's just not true anymore.