Calgary Transit, Sorry for the delay.

[Barnes]

Originally Posted by TheCommodoreAfro

Living in the city with the most effective and efficient (though not green) transit system in the world, I cringe when I think about having to take the C-train. The biggest bottleneck in the system is the fact that the train has to yeild to pedestrian and normal commuter traffic. If taking the train was faster to work/home than driving, you'd start to see people use it - rather simple really. Underground or a raised system downtown would have been a better system.

Where are you from?

People do use it and more would. That's the issue. More people would if they could actually get on a train at rush hour. The train is faster than driving. Not as fast as two years ago, but still faster. That is until there is an incident which is now about twice a week.

[Flame On]

I find it laughable that in a city of only just a million we have rushours that are as cramped as anything I experienced in London.
They built the city in a quadrent, then hey why don't we build the transit system in thirds!
Then lets not have any security what so ever and let bums on for free downtown so they can F***, puke, p*** and sh** in the train.
Major changes are needed. But what's new?

[GrrlGoalie33]

Originally Posted by TheCommodoreAfro

If taking the train was faster to work/home than driving, you'd start to see people use it - rather simple really.
The other thing they should take a look at is building parallel track so that during rush hours they could put express trains on the routes that would only stop at a few of the stations - hence decreasing the actual time spent in a commute.

It is far faster to take the train (most days) than drive. It takes me less than half the time to get to/from downtown to Whitehorn on the train than it would driving.

I do really like the idea of the parallel track, though it would never happen. There is not enough room downtown to add two more tracks and it would cost the city 10's of millions of dollars to buy property in the burbs if the Glenmore expansion set the precident.

There is one other HUGE bonus to taking the train...$70 a month for a transit pass vs $26 a day to park in the impark lot behind my building...and the $70 is tax deductable.

[MatsNaslund]

A lot of resistance to change by the "old guard" within the city.

You can say that again. Both Transit and Roads have their own agendas. City Hall can only do so much if there's new people moving here each and every day of the week. Its not just Transit that needs money. There's Waste and Recycling,Roads, Fire, Police, EMS and many other things.
I like the idea of 4 car trains as much as anyone else but for them to actually do that they would literally have to shutdown a station at a time on the NE line and maybe some of the other older stations on the other lines. For example: Marlborough station, they would have to do construction work on the platform to extend it and before that they would have to move a lot of the electrical boxes and substation equipment somewhere else. That's a lot of work. They can't have people go on the platform while that's going on. So they probably would have the trains just passby and not stop there. That would mean those people would either have to goto Franklin,Rundle,Whitehorn or somewhere else to catch a train or bus. That's a pretty busy station. Even a few days of being shutdown will cause problems.

[MatsNaslund]

Transit in Calgary is a bit of a disaster if you ask me. It's far easier to move around the sprawl that is Vancouver and surrounding suburbs.

By Transit I guess you mean both Bus and Train service. That is a bit of an unfair argument since Calgary is physically one single municipality the size of NYC and urban sprawl is worse here. Vancouver also gets little or no snow and rarely if ever gets to temperatures of minus 30 or worse. I bet auto insurance is cheaper there since they don't have any snow related accidents.

Vancouver trains don't have a driver. It is a different system. I'd like to know the number of passengers who take the Skytrain from within the municipality of Vancouver to downtown Vancouver as a daily commute both ways and then compare that to number who do so in the municipality of Calgary.

Bus Service is different in Vancouver then in Calgary. Vancouver has a law where you must yield to busses pulling out of stops or pay a fine if you're caught. Busses in Calgary are cut off by everyone from the milkman to the cyclist to semi trucks to little smart cars. How are they supposed to keep on time? The municipality of Calgary also added 300,000+ people since 1992 with little no increase in basic transportation infrastructure and still Calgary is getting 100 new people a day on average.

[MatsNaslund]

Then lets not have any security what so ever and let bums on for free downtown so they can F***, puke, p*** and sh** in the train.

That's why the City needs to pass that Public Behaviour Bylaw and the Bylaw giving Transit Cops more power. Until then they can't do jack if the person takes it to court.

[maverickeastwood]

Why not just run the trains more frequently during peak times...a minute between trains would make a difference.

[Flame On]

Originally Posted by MatsNaslund

That's why the City needs to pass that Public Behaviour Bylaw and the Bylaw giving Transit Cops more power. Until then they can't do jack if the person takes it to court.

Fine lets do it, great idea. Let the cops open fire on some of these scumbags that swarm random people and leave them for dead.

[ken0042]

Here's a thought- some of the platforms are now ready for 4 cars; right? Like the newer ones.

Why not throw 4 cars on there now; letting people know those cars will only have the doors open at limited stops? That way people could get on at Bridlewood and not have to deal with people moving around once past the first few stops. Stop an extra 30 seconds at 1 St SW to allow people to move up to the other car.

That way there would also be room for the long distance commuters to get on at Centre Street heading south; which is one of the problem stations for people not being able to get on.

[MatsNaslund]

Why not just run the trains more frequently during peak times...a minute between trains would make a difference.

The frequency is as fast as can be right now with 5 min (300 sec) service during morning and afternoon rush hour. It cannot be any faster because along 7th ave trains have to yeild to one another (Somerset waiting for Whithorn etc. ), wait at traffic lights and yeild to cars & pedestrians, and also sometimes wait for busses along 7th ave. At times there are EMS and Police vehicles on 7th ave too and they have on occasion delayed trains too. What should happen is all busses should be taken off of 7th ave & East-West (c-train traffic) should be given 90% of the green light time as compared to the North-South traffic. That is really the only way to get it better than 5 minute service. The traffic downtown along with pedestrians will be screwed but who cares right because we'll get c-train service to 2-3 min service!

What can be done is have 4 car trains to carry more people but that involves rebuilding many of the stations.

[MatsNaslund]

Here's a thought- some of the platforms are now ready for 4 cars; right? Like the newer ones.
Why not throw 4 cars on there now; letting people know those cars will only have the doors open at limited stops? That way people could get on at Bridlewood and not have to deal with people moving around once past the first few stops. Stop an extra 30 seconds at 1 St SW to allow people to move up to the other car.
That way there would also be room for the long distance commuters to get on at Centre Street heading south; which is one of the problem stations for people not being able to get on.

Its a good idea but in practice they can't have 4 car trains until all stations have been reconstructed and modified for it because for safety reasons alone you can't have a 4 car train stop at one station and then goto an older platform that can only accomodate 3. Yes there are new stations that are ready for it but all stations on that line would have to be ready for it to happen. For example let's consider each and every station platform from somerset to dalhousie. There's many that need to be modified for it. Also the train that you take on the NW-South line maybe on the NE-City Centre line tommorow. So that is another problem. Until all the platforms are modified for 4 cars they can't really do it. When it is all done

[Barnes]

Originally Posted by MatsNaslund

I like the idea of 4 car trains as much as anyone else but for them to actually do that they would literally have to shutdown a station at a time on the NE line and maybe some of the other older stations on the other lines. For example: Marlborough station, they would have to do construction work on the platform to extend it and before that they would have to move a lot of the electrical boxes and substation equipment somewhere else. That's a lot of work. They can't have people go on the platform while that's going on. So they probably would have the trains just passby and not stop there. That would mean those people would either have to goto Franklin,Rundle,Whitehorn or somewhere else to catch a train or bus. That's a pretty busy station. Even a few days of being shutdown will cause problems.

It's already being planned for 2013 so they must have a way of doing. They need to start now.

[MatsNaslund]

Fine lets do it, great idea. Let the cops open fire on some of these scumbags that swarm random people and leave them for dead.

At present Transit Cops have little power other than issuing fare evasion tickets which carry a $150 dollar fine. Anyone else and you can take it court and have it thrown out due to the lack of legal authority of Transit Cops. There's only 36 of them for a whole city of million. Someone can spit, take a $hit, take a ****, drink, smoke and do whatever they want on LRT platform downtown if they are on the sidewalk portion below the steps and just take it to court to have the charges lifted. They can also do the same thing on a packed rush hour train and if its on 7th ave can shutdown the entire ctrain system for the city during rush hour if they time it right. If it is transit cops that show up all they can do is issue a warning. If it is real police then they will charge them but usually the transit cops are the ones that show up because of a turf war they have going on with the real guys. Transit cops also cannot carry any weapons.

As for the Public Behaviour Bylaw, there's a reason why downtown is not a place where you can live and raise a family. Just in front of the Centre street station and City Hall Station there are so many crack deals happening out in the open. There's so many aggressive panhandlers. Just east of City Hall on the otherside of the fence east of 3 st E. (near crack-cul-de-sac) there are so many panhandelers, homeless, criminals, drug junkies, prostitutes, etc. Usually there are several people sleeping underneath the 4th ave flyover. One morning I came to Centre Street station at 6 am via train and saw 6 people sleeping in sleeping bags. One of them started to follow me and asked for change. I told him to get a job and if he didn't stop asking me that I would let my knuckles do the talking. He stopped bothering me immediately. Another place where you see this kind of crap is at 8 st station. If you like this type of stuff in the city center then we should keep the existing laws. If not then we should see that city council passes that bylaw so that garbage like this can be removed from our downtown. If it were up to me the Cecil, The mustard seed, and drop in center would all be relocated to Forst Lawn (aka the dump) or closed down for good.

[Ironhorse]

Originally Posted by MatsNaslund

The Trains run off of 600 Vdc. The braking system uses sand. It is most likely that the lines are AC because it is easier to store and transport the electricity as AC rather than as DC. The electricity used for the trains is generated at a wind farm in Pincher Creek. That is the exact reason why Enmax provides 120 Vac to homes when in fact almost everything inside the home actually runs on DC (with some notable exceptions).

The newer cars they've been buying use AC traction motors, which are more efficient and accelerate better. But AC technology in trains has only been become viable during the past 10-15 years.

And the sand is used for traction, just like any other locomotive in the world.

[Philly06Cup]

Originally Posted by MatsNaslund

As for the Public Behaviour Bylaw, there's a reason why downtown is not a place where you can live and raise a family. Just in front of the Centre street station and City Hall Station there are so many crack deals happening out in the open. There's so many aggressive panhandlers. Just east of City Hall on the otherside of the fence east of 3 st E. (near crack-cul-de-sac) there are so many panhandelers, homeless, criminals, drug junkies, prostitutes, etc. Usually there are several people sleeping underneath the 4th ave flyover. One morning I came to Centre Street station at 6 am via train and saw 6 people sleeping in sleeping bags. One of them started to follow me and asked for change. I told him to get a job and if he didn't stop asking me that I would let my knuckles do the talking. He stopped bothering me immediately. Another place where you see this kind of crap is at 8 st station. If you like this type of stuff in the city center then we should keep the existing laws. If not then we should see that city council passes that bylaw so that garbage like this can be removed from our downtown. If it were up to me the Cecil, The mustard seed, and drop in center would all be relocated to Forst Lawn (aka the dump) or closed down for good.

How about, instead of relocating the problem to a neighbourhood that's "a dump," or shutting down services designed to help the lower class, we try to fix the problem? I reckon that would be a better solution.

I honestly don't believe Calgary will ever achieve a remotely efficient transit system. The three-branched layout doesn't make sense, and serves only to alienate large regions in the NE, N, SE, S, and W. And that is something very unfixable. As a regular Ctrain passenger myself, I just learn to accept that sometimes it will be crowded and/or delayed. But, it could always be worse.

[TheCommodoreAfro]

Originally Posted by Barnes

Where are you from?

People do use it and more would. That's the issue. More people would if they could actually get on a train at rush hour. The train is faster than driving. Not as fast as two years ago, but still faster. That is until there is an incident which is now about twice a week.

I'm from Calgary, but currently reside in Tokyo. Tokyo's population more than doubles during morning rush hours, which makes commuting by car virtually impossible. Here's the map of the central area (some of the private lines are actually missing from this one, as well). When I was in Calgary I was lucky enough to live close enough to work to walk. But then my office moved out of the core and I had to get a car!

http://www.johomaps.com/as/japan/tokyo/tokyo2.html