Calgary Public Transit - Discussion

[HeartsOfFire]

At 6 pm, through the work week, without fail, the next 3 trains going through Centre street station are McKnight.

Without. Fail.

[stevinder]

There are only "three-in-a-row" of any train if there are problems. A shutdown or delay will cascade to all lines in short order. Same for buses.

[Knalus]

worst issue I have with Calgary Transit is the assumption that if you get off work at 5pm, you can be at your bus station at 5:05. Cause you have to if you take the 17 northbound. After that time, if you work later, you really can't take the bus home, cause it doesn't come anymore. What, one bus for anyone working after 5, and it comes at 5:05?

Ridiculous.

[stevinder]

Originally Posted by Knalus

worst issue I have with Calgary Transit is the assumption that if you get off work at 5pm, you can be at your bus station at 5:05. Cause you have to if you take the 17 northbound. After that time, if you work later, you really can't take the bus home, cause it doesn't come anymore. What, one bus for anyone working after 5, and it comes at 5:05?

Ridiculous.

I looked at the #17 schedule and it does run after 5pm with the last trip leaving from Bow Valley Sq at 10:39pm.

[SeoulFire]

For bus users I think that informative bus signs would be helpful. Having to research ahead of time what number is needed is just plain dumb.



The image posted is at the extreme end of the spectrum but it certainly made getting around the city quite easy. Every stop on the bus route is listed on that sign and the signs are at every stop along the routes.

Right now the bus stop signs are pretty much useless.

While on the topic, an interactive website would be a plus as well. Plug in your departure point and destination and it spits out all the combinations - really should not be that difficult to do. Perhaps I was looking in the wrong spot but when I looked for routes on the site I got a pdf.

[SebC]

I did a quick check and there are consecutive NE trains at 7th St station at 5:55pm/5:58pm, 6:48pm/6:50pm, and 7:12pm/7:17pm on weeknights, amongst others.

There are also several times where McKnight and Somerset trains are scheduled for the same minute!

[frinkprof]

Originally Posted by SeoulFire

While on the topic, an interactive website would be a plus as well. Plug in your departure point and destination and it spits out all the combinations - really should not be that difficult to do. Perhaps I was looking in the wrong spot but when I looked for routes on the site I got a pdf.

What you're looking for is Google Transit. Try it out at maps.google.com. The only shortcoming seems to be that it will only tell you the next bus, it won't let you see the best trip for, say, the next morning or a week from now or whatever. The Trip Planner on Calgary Transit's website will do this, but after experimenting with it a bit, it doesn't always give you the best trip and comes up with some strange routings a lot of the time.

[frinkprof]

Originally Posted by TylerSVT

You also have to look at how adding new lines will increase the amount of traffic downtown for train useage.

Currently the train probaly sees probably half as much traffic as it would if all the proposed tracks were finished. If they increase the amount of people using trains/day by 100,000 people than that means the downtown train system HAS to be able to support that many people (which it currently cannot)

They need to either do a skyrail service on 7th avenue or the 8th avenue subway system and have NW trains run from 8th or whatever...

7th Avenue is at capacity now. The 8th Avenue subway is part of the solution. The rest of how capacity downtown will be added is as folows:

- 4 car trains along with slightly better station loccations from 7th Avenue Refurbishment (currently being done)

- West LRT will not add any trains to 7th Avenue. It can be seen as an operational extension to the NE LRT. Instead of stopping and turning around at 10th Street West Station, NE trains will just continue west and eventually turn around at the end of the West LRT line

- Southeast LRT will also not add any trains to 7th Avenue. It will run in its own subway along 10th Avenue and 2nd Street West.

- 8th Avenue Subway will enable the Northwest, South, Northeast, and West lines to add capacity by ensuring they do not share track along 7th Avenue

[SebC]

Originally Posted by frinkprof

What you're looking for is Google Transit. Try it out at maps.google.com. The only shortcoming seems to be that it will only tell you the next bus, it won't let you see the best trip for, say, the next morning or a week from now or whatever.

Actually it will do that. Right under the destination text field is "show options", which allows you to schedule a specific departure or arrival time as well as a "depart now" option.

[frinkprof]

^Ah good to know. The next flaw then becomes that those are just scheduled times, rather than actual realtime information.

[SebC]

Originally Posted by frinkprof

^Ah good to know. The next flaw then becomes that those are just scheduled times, rather than actual realtime information.

Yeah, but that's a problem with Calgary Transit, not Google. A real Google flaw is that they don't get the detour information that calgarytransit.com does. Then again, I haven't checked if those make it into Trip Planner either.

[frinkprof]

^Yeah. Wasn't trying to say it was a Google problem.

The Trip Planner sucks. I've given up on it and if I had to choose between that and making my own route based off paper schedule brochures, I'd pick the brochures.

[SebC]

Originally Posted by frinkprof

The Trip Planner sucks. I've given up on it and if I had to choose between that and making my own route based off paper schedule brochures, I'd pick the brochures.

Yeah me too. I can walk more than 50 meters rather than wait 15 minutes, or whatever dumb threshold it uses. And no, I'm usually not going to try the 1 minute bus-bus connection either.

[HeartsOfFire]

Originally Posted by SebC

I did a quick check and there are consecutive NE trains at 7th St station at 5:55pm/5:58pm, 6:48pm/6:50pm, and 7:12pm/7:17pm on weeknights, amongst others.

There are also several times where McKnight and Somerset trains are scheduled for the same minute!

Which is BS.

There should NEVER be consecutive NE trains.

Not while I'm standing at Centre Street station freezing my arse off in winter waiting for my cozy heated train.

[yads]

I think what it is, is the middle NE train is actually coming from the NW. They have these NW-NE trains every now and then.

[HeartsOfFire]

I care not!

[chris_yk]

Originally Posted by yads

I think what it is, is the middle NE train is actually coming from the NW. They have these NW-NE trains every now and then.

Those are so annoying! A couple times I've gotten on the train at University to head to a Flames game and next thing you know we're at the Zoo stop and have to backtrack.

[ken0042]

Originally Posted by HeartsOfFire

Which is BS.

There should NEVER be consecutive NE trains.

Isn't there now a major C-Train parking garage at the end of the NE line? I thought I saw it when I was up there a while ago.

If so, these post rush hour trains may be just heading to get parked. With there being no express line they may as well pick up passengers as opposed to run empty.

[Joborule]

Originally Posted by ken0042

Isn't there now a major C-Train parking garage at the end of the NE line? I thought I saw it when I was up there a while ago.

If so, these post rush hour trains may be just heading to get parked. With there being no express line they may as well pick up passengers as opposed to run empty.

That's correct. That's why trains from NW are sometimes NE after rush hour.

[Knalus]

Originally Posted by stevinder

I looked at the #17 schedule and it does run after 5pm with the last trip leaving from Bow Valley Sq at 10:39pm.

Why do you think I was waiting? The buses are scheduled, but they often don't come.