I work for Mayor Nenshi, ask me anything!

[Kavvy]

Originally Posted by Bunk

I suppose it's simply considered a segment of the QE2, which is a provincial highway. No need for it to be different because it runs through the city. Freeways are very, very expensive to maintain - no one really wants it.

I always thought the province took control because it lies under the regulation of the Canamex Corridor, established by NAFTA, and therefore the overpasses became a international requirement, so the province decided to fund and build them. However,that might have nothing to do with it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CANAMEX_Corridor

The CANAMEX corridor is a corridor linking Canada to Mexico through the United States. The corridor was established under the North American Free Trade Agreement.[1] Currently the corridor is defined by a series of highways. However the corridor is also proposed for use by railroads, pipelines and fiber optic telecommunications infrastructure.

The United States portion of the highway was established as a High Priority Corridor. The treaty establishes that the CANAMEX highway will be upgraded to at least 4 lanes along its entire length. In 2008, 84% of the highway in the United States was compliant, 86% of the highway in Mexico was compliant.[3] The Canada portion was completed in 2007.

Two bottlenecks were identified with the Arizona portion of the corridor. The first was the route of U.S. Route 93 across northwestern Arizona, which at the time included a slow windy route over the Hoover Dam. The Hoover Dam Bypass opened in December 2010 resolving this issue.[

[para transit fellow]

Originally Posted by mykalberta

I dont work for the city, but my guess is not just any business can use the City of Calgary infrastructure without paying. A private handibus or any other form of transit has to pay the city of Calgary for use of their infrastructure for their business.

Airdrie for example cant just run bus service to Calgary without first making a deal with the City of Calgary (which they did).

So does this mean that Calgary gets a monopoly on transportation for out of towners accessing the provincial-funded resources (Cancer centre, AISH offices, Alberta Children's Hospital, special needs schools)?

[mykalberta]

Originally Posted by para transit fellow

So does this mean that Calgary gets a monopoly on transportation for out of towners accessing the provincial-funded resources (Cancer centre, AISH offices, Alberta Children's Hospital, special needs schools)?

If you use a private business to access them and not your own personal vehicle then probably yes.

[Kavvy]

Originally Posted by Kavy

I always thought the province took control because it lies under the regulation of the Canamex Corridor, established by NAFTA, and therefore the overpasses became a international requirement, so the province decided to fund and build them. However,that might have nothing to do with it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CANAMEX_Corridor

Not to derail, but an old PDF detailing the Canamex corridor.... if it is still around:

http://www.transportation.alberta.ca...e-Brochure.pdf

[para transit fellow]

Originally Posted by mykalberta

If you use a private business to access them and not your own personal vehicle then probably yes.

Yet the rural handibuses are all charities...


So should Edmonton require an agreement for every busload of school kids that goes to visit the legislature?

Drumheller needs a contract for museum visits?

Lake Louise for the ski hill buses?

[Envitro]

Quick question regarding the Reserved Parking at the C-Train stations.

I live on the west end of town by 69th street and have been really happy with the C-Train service. My only complaint is that there are way too many reserved spots that are empty and all of the "free" ones are taken by the time I get there at around 7:15am or so.

I voted for the mayor with the understanding that the parking fees would be eliminated ($3/day at the time) but then council went ahead and approved these "reserved" spots which is essentially the same thing but it is disguised as "maximum of 50% of available slots are to be reserved". EDIT: Just as a mention the current reserved parking system costs $3.50/day if averaged for 20 working days in any given month taking into account long weekends/etc...

I don't want to pay an additional $70 per month on top of my almost $100/month transit pass if I don't have to. Some stations like Anderson and others have way more free parking spots and it seems silly to have built a parkade so small that you are forced to pay $70/month just to be able to park. Most mornings I'm forced to drive to Scirocco after not finding a spot at 69th St which adds to my time. And yes, I understand that I could go to work earlier but that doesn't always work with my schedule and late evening/early morning hockey games (which is another beef which I'll skip for now).

Any thoughts or comments on how to improve the parking system at LRT stations?

[NuclearPizzaMan]

Originally Posted by Envitro

Any thoughts or comments on how to improve the parking system at LRT stations?

Return the $3/day parking fee for all spots.

[Envitro]

Without extra user fees?

[GGG]

Originally Posted by Envitro

Without extra user fees?

Parking is a scarace resource and should be priced at the market rate to keep one spot open all day long. Having free parking for early risers is unfair to thise who start later.

So each station should price its parking separately based on demand in order that everyone who is willing to pay can access a spot. The real issue is not enough spots for the people that want them so you need to disicentivise the parking or nicentivise the feeder buses or add more parking.

[Envitro]

Yeah agreed ^, plus there are no guarantees that even if you pay for a reserved spot that there will be one available for you. They only sell as many as there are, but lets say that someone parks in it without a permit and there are no spots left for you, even though you paid for it. Now what?

[Bunk]

The is no perfect parking policy for LRT stations.

When it was completely free, demand far outstripped supply and there was zero revenue stream to maintain the parking lots. Everyone also showed up at exactly the same time to try and secure a spot. When it was $3 flat few liked that either because of the cost and inconvenience - and there was lots of illegal parking in adjacent communities to skip out on the fee. When it went to reserved it meant a relatively small supply of free spots so people had to show up early for that privilage, but it meant people could pay for the luxury of showing up later. People percieve the reserved spots as "always being empty" because they are showing up earlier than many of the reserved parkers. In fact, Transit's stats show that there is an average utilization of the reserved spots of 90% Mon-Thurs - and slightly lower on Friday. Remember that after 10:00am anyone can take up an empty reserved spots for mid-day trips. The benefit of the split system is that it actually spreads the rush hour out - which reduces congestion at peak times. It also provides some revenue to maintain the station.

Again, the current situation is not ideal, but nor is free, and nor is $3 flat. Parking isn't an unlimited commodity and is very, very expensive to provide - especially in the parking garage format like at 69th Street.

Also, some people are not aware that the first level of the parking garage at 69th street is actually parking not for the LRT, but for the high school - which also fuels this perception that sometimes the "reserved" spaces are empty sometimes.

[GP_Matt]

Originally Posted by Kavy

I always thought the province took control because it lies under the regulation of the Canamex Corridor, established by NAFTA, and therefore the overpasses became a international requirement, so the province decided to fund and build them. However,that might have nothing to do with it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CANAMEX_Corridor

Off topic, but the link states that the Canamex corridor includes highway 43 which is not in fact 4 lanes and won't likely be for a few more years.

[Flash Walken]

What is nenshi's favourite thing to eat for lunch?

[puffnstuff]

Ok so now that parking has been opened up. Why on earth is it so expensive to park in DT Calgary at City lots? Our rates are on par with NYC and above every other major Canadian center. What's up with that?

As well I posted earlier in the thread about Deerfoot, never saw a response, but that may be due to it being a Provincial thing.

[Tinordi]

What's Nenshi's safe word?

[Bunk]

Originally Posted by puffnstuff

Ok so now that parking has been opened up. Why on earth is it so expensive to park in DT Calgary at City lots? Our rates are on par with NYC and above every other major Canadian center. What's up with that?

As well I posted earlier in the thread about Deerfoot, never saw a response, but that may be due to it being a Provincial thing.

In the 1960s Calgary implemented a parking policy downtown that restricted the amount of parking that could be built with new commercial development - to limit supply and therefore increase price. The intent was so that they would not have to build massive amounts of road infrastructure in and out of the downtown core to accommodate traffic demand as well as to drive transit ridership on new Blue Arrow bus system they wanted to implement.

In the meantime, Calgary's oil boom produced one of the most heavily concentrated downtown workforces of any city in North America.

So, high demand and intentially low supply means very high prices. Of course we know that the policy has been very successful for its intent. We have a relatively spread out residential population but also very high transit ridership for the downtown. 50% of commuter trips downtown are via transit, 11% are walking or biking and 39% are by car. This is a very high ratio for a western North American city, especially one that is primarily built up post war.

Now of course some will say that this policy is TOO successful. Perhaps more parking can be built (and is planned to be built) but we also have fairly finite road capacity in and out of downtown, unless we want to start bulldozing communities for new highways. So, lots of new parking wouldn't be that helpful anyway.

The policy was incredibly progressive for its time, and on balance has served our city extremely well.

[GP_Matt]

Originally Posted by puffnstuff

Ok so now that parking has been opened up. Why on earth is it so expensive to park in DT Calgary at City lots? Our rates are on par with NYC and above every other major Canadian center. What's up with that?

As well I posted earlier in the thread about Deerfoot, never saw a response, but that may be due to it being a Provincial thing.

Why should the city lots be cheaper than the going rate?

[puffnstuff]

Originally Posted by GP_Matt

Why should the city lots be cheaper than the going rate?

I never said it should.

[GP_Matt]

Originally Posted by puffnstuff

I never said it should.

You were asking why it was so expensive at city lots. They are priced similarly to the rest of the lots downtown.

[puffnstuff]

Because its not possible that the private lots look at the city pricing and think...'wow, if they charge that much, so should we'