Calgary Public Transit - Discussion

[Bunk]

Originally Posted by frinkprof

Jason Markusoff ‏@markusoff

Council approves the transit plan: 7 busway/BRT routes, largely funded, through 2021. #yyccc

Huge day today for transit.

[frinkprof]

The seven transit routes council approved Friday are:
- Southeast “Green line” transit-only roadway and lanes, along the future LRT corridor
- Centre Street “Green line” bus-only lanes, though future LRT may go up Edmonton Trail instead
- Southwest transitway from downtown to Mount Royal University, Rockyview General Hospital, Woodlands
- 17th Avenue S.E. transitway
- South crosstown BRT, in mixed traffic (Quarry Park to Heritage LRT to MRU to Westbrook)
- North crosstown BRT, in mixed traffic (University of Calgary down 16th Avenue to Rundlehorn Drive and Saddletowne LRT)
- Northwest “hub” to U of C, Foothills Hospital, Alberta Children’s Hospital, future West Campus neighbourhood

http://www.calgaryherald.com/news/ca...443/story.html

[Bunk]

Originally Posted by frinkprof

Transit Camp held an event in April of 2012 where Jarrett Walker (the author of the Human Transit blog as well as a book of the same name) came to speak.

Nothing else to add other than it's a good blog and he explains a lot of nuances about transit very well.

He had a huge influence on the crafting of the RouteAhead plan. In fact, there's an entire section (which I happened to write) that summarizes his philosophy in network planning as the underpinning of the plan. Also, a lot of cues were taken from his work in thinking about customer experience.

[NuclearPizzaMan]

Who got clobbered today?

[Bobblehead]

Originally Posted by NuclearPizzaMan

Who got clobbered today?

Emergency crews were called to the Sunnyside station just before 3 p.m. on Friday after a man somehow became stuck under a train. Firefighters and EMS were brought in to help extricate him.

http://globalnews.ca/news/1121713/ma...e-of-lrt-line/

[Ozy_Flame]

sounds like it could be a suicide attempt.

[Ozy_Flame]

http://www.calgaryherald.com/news/ca...561/story.html

Public consultations on the High Speed Rail between Edmonton and Calgary will commence end of the month. Looks like the province wants to consult with the public first to see if there's any interest.

[Tyler]

So annoying. There's NOT.

Now give us money to build both of our LRT's out and then we can talk about HSR.

[Jimmy Stang]

High speed rail is one of those things that a lot of people seem think would be nice to have (and it would - I'd use it), but don't have any ideas about how to pay for it. In order to make it fast enough to be appealing to passengers, it would have to be completely grade separated, which would make it expensive to operate, which would make it unappealing to those same passengers.

I just can't see it being viable for private industry to build, and the province will avoid a potential white elephant at all costs, even if it is cool, fast, and shiny.

[SebC]

Originally Posted by Tyler

So annoying. There's NOT.

Now give us money to build both of our LRT's out and then we can talk about HSR.

Possibly a false dichotomy.

For the LRT, the province needs to give Calgary and Edmonton billions of dollars.

For HSR, the province needs to assemble a land corridor (or divest that authority to a development group), and then can pass off the project to private investors should it find there's interest. Otherwise, it can sit on the corridor until the market matures.

[timun]

Originally Posted by Jimmy Stang

In order to make it fast enough to be appealing to passengers, it would have to be completely grade separated, which would make it expensive to operate, which would make it unappealing to those same passengers.

Build. Expensive to build. Making it completely separated would make it much easier to operate than any other alternative.

Originally Posted by SebC

Possibly a false dichotomy.

Probably.

[Jimmy Stang]

Originally Posted by timun

Build. Expensive to build. Making it completely separated would make it much easier to operate than any other alternative.

Ah yes. I think that's what I meant. You're quite right - if it is built completely separated, it would be much faster and reliable than other scenario. If we think cars running into LRT trains is messy, imagine this. Yikes.

[frinkprof]

Spring Service Revisions -March 10th

The service revisions for spring can be found at this link:

http://www.calgarytransit.com/html/s...ions_2014.html

Service increases for routes 306, 301, 19/119 (which will eventually turn into a BRT route, as per above announcements), 92, 96, 36, 41, 8, 1 and 6.

Also, some ramping up of service in new communities:

421 Panatella - slight increase in service

429 Sherwood - pretty much brings it up to a full outlay of service as seen in an established community

445 Skyview - increased service and route gets extended to serve community of Redstone

Routes 420 and 425 get altered so that 425 serves Kincora and 420 no longer does.

Also, routes 151 and 153 have their routes extended to serve east Copperfield.

These changes reflect the recent addition of service hours to the budget, and possibly the last such increase you'll see for awhile.

[stevinder]

Nothing too mind-blowing here. Surprised to see a service increase for the #6 though. I think schedule adherence was more of a problem for the route, especially leaving from Westbrook. The suburban service increases aside, IMHO the other changes look like restoration of previous service cuts. My only gripe lately has been the timepoint at Crowchild @ 54th for the #72. Unnecessary, especially when there is another one at MRU close by.

[worth]

How does this even happen:

Three #3 buses stacked up on Elbow @ 68th ave. They are supposed to run 10 minutes apart. Thought it was funny.

[4X4]

What time was it? Maybe getting ready to pick up all the kids from Wisewood.

[KelVarnsen]

Highway mode on the radar detector?

[worth]

Around 4:30pm. Had never seen that before on Elbow.

The radar detector is customized, the highway setting is just the one I used because its default settings were closer to what I wanted than the city setting. I don't change between city/highway, it always stays on that one setting.

[TorqueDog]

I presume you've turned off POP, K, and X bands then? Otherwise even a decent detector in city limits is a grocery store detector.

I leave Ka and Laser on, everything else is off.

[worth]

Correct.