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Old 09-06-2012, 10:46 AM   #261
Mean Mr. Mustard
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on a side note, what is edmonton's airport like anyways?
In a word, worse. The airport is out in Leduc (the international airport) and it is a pain in the ass to get to. The city has started a bus service with Wifi and other amenities but they found that the only people using it with any regularity were the employees who worked at the airport. While I understand the concept of rail bias I doubt that there would be much different with regards to a train line.

There has been talk about a train in Edmonton but the general consensus has been that the value isn't there to justify the cost.

In fact they just had a large advertising blitz to convince people to fly out of Edmonton rather than Calgary - I don't know how well that has caught on though.
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Old 09-06-2012, 11:08 AM   #262
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Any well-run and well-oiled airport should also be used as a transportation hub. Therefore, accessible and ample subway / train / bus routes are critical to the success of a growing airport, and a growing city. Two recent airports I was in, Tokyo and Osaka, were both major transportation hubs and hugely accessible.

LRT access will be critical for growing the city as an international destination. You should not have to take cabs as the only means of transportation. Absolutely not.
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Old 09-06-2012, 11:26 AM   #263
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Originally Posted by Mean Mr. Mustard View Post
In a word, worse. The airport is out in Leduc (the international airport) and it is a pain in the ass to get to. The city has started a bus service with Wifi and other amenities but they found that the only people using it with any regularity were the employees who worked at the airport. While I understand the concept of rail bias I doubt that there would be much different with regards to a train line.

There has been talk about a train in Edmonton but the general consensus has been that the value isn't there to justify the cost.

In fact they just had a large advertising blitz to convince people to fly out of Edmonton rather than Calgary - I don't know how well that has caught on though.
The bus isnt exactly convenient.

It goes from the Airport west on Elerslie and north up 111 to Heritage mall at the bus/train hub there.

The airport is the second largest employment centre outside of downtown. If all you have is 1/2 the number of workers using it to get to the airport that is roughly 25K more users of the Calgary Transit and as with anything like that once you get the infrastructure in place, any new user lowers the operating cost of the whole system.

Maybe the final plan is to take a tram up centre street and then over to the airport. If so that would be a great thing to have in Calgary to connect the two largest employment centres in the city.
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Old 09-06-2012, 12:42 PM   #264
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I think that a crosstown LRT (or some other rail technology) that would connect the NE and NC lines, with a stop at the airport, and probobly elsewhere inbetween, would justify the cost of building it.

As simply a connection from one of the lines to the airport it probably doesn't make sense.

Assuming the NC line runs up Centre Street (ie not already cutting through Aurora Business Park), I think you have stops at Harvest Hills Blvd, East end of Aurora BP (Future High Speed Rail connection), Perhaps somewhere just east of Deerfoot, Airport Terminal, Jacksonport (Metis Trail area), before joining the NE line at 60th St (one station north of the current terminus at Saddletowne). That sound like a lot of stations, but remember that the line I just described is longer than the whole WLRT extension. (9 vs 8 km.) The only questionable station in that list would be the one between Deerfoot and the terminal.
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Old 09-06-2012, 04:31 PM   #265
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Plus at the same time it [airport rail connection] would upset the taxi drivers an insane amount
Good. Something needs to be done about the taxi monopoly.
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Old 09-06-2012, 07:11 PM   #266
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Our airport could use some improvement but at the same time we do have a lot of basic services that we take for granted that other airports don't have such as relatively cheap parking, a parking lot to wait for people arriving at the airport, free wifi, and free luggage carts. It sounds dumb but not having to fish around for change in a foreign currency for a luggage cart is great. I was just in London and flew through Gatwick and the first thing I needed was a luggage cart. Most people exchange for currency and get bills before they arrive so not having coins for the carts happens a lot and it can be frustrating, especially after a long flight.
That being said, some improvements to airport amenities would be nice. I'm more about anything that can improve efficiency, ease of travel, and customer service compared to aesthetics.
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Old 09-06-2012, 07:13 PM   #267
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I forgot to add that even though I prefer functionality over looks, those old downtown pics have to go.
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Old 09-06-2012, 07:18 PM   #268
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The free luggage carts are a huge +.

Especially when compared to the rip off that is O'Hare and Honolulu. (Two recent airports I was recently at with my family)
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Old 09-06-2012, 10:11 PM   #269
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The Free Wifi is one of the best things about YYC. Not as big of a deal when you have a in-country cell plan, but for those visiting it's HUGE.
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Old 09-06-2012, 10:20 PM   #270
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I think EYE_Overstand might be the only person in Calgary arguing for a higher Airport Improvement Fee.
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Old 09-07-2012, 12:41 AM   #271
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The international terminal will hopefully have more and better retail and food options. I always like when the terminal is like a mall like in Frankfurt or Houston. I really hope this expansion doesn't turn out looking like Warsaws new terminal... Shiny and new but just one wide hallway with a couple duty free shops and resturants in the middle... blah.

I can only imagine how terrible a long layover in Calgary must be...
how long of a layover are you really gonna have at Calgary though? we're not a major hub, the only airports i think you'd ever have a layover at is Vancouver or Toronto. the only possible scenario i can think of where someone might be spending a lot of time at YYC are people who live in Saskatchewan or the Okanagan who fly through Calgary to the US, and compared to the airports that they'd be flying out of YYC would look first class
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Old 09-07-2012, 12:44 AM   #272
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The Free Wifi is one of the best things about YYC. Not as big of a deal when you have a in-country cell plan, but for those visiting it's HUGE.
isn't free wi-fi pretty much standard? on my last trip Vancouver, Hong Kong, and Bangkok all had free wifi
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Old 09-07-2012, 12:47 AM   #273
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I think EYE_Overstand might be the only person in Calgary arguing for a higher Airport Improvement Fee.
EWWWWW NO! hahaha. i just believe that Calgarys airport can be better.

Free Wi-fi is actually offered at a lot of airports, but so stupid when you have to pay.

There are a lot of things i like about our airport. I have been to WAY WORSE but also been to WAY BETTER. I'm not satisfied with average dammit hahahaha

I just wish it was a little bit better for infrastructure and a little more modern haha.
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Old 09-07-2012, 12:50 AM   #274
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Originally Posted by Hemi-Cuda View Post
how long of a layover are you really gonna have at Calgary though? we're not a major hub, the only airports i think you'd ever have a layover at is Vancouver or Toronto. the only possible scenario i can think of where someone might be spending a lot of time at YYC are people who live in Saskatchewan or the Okanagan who fly through Calgary to the US, and compared to the airports that they'd be flying out of YYC would look first class
with the new international terminal, i assume a lot more people will spend some hours there.
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Old 09-07-2012, 01:25 AM   #275
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with the new international terminal, i assume a lot more people will spend some hours there.
if so, then ideally they would be spending time in that brand new (and one would think very nice) terminal, so no problem
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Old 09-07-2012, 01:39 AM   #276
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I think the biggest problem with the airport right now is the B/C Concourse. A & D are both pretty good now, but having B/C stuck in between them limits a lot of what they can do. Because the US Pre-clearance is there as well, you can't walk between A & D either.

Once the new international terminal opens, they'll move both the US and Canada Customs areas, and then they can do a lot of work to make the existing terminal better. The space that's currently occupied by the US Customs could be converted into a large shopping and dining area accessible from all the current concourses.
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Old 09-07-2012, 08:48 AM   #277
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if so, then ideally they would be spending time in that brand new (and one would think very nice) terminal, so no problem
*(one would hope is very nice) hahaha.

ya I'm sure that it will be top of the line though.
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Old 09-07-2012, 09:41 AM   #278
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isn't free wi-fi pretty much standard? on my last trip Vancouver, Hong Kong, and Bangkok all had free wifi
Not free in O'Hare, or Honolulu. (two of my more recent airports I've been to)
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Old 09-07-2012, 09:42 AM   #279
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Airport World magazine Article

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Anyone who has ever doubted that good things come to those who wait ought to pay a visit to Calgary International Airport.

Long the gateway to western Canada’s oil, gas and tourism industries, plans to build a new, 14,000-foot runway at the airport have been in the works since the early 1970s.

At the time, the airport – which is also widely known to aviators, passengers and the general public by its IATA code of ‘YYC’ – was still a fairly new acquisition of Transport Canada, the federal agency that oversees the nation’s transportation system.

Having bought the airport precisely because its previous owner, the City of Calgary, didn’t have the resources necessary for expansion, the agency set right to work building a new terminal to accommodate commercial jet traffic and assembling land for the addition of the runway.

The terminal opened in November 1977. Noise protection for the runway was put in place two years later. And then, the long wait began.

During the intervening years, the airport was privatised – a process that in itself took 10 years from announcement to completion – and blossomed into the engine of employment for more than 24,000 people in the greater Calgary area.

“It does seem that things take a long time to happen here,” chuckles Garth Atkinson, president and CEO of Calgary Airport Authority. “The upshot is that we build facilities when we really need them.

“We’re not building this runway in anticipation of traffic. We’re building it because we really, really need it. Frankly, it can’t come soon enough for us. It’s going to give us a real boost in capacity.”

In fact, the runway – set to be completed in May 2014 – is but one aspect of the C$2 billion expansion of Calgary International Airport that also includes the construction of a new terminal.

When it opens in 2015, the new concourse will double the airport’s square footage, while the new air traffic control tower – currently under construction by Nav Canada, the agency responsible for air navigation services in Canada – is rising outside Atkinson’s office window and is set for completion in December.

In the meantime, the airport authority is continuing to pursue a business strategy of developing industrial and business parks that complement – and utilise – the airport’s services.

And if this isn’t enough activity to make one’s head begin to spin, the City of Calgary is currently pouring concrete for the walls and roof of a new 620-metre tunnel that will pass under the new runway.

The C$294.8 million project, which will extend Airport Trail, a local roadway, is expected to be completed shortly before the new runway.

Ironically, the principal driver behind all this activity isn’t overhead – it’s under foot, in the oil fields and oil sands in the northern region of Alberta, Canada.

Flush with oil money and largely unscathed by the global financial crisis, these are boom times for western Canada, and the changing face of the airport is perhaps the boom’s purest reflection.
Whole article at the link above.
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Old 10-24-2012, 09:05 AM   #280
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Some pics from a helicopter of the YYC expansions:










All from this album: https://picasaweb.google.com/1161717...21599430779154



Potty with a view by Storm Farm, on Flickr

(thanks to Bigtime and Surrealplaces posts on SSP)
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