Calgary Public Transit - Discussion

[chemgear]

Originally Posted by Slava

The Octopus is great because not only is it simple and efficient, but you can use it at all kinds of stores and restaurants as well. It's really so useful for the consumer as well.

And of course London has the Oyster and full contactless payments. You can buy the card and load it as needed, or just tap your credit card as you pass the readers.

But yeah...let's get some app to have people mess around with this and hope it works well.

We're still basically on the honor system. People riding for free.

[GirlySports]

The free fare zone kind of complicates things but not this much that we seem handicapped.

[Jimmy Stang]

I like the idea of the free fare zone downtown. I have occasionally mused about how some more short/quick fare concessions would be beneficial to riders. For example, I live in Tuscany and would consider taking the kid to Crowfoot or Dalhousie on the train for an outing. But that's about a $11.50 round trip for 1-2 stops. Hard to justify that cost vs. driving, so we drive.

Or being able to park downtown, have some dinner, and then hop on the train to the Saddledome. But for me and my wife that would be a $13.60 round trip for exactly one stop past the free fare zone.

Flat rates are easy and convenient, but it provides a disincentive for short trips.

[Fuzz]

With electronic ticketing hopefully eventually we can move to a zone based system. Going one or 2 stops shouldn't cost the same as 20km.

[Wormius]

A reasonably-priced family fare / family day pass would be great. Could take the family to the library or zoo or something, do a few other things. It's not the be all/end all, but if you could get a family day pass for a reasoanble price, you would spend some more checking out businesses and activities around the city. As it is, you buy one way fare for everybody, do you thing, and then another one way fare to go home. You're not spending much time exploring. Right now, 4 people to go to the zoo you either drive and pay the parking, or 2 adults + 2 children you're looking at a $23 return trip. A day pass you're looking at $36. Or maybe even have a discount for weekend fares. Like $5 day passes to explore the city by transit.

[Jimmy Stang]

Originally Posted by Wormius

A reasonably-priced family fare / family day pass would be great. Could take the family to the library or zoo or something, do a few other things. It's not the be all/end all, but if you could get a family day pass for a reasoanble price, you would spend some more checking out businesses and activities around the city. As it is, you buy one way fare for everybody, do you thing, and then another one way fare to go home. You're not spending much time exploring. Right now, 4 people to go to the zoo you either drive and pay the parking, or 2 adults + 2 children you're looking at a $23 return trip. A day pass you're looking at $36. Or maybe even have a discount for weekend fares. Like $5 day passes to explore the city by transit.

I'd utilize all of those options. Great ideas. And families typically do these activities during non-commuting hours and days, so it would be utilizing unused capacity and bringing in a little bit of revenue at the same time.

This whole discussion just goes to show how the system is built around what downtown, weekday commuters do. And they do make up a huge percentage of riders, so I get it. But flexibility with things like family passes, fares for short trips, multi-hop trips, and evening/weekend/off-peak fares would make outings using transit more appealing for people who aren't just avoiding downtown parking/traffic.

[Mazrim]

Originally Posted by Wormius

Right now, 4 people to go to the zoo you either drive and pay the parking, or 2 adults + 2 children you're looking at a $23 return trip. A day pass you're looking at $36. Or maybe even have a discount for weekend fares. Like $5 day passes to explore the city by transit.

Let's say you drive 20 km total to the zoo parking lot and back and pay the $12 parking fee at the zoo. Including the cost to operate your vehicle that ends up being around $24 if the 58 cents per kilometer number for vehicle allowance is to be believed. So it's basically a wash if you take transit instead.

[Fuzz]

Originally Posted by Mazrim

Let's say you drive 20 km total to the zoo parking lot and back and pay the $12 parking fee at the zoo. Including the cost to operate your vehicle that ends up being around $24 if the 58 cents per kilometer number for vehicle allowance is to be believed. So it's basically a wash if you take transit instead.

Except driving is far more convenient, and quicker.

[Mazrim]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

Except driving is far more convenient, and quicker.

If you live in endless suburbia, maybe.

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[accord1999]

Originally Posted by Mazrim

If you live in endless suburbia, maybe.

It's true pretty much true anywhere other than dense city cores. That's why passenger travel by car dominates ground transport in virtually the entire developed world (ie North America, EU, Australia).

[Mazrim]

Originally Posted by accord1999

It's true pretty much true anywhere other than dense city cores. That's why passenger travel by car dominates ground transport in virtually the entire developed world (ie North America, EU, Australia).

It has more to do with actively choosing to live near transit connections. I don't live anywhere near downtown but I'm a 10 minute walk to a good bus or train. It's been a great choice for my household.

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[AnonymousStranger]

How come no one is mentioning that Calgary only has a million people? Everyone is lamenting about how the public transit payment infrastructure is so lacking compared to major cities around the world, well maybe that's because those cities have 2 to 8 times Calgary's population? Sometimes, you just can't have it all...

[getbak]

Originally Posted by AnonymousStranger

How come no one is mentioning that Calgary only has a million people? Everyone is lamenting about how the public transit payment infrastructure is so lacking compared to major cities around the world, well maybe that's because those cities have 2 to 8 times Calgary's population? Sometimes, you just can't have it all...

Yup, and compared to cities of similar size (Edmonton and Ottawa in Canada plus many others in the States), Calgary's transit system blows the others away.

Cities like Nashville and Columbus are bigger than Calgary and don't have any LRT/Metro systems at all. Calgary was smaller than Winnipeg when the C-Train was built and Winnipeg still doesn't have any LRT system either.

[Wormius]

Originally Posted by Mazrim

Let's say you drive 20 km total to the zoo parking lot and back and pay the $12 parking fee at the zoo. Including the cost to operate your vehicle that ends up being around $24 if the 58 cents per kilometer number for vehicle allowance is to be believed. So it's basically a wash if you take transit instead.

Where does 58 cents / km come from?

[Fuzz]

Originally Posted by Mazrim

It has more to do with actively choosing to live near transit connections. I don't live anywhere near downtown but I'm a 10 minute walk to a good bus or train. It's been a great choice for my household.

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I'm less than a 5 minute walk to a bus, but when you start adding multiple people often a taxi is almost as cheap as transit. And for the most part you have to transfer somewhere. So I don't think it is a stretch to say driving is more convenient a lot of the time.

[Mazrim]

Originally Posted by Wormius

Where does 58 cents / km come from?

It's the Canada Revenue Agency's suggested amount for reimbursement.

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[GGG]

Originally Posted by Wormius

Where does 58 cents / km come from?

58 cents is the revenue Canada max deduction for mileage.

If you assume you will own a car insurance becomes a sunk cost so that comes out. Once you do that if you drive a used car it’s between 20 and 40 cents depending on vehicle age and vehicle choice.

If you drive a 40k vehicle that you lease for three years you are probably at or above the 58 cents.

[CliffFletcher]

Originally Posted by Wormius

A reasonably-priced family fare / family day pass would be great. Could take the family to the library or zoo or something, do a few other things.

So much this. We take the C-Train for stuff like that once or twice a year. But it's done as a kind of civic gesture, and to teach the kids to be comfortable on public transit. It's not worthwhile in a cost-benefit sense to take longer and spend more money to go to the downtown library or Princes Island on the C-Train vs car.

Stang has is right - Calgary's transit system is built around getting people to and from downtown on weekdays. There's almost no rational, utilitarian case to use it otherwise if you have a car.

[CliffFletcher]

Originally Posted by GGG

58 cents is the revenue Canada max deduction for mileage.

If you assume you will own a car insurance becomes a sunk cost so that comes out. Once you do that if you drive a used car it’s between 20 and 40 cents depending on vehicle age and vehicle choice.

If you drive a 40k vehicle that you lease for three years you are probably at or above the 58 cents.

But in reality mileage doesn't affect depreciation of a car as much as age does. Drive your car 10k a year instead of 20k and then sell it at 10 years. You won't get much more in resale.

[jwslam]

Originally Posted by Mazrim

It has more to do with actively choosing to live near transit connections. I don't live anywhere near downtown but I'm a 10 minute walk to a good bus or train. It's been a great choice for my household.

1) Even though I live near a bus stop, I am still limited to bussing to a hub, and hoping the hub will have a direct line to where I need to go
2) There is no accountability for transit drivers to be on time. How is it possible that a bus scheduled to come every 10 minutes, I can wait 30 minutes for?
3) Living near C-Train stations is convenient, but also generally accepted to be rowdier because our transit system allows for homeless to travel for free.
4) Per above, the flat rate system is bogus. I can choose to live in Bridgeland near a transit station, and I am forced to pay the same rate as the Okotoks resident who takes up parking space in Somerset/Bridlewood riding a large length of train line. Furthermore said resident isn't even paying into local property taxes which supplement Calgary Transit.