Renewed passenger rail service between Banff and Calgary?

[marsplasticeraser]

This.

Interact with 1,000 foreign tourists visiting parks and see that cars are used because of no other option, not because that’s what they want.

Originally Posted by wingmaker

Look, you want to argue that you don't want to spend the money on this infrastructure, that is your prerogative. But you have supported that stance with points and facts that are wrong, flat out inaccurate. I am not interested in debating when you do not have the facts. You are doing quick google searches and making huge assumptions to support what you think is true. You clearly do not have an understanding of how people visit the parks and what they do when they are there. That is fine, but please don't pretend like you do know when you clearly don't.

[GGG]

Originally Posted by marsplasticeraser

This.

Interact with 1,000 foreign tourists visiting parks and see that cars are used because of no other option, not because that’s what they want.

Do you believe that is because of the transportation problems within the park or from Calgary to the park?

[Knalus]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

While an interesting idea, it isn't very big:
https://goo.gl/maps/WanQDT2YF6N2


Certainly not big enough for a tourist centre.

No disrespect, but how big do you think Banff is? Same scale on google maps shows that from the quarry to the lake, to the Legion in Exshaw is about the same distance as from the Bow river bridge, to just past the Inns of Banff in the Banff townsite. Yes, this doesn't include the Cave and Basin, or the Banff upper hot springs, but it also doesn't include the Lac Des Arc campground.

The Exshaw quarry and townsite is certainly bigger than Lake Louise.

Besides, how big does a town need to be? All the people working there can commute in on the fancy new train they are building!!

[woob]

Originally Posted by Sliver

Humans are allowed to have a footprint, too.

Trololololol.

[GordonBlue]

it is a good idea, but I'd love to see the numbers on how many people they calculate would have to take the train at $15 a trip to cover costs and service the debt to build it.

[Fuzz]

Originally Posted by Knalus

No disrespect, but how big do you think Banff is? Same scale on google maps shows that from the quarry to the lake, to the Legion in Exshaw is about the same distance as from the Bow river bridge, to just past the Inns of Banff in the Banff townsite. Yes, this doesn't include the Cave and Basin, or the Banff upper hot springs, but it also doesn't include the Lac Des Arc campground.

The Exshaw quarry and townsite is certainly bigger than Lake Louise.

Besides, how big does a town need to be? All the people working there can commute in on the fancy new train they are building!!

Fair enough, if you get rid of the plant there would be enough space. But I suspect they have plans for the area for years to come, and won't be all that willing to give it up! They have just spent a load of money upgrading the facility.

[marsplasticeraser]

Originally Posted by GGG

Do you believe that is because of the transportation problems within the park or from Calgary to the park?

it's both. there are two separate issues that are heavily intertwined. Here's why:

1. Many people just don't want to drive to Banff. This is especially elderly, backpackers and Europeans. They rent a car because there isn't a good alternative. I wouldn't be surprised if 50% of foreign tourists would prefer a train. Think of people you know that went to Europe - many of them likely took the train during their vacation, especially for crowded locations.

2. Existing bus service from Calgary isn't frequent enough, in many cases not that nice and the good service is very expensive. Further, there is a psychological barrier between a bus and a train which I have heard about and I agree exists. People choose a car vs. a highly imperfect bus service.

3. The cost of renting a car in summer is onerous - $100/day for a compact. It makes Banff more expensive than other options, thus reducing tourism.

4. The majority of tourists actually don't need a car. They come for 2-5 days and want to see: Sulphur Mtn gondola, Lake Louise, Moraine Lake, Johnston Canyon, Minnewanka. All are currently serviced by (admittedly pretty bad) public transport. Actually, Minnewanka service is pretty good with Roam.

5. Having a car and visiting any of the above places is absolutely terrible. There is usually no parking. Most times tourists end up driving back to the bus stop. This is a horrible visitor experience.

6. I haven't even listed winter, where many tourists are terrified of driving in the rockies. There is ok service from hotels to ski resorts, but terrible options from YYC to Banff.

So you have a chicken and egg situation here. Not enough demand for transportation within the park as people need a car to get there. Once somebody has a car they expect to use it, not spend an extra $5-$10/person/day to get around. This results in traffic jams, no parking and visitors commenting what a poorly managed system we have.

Also, remember that the public transportation is new in Banff, as visitor numbers are increasing so steadily.


On this topic, I think there are four other usage scenarios that make the train option something that shouldn't be immediately dismissed:

1. Takes cars off transcanada. This delays the huge spend to triple the transcanada.

2. Having a train that goes YYC-Downtown-Canmore-Banff-Lake Louise likely puts extra hotel nights in Downtown and YYC, benefiting calgary tourism. People stay in Calgary at start / end. Heck, with prices in Banff you may see people take a 1hr train up to Banff each day and stay in Calgary.

3. Obviously reduced pollution and negative car-wildlife interactions.

4. There is a benefit to the Calgary population in getting to mountains without a car. I see this most beneficial in winter for skiing, but also for summer. If it was easy to take C-Train to Downtown and then be in Banff in 60-75 minutes people will chose that. Again, powder days will be way better with a train. Connect Sunshine, Norquay, Lake Louise stations by gondola and get off the train onto the gondola and it's a big win.

So tons of benefit and the issue comes down to what's the cost? Worthwhile to quantify what this service actually looks like and figure out costs and benefits rather than throwing it out from the start.

BTW - This would be a great infrastructure project for the olympics. Increase money into Calgary, provide something of high value.

[djsFlames]

Originally Posted by Bigtime

Overnight Agra to Varanasi in Chair Car class. Checkmate.


~48 hours from Jalgon to Amritsar, was going a little crazy by the end of that one (but travelled it in 3AC Sleeper at least).

Alright, Sheldon Cooper.

[puckedoff]

Originally Posted by marsplasticeraser

2. Existing bus service from Calgary isn't frequent enough, in many cases not that nice and the good service is very expensive. Further, there is a psychological barrier between a bus and a train which I have heard about and I agree exists. People choose a car vs. a highly imperfect bus service.

.

Why is good bus service expensive? How can a train, which requires hundreds of millions of capital to be employed be reasonably expected to provide that service for $15?

The math just doesn't add up for me.

[marsplasticeraser]

Well, you can run a train with capacity for 500 people with a few employees, so it's totally possible it could be a similar cost.

When you have such huge numbers (4.2 million visitors to Banff last year), visiting such a small area, mass transportation starts to make a lot of sense.

But I'm not saying let's do this or that it's cheaper. I'm saying there are enough benefits that we should figure out what this service would look like, what the costs are, what would fares be and how can we quantify the benefits to see how this makes sense.

To dismiss what seems like a good idea without any analysis seems like the absolute worst way to proceed.

Unfortunately some sort of change is the answer to the problem of overcrowding. Other options that I see to solve this all seem to lead to less tourism (namely the use of quotas, further parking restrictions, increased parking charges).

We have something going well in our province in tourism. People come and leave their money here. Let's invest to get more people to do this.

If you're really worried about the money, maybe we build one or two less overpasses in the deep SE. Overpasses generate very little incremental economic activity.

Originally Posted by puckedoff

Why is good bus service expensive? How can a train, which requires hundreds of millions of capital to be employed be reasonably expected to provide that service for $15?

The math just doesn't add up for me.

[GGG]

Originally Posted by marsplasticeraser

it's both. there are two separate issues that are heavily intertwined. Here's why:

1. Many people just don't want to drive to Banff. This is especially elderly, backpackers and Europeans. They rent a car because there isn't a good alternative. I wouldn't be surprised if 50% of foreign tourists would prefer a train. Think of people you know that went to Europe - many of them likely took the train during their vacation, especially for crowded locations.

2. Existing bus service from Calgary isn't frequent enough, in many cases not that nice and the good service is very expensive. Further, there is a psychological barrier between a bus and a train which I have heard about and I agree exists. People choose a car vs. a highly imperfect bus service.

3. The cost of renting a car in summer is onerous - $100/day for a compact. It makes Banff more expensive than other options, thus reducing tourism.

4. The majority of tourists actually don't need a car. They come for 2-5 days and want to see: Sulphur Mtn gondola, Lake Louise, Moraine Lake, Johnston Canyon, Minnewanka. All are currently serviced by (admittedly pretty bad) public transport. Actually, Minnewanka service is pretty good with Roam.

5. Having a car and visiting any of the above places is absolutely terrible. There is usually no parking. Most times tourists end up driving back to the bus stop. This is a horrible visitor experience.

6. I haven't even listed winter, where many tourists are terrified of driving in the rockies. There is ok service from hotels to ski resorts, but terrible options from YYC to Banff.

So you have a chicken and egg situation here. Not enough demand for transportation within the park as people need a car to get there. Once somebody has a car they expect to use it, not spend an extra $5-$10/person/day to get around. This results in traffic jams, no parking and visitors commenting what a poorly managed system we have.

Also, remember that the public transportation is new in Banff, as visitor numbers are increasing so steadily.


On this topic, I think there are four other usage scenarios that make the train option something that shouldn't be immediately dismissed:

1. Takes cars off transcanada. This delays the huge spend to triple the transcanada.

2. Having a train that goes YYC-Downtown-Canmore-Banff-Lake Louise likely puts extra hotel nights in Downtown and YYC, benefiting calgary tourism. People stay in Calgary at start / end. Heck, with prices in Banff you may see people take a 1hr train up to Banff each day and stay in Calgary.

3. Obviously reduced pollution and negative car-wildlife interactions.

4. There is a benefit to the Calgary population in getting to mountains without a car. I see this most beneficial in winter for skiing, but also for summer. If it was easy to take C-Train to Downtown and then be in Banff in 60-75 minutes people will chose that. Again, powder days will be way better with a train. Connect Sunshine, Norquay, Lake Louise stations by gondola and get off the train onto the gondola and it's a big win.

So tons of benefit and the issue comes down to what's the cost? Worthwhile to quantify what this service actually looks like and figure out costs and benefits rather than throwing it out from the start.

BTW - This would be a great infrastructure project for the olympics. Increase money into Calgary, provide something of high value.

Absolutely agree with you on all the problems of internal transportation within the park. Where I disagree is that it is a chicken and egg thing. You need to convince people they are better off parking their car in Banff and using park transit before it makes any sense to pursue a way to get them to Banff without cars. Where people seemed to take issue with me is saying there wasn't a good way to get around the park without a car. There isn't currently. Its a work in progress. Once you get up to a sustainable amount of trips using transit within the park then you can work on the easier problem of convincing people not to drive to the park in the first place.

Where I disagree is that Bus Service is bad to Banff. You have hourly service from the airport with the expensive air porter. and hourly service on weekends from downtown and Crowfoot on weekends with On-It. Right now On-It offers $10 trips that is subsidized by government. You can get a ticket for this Saturday, bus isn't even half full for any of the trips. Until these services are bulging at the seems there is no evidence that the demand for trains is there even with peoples train preference.

So government funding for a train should be dismissed out of hand until you can prove demand for the very similar bus service and you have convinced people within Banff that a car is not required. Then you can start studying the feasibility.

Using the Olympics on boondoggle projects is how you have huge debts from Olympics. Spend the infrastructure money on an airport link, or accelerating the North and Southeast line. Even the high-speed boondoggle proposed between Edmonton and Calgary is a better boondoggle to invest in.

[topfiverecords]

Originally Posted by GGG

Absolutely agree with you on all the problems of internal transportation within the park. Where I disagree is that it is a chicken and egg thing. You need to convince people they are better off parking their car in Banff and using park transit before it makes any sense to pursue a way to get them to Banff without cars. Where people seemed to take issue with me is saying there wasn't a good way to get around the park without a car. There isn't currently. Its a work in progress. Once you get up to a sustainable amount of trips using transit within the park then you can work on the easier problem of convincing people not to drive to the park in the first place.

Where I disagree is that Bus Service is bad to Banff. You have hourly service from the airport with the expensive air porter. and hourly service on weekends from downtown and Crowfoot on weekends with On-It. Right now On-It offers $10 trips that is subsidized by government. You can get a ticket for this Saturday, bus isn't even half full for any of the trips. Until these services are bulging at the seems there is no evidence that the demand for trains is there even with peoples train preference.

So government funding for a train should be dismissed out of hand until you can prove demand for the very similar bus service and you have convinced people within Banff that a car is not required. Then you can start studying the feasibility.

Using the Olympics on boondoggle projects is how you have huge debts from Olympics. Spend the infrastructure money on an airport link, or accelerating the North and Southeast line. Even the high-speed boondoggle proposed between Edmonton and Calgary is a better boondoggle to invest in.

It is a chicken and egg thing.

Once you have visitors arriving to Banff without cars looking to get further into the park, then you have created more demand, allowing those services to increase their capacities, routes, distances and service quality.

Then it goes back the other way, when there are more functional transportation options available they will entice those that came by car to leave it in a parkade to get to other destinations.

It's funny you suggest infrastructure money would be better put towards an airport link, which studies have outlined that the projected ridership wouldn't cover its operating costs and payback of the build out.

[GGG]

Originally Posted by topfiverecords

It is a chicken and egg thing.

Once you have visitors arriving to Banff without cars looking to get further into the park, then you have created more demand, allowing those services to increase their capacities, routes, distances and service quality.

Then it goes back the other way, when there are more functional transportation options available they will entice those that came by car to leave it in a parkade to get to other destinations.

It's funny you suggest infrastructure money would be better put towards an airport link, which studies have outlined that the projected ridership wouldn't cover its operating costs and payback of the build out.

The demand for internal park transit is created by lack of parking at the attractions. The current transit infrastructure cannot keep up with this demand in the Lake Louise, Johnston Canyon, Moraine lake areas. This demand exists and isn't being served. Until the park can show that they can manage these people flows using buses and transit there is no point in adding to this carless mass. Transit in the park is not ready. The egg has hatched.

As for a transit link to the airport it is currently included in Transits route ahead document which identifies priorities for transit capital spending. So I trust that the high level cost benefit has been performed and from a transit perspective makes sense. I'd be interested in the studies you are referring to about the Calgary airport link. A rail link to Banff is not in the provinces transportation priorities.

[powderjunkie]

Other than this happening at all, I think the $15 is the least likely thing to be true.

Perhaps for local residents booking 60+ days in advance for the lowest demand fares? I don't really know though - any comparable routes anywhere in the world? Standalone passenger train routes <150km (ie. no further tracks in either direction)? Whether it's to a tourist destination or not?

[Amethyst]

Maybe $15 for an initial period to get people using it? Or $15 for locals, but tourists pay more - like Disneyland!

[FireGilbert]

Great idea. Traffic around Banff is horrible and anything that can be done to reduce it should be considered.

The last time I was in Banff we did not leave the town for three days. I would have preferred to take a train instead of the rental car which sat in the hotel parking lot the entire time.

[Wormius]

Originally Posted by Amethyst

Maybe $15 for an initial period to get people using it? Or $15 for locals, but tourists pay more - like Disneyland!

$15 seems way too cheap, where did that number come from? If it’s round-trip and you avoid the park entrance fees, it should be more like $60 or $80.

[Amethyst]

Originally Posted by Wormius

$15 seems way too cheap, where did that number come from? If it’s round-trip and you avoid the park entrance fees, it should be more like $60 or $80.

Someone earlier in the thread posted that. I agree that it seems way too low, although I was assuming one way. On-It is $10 each way, but you pay the park entrance fee on top of that, I think. I took it last year, when the park was free.

[Coach]

We should build a coast-coast Canadian bullet train and call it Snowpiercer. Just because it would be awesome.

[GordonBlue]

Originally Posted by Wormius

$15 seems way too cheap, where did that number come from? If it’s round-trip and you avoid the park entrance fees, it should be more like $60 or $80.

it was in the article in the op.
Should it be built, a single adult ticket from Calgary to Banff is expected to cost about $15 one way. “The group that conducted the study looked at a variety of price points and that was seen as one that was very reachable for most Canadians,” said Waterous.

https://www.rmoutlook.com/article/30...-rail-20180719

Jan Waterous, who owns the Banff train station with her husband Adam, confirmed a private institution is willing to pay half of the estimated cost to build the new rail line as long as all three-levels of government financially support it.

“Six-hundred million is quite a big number, but actually it’s a very reachable number when you compare it to other light rail projects throughout the country,” said Waterous, explaining the $600 million figure does not include the cost to build train stations and other infrastructure along the line.

so it's going to be way more than 600 million, and I'm reading this as the private interests will give the 300 million if the governments covers the rest, which likely means also absorbing operating losses.

so I doubt it's less than a billion, and I still don't see how $15 a trip can work.