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  #1201  
Old Posted Sep 3, 2020, 1:17 AM
milomilo milomilo is offline
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Originally Posted by Rollerstud98 View Post
Almost safe to cross it midday in Airdrie. Not the case at all anymore at any time really. 20 years ago if you left Airdrie at 6:50 smooth sailing to 16th. Pre COVID it was still pretty backed up at that time to 64th and beyond.
How about in the other direction, when was it twinned? To ascertain whether intercity rail is needed, we'll need to look at the traffic around Olds or Lacombe.
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  #1202  
Old Posted Sep 3, 2020, 7:50 AM
Corndogger Corndogger is offline
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Originally Posted by milomilo View Post
How about in the other direction, when was it twinned? To ascertain whether intercity rail is needed, we'll need to look at the traffic around Olds or Lacombe.
Depending on the location Alberta Transportation tracked the AADTs for both places was 31K to 35K in 2019.
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  #1203  
Old Posted Sep 3, 2020, 1:15 PM
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Originally Posted by Jaspertf View Post
Yes, because I am actively trying to make it happen.
But if you take your clouded judgement out of the picture, then what?

Autonomous vehicles plus workplaces that for many can be virtual could and most likely will change the demands on future inter-city travel. In the long run, the government could make more prudent tax payer money investments into those two things as opposed to inter-city passenger rail which could very well become just a subsided white elephant.

And please don't say that autonomous vehicles are a long ways off, we recently rented a Kia Soul and the thing could pretty much drive it's self on many city streets and more so on highways - remember, it wasn't a Cadillac or Mercedes or BMW. It was a Kia.
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  #1204  
Old Posted Sep 3, 2020, 11:43 PM
Jaspertf Jaspertf is offline
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Originally Posted by speedog View Post
But if you take your clouded judgement out of the picture, then what?

Autonomous vehicles plus workplaces that for many can be virtual could and most likely will change the demands on future inter-city travel. In the long run, the government could make more prudent tax payer money investments into those two things as opposed to inter-city passenger rail which could very well become just a subsided white elephant.

And please don't say that autonomous vehicles are a long ways off, we recently rented a Kia Soul and the thing could pretty much drive it's self on many city streets and more so on highways - remember, it wasn't a Cadillac or Mercedes or BMW. It was a Kia.
The technological advancements in vehicles and driving aids are fantastic, and the future of personal vehicles can be seen in many public transit systems around the world. The Docklands Light Railway was started in 1987, normal operations are fully automated, and the trains do not have a cab. At the other end are the T5 Pods which are fully automated vehicles that have 4 seats and travel at 40kph in a dedicated open guideway, started in 2011.

The debate isn't about technology, trains are far more technologically advanced than personal vehicles, the debate is about system capacity. 40 automated vehicles occupy the same amount of space as 40 electric vehicles, which occupy the same amount of space as 40 ICE vehicles.

Do we build more roads and widen existing roads, or utilize the space in the existing rail right of ways?
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  #1205  
Old Posted Sep 4, 2020, 1:16 AM
milomilo milomilo is offline
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Originally Posted by speedog View Post
But if you take your clouded judgement out of the picture, then what?

Autonomous vehicles plus workplaces that for many can be virtual could and most likely will change the demands on future inter-city travel. In the long run, the government could make more prudent tax payer money investments into those two things as opposed to inter-city passenger rail which could very well become just a subsided white elephant.

And please don't say that autonomous vehicles are a long ways off, we recently rented a Kia Soul and the thing could pretty much drive it's self on many city streets and more so on highways - remember, it wasn't a Cadillac or Mercedes or BMW. It was a Kia.
Automated vehicles do nothing to increase highway capacity.
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  #1206  
Old Posted Sep 4, 2020, 1:28 AM
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Originally Posted by milomilo View Post
Automated vehicles do nothing to increase highway capacity.
It's been shown that automated vehicles can run closer to each other and especially so when they communicate with each other - that would increase capacity.
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  #1207  
Old Posted Sep 4, 2020, 12:58 PM
milomilo milomilo is offline
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Originally Posted by speedog View Post
It's been shown that automated vehicles can run closer to each other and especially so when they communicate with each other - that would increase capacity.
Not in the real world where safety and regulations exist. If anything, automated vehicles would run further apart than human drivers to maintain a proper braking distance. Look at automated trains - a much more controlled environment than roads but they still always maintain a full safe braking distance between them. The idea that vehicles on the road where all sorts of uncontrolled things are around is fantasy.

If you want a high capacity route, the best way to do that is to purpose build it and provide large, automated, vehicles that are physically linked together and of a common type so they have the same performance characteristics, and have a single operator. Sound familiar?
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  #1208  
Old Posted Sep 4, 2020, 2:01 PM
MalcolmTucker MalcolmTucker is offline
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The question in this province will probably come down to: do we want automated toll lanes/an automated new toll road with systems to support even higher speed automated driving, or do we want an even faster rail system.

Put me on the side of rail as more accessible (Unless someone can get to level 5 automated which does seem like a much further leap than it did 3, 5 years ago) and I think crucially more accessible to travellers not from Alberta. Perhaps we will end up with both eventually.
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  #1209  
Old Posted Sep 4, 2020, 2:06 PM
milomilo milomilo is offline
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Originally Posted by MalcolmTucker View Post
The question in this province will probably come down to: do we want automated toll lanes/an automated new toll road with systems to support even higher speed automated driving, or do we want an even faster rail system.

Put me on the side of rail as more accessible (Unless someone can get to level 5 automated which does seem like a much further leap than it did 3, 5 years ago) and I think crucially more accessible to travellers not from Alberta. Perhaps we will end up with both eventually.
Even if a currently only theoretical automated toll road got built (and we're looking at decades before something like that gets feasible), it does nothing for congestion in cities at either end. In fact, it makes it worse, unless you only allow buses on it.
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  #1210  
Old Posted Sep 4, 2020, 2:46 PM
MalcolmTucker MalcolmTucker is offline
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Congestion is an insignificant problem in Calgary and Edmonton, not one that diverted volume from HSR matters. Maybe 2 departures And arrivals a day would bypass the limited congestion that does exist, but you also have people driving to the urban or suburban/airport stations to board so I think It is a wash.
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  #1211  
Old Posted Sep 4, 2020, 2:49 PM
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Originally Posted by MalcolmTucker View Post
Congestion is not a problem in Calgary and Edmonton.
I don't think there is some binary objective metric where congestion is either "a problem" or "not a problem" in cities. If it truly is "not a problem", then we are wasting money with these LRTs we are building in Calgary and Edmonton.

Even so, if congestion is not a problem today, that does not mean we should build things that will increase congestion, and a fast automated car tollway would definitely add more cars to the road in both cities, increasing congestion. Whereas public transit reduces it.
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  #1212  
Old Posted Sep 4, 2020, 3:46 PM
MalcolmTucker MalcolmTucker is offline
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Our LRTs are built to overcome chokepoints which constrain bus operations, to take advantage of capacity so we don’t have to build a lot of infrastructure to overcome those choke points, and to reduce operational cost.

For your argument to hold weight you would have to look at the induced demand only for a high speed automated tollway.

Quite frankly in Alberta we build more capacity way earlier than we need to. Almost all the time, in Almost every circumstance. What we see as congestion would rarely rank as notable on traffic radio in other places. We are spoiled and we are rich enough to maintain our conveniences. It breaks down all sorts of imported lines of argument from elsewhere.
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  #1213  
Old Posted Sep 4, 2020, 5:37 PM
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Originally Posted by MalcolmTucker View Post
The question in this province will probably come down to: do we want automated toll lanes/an automated new toll road with systems to support even higher speed automated driving, or do we want an even faster rail system.

Put me on the side of rail as more accessible (Unless someone can get to level 5 automated which does seem like a much further leap than it did 3, 5 years ago) and I think crucially more accessible to travellers not from Alberta. Perhaps we will end up with both eventually.
For fully automated (level 5) to allow closer spacing between vehicles you will need 100% of vehicles to be level 5 (because for it to work safely the system needs to look 2 or three vehicles ahead, not just the one immediately in front).

For a dedicated automated vehicle lane you will need a certain minimum numbers of vehicle fitted with automation (level 3 or 4 minimum?) or it will be just an empty lane.
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  #1214  
Old Posted Sep 7, 2020, 1:31 AM
milomilo milomilo is offline
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Originally Posted by MalcolmTucker View Post
Our LRTs are built to overcome chokepoints which constrain bus operations, to take advantage of capacity so we don’t have to build a lot of infrastructure to overcome those choke points, and to reduce operational cost.
That's another way of saying they're built because of congestion...

As for operational cost, the Green Line manages to increase operational cost, not just in total but per rider as well. Defying any economic rational of increased efficiencies.

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Originally Posted by MalcolmTucker View Post
For your argument to hold weight you would have to look at the induced demand only for a high speed automated tollway.
Yes, that is exactly what my argument is. An automated tollway that allows private vehicles would induce demand and would increase the number of private vehicles on the road in both cities, and thus would increase congestion.

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Originally Posted by MalcolmTucker View Post
Quite frankly in Alberta we build more capacity way earlier than we need to. Almost all the time, in Almost every circumstance. What we see as congestion would rarely rank as notable on traffic radio in other places. We are spoiled and we are rich enough to maintain our conveniences. It breaks down all sorts of imported lines of argument from elsewhere.
I agree, congestion in Calgary is not bad compared to other cities. That's really neither here nor there though to what I was saying - that an automated tollway would definitely increase congestion. If we're talking just buses using it, that's another thing, but if you're doing that you'd have to ask why you wouldn't make those automated vehicles longer, give them an external electric power source, reduce their rolling resistance and make them much faster...
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  #1215  
Old Posted Sep 7, 2020, 1:36 AM
milomilo milomilo is offline
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Originally Posted by Pegasus View Post
For fully automated (level 5) to allow closer spacing between vehicles you will need 100% of vehicles to be level 5 (because for it to work safely the system needs to look 2 or three vehicles ahead, not just the one immediately in front).
Very unlikely. Look at automated railways the world over, like the Skytrain. They always maintain a safe braking distance, so on an automated tollway these vehicles would still be spaced at least as far apart as cars are today - probably more so because everyone drives so close together. This new technology will have to have impeccable safety standards, which makes it harder to compete with human operated transportation, but will be good for humanity as roads are a major cause of early death.
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  #1216  
Old Posted Sep 7, 2020, 6:48 PM
MalcolmTucker MalcolmTucker is offline
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Originally Posted by milomilo View Post
I agree, congestion in Calgary is not bad compared to other cities. That's really neither here nor there though to what I was saying - that an automated tollway would definitely increase congestion. If we're talking just buses using it, that's another thing, but if you're doing that you'd have to ask why you wouldn't make those automated vehicles longer, give them an external electric power source, reduce their rolling resistance and make them much faster...
You have a totally different risk case, and a different scale of investment, by shifting a big part of the investment to the users. Would it be better for society? I don't really know. The great thing about investments that are made by private companies is as a society we don't have to make the trade-off. We only have to make sure it isn't incredibly negative! Just like with hyperloop!
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  #1217  
Old Posted Nov 1, 2020, 7:02 AM
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Train trials for Calgary - Edmonton

Interesting post on FaceBook Nostalgic/Sentimental Calgary yesterday (Calgary Herald/Glenbow Archives - 1974)

https://www.facebook.com/photo?fbid=...11092562478418
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  #1218  
Old Posted Nov 2, 2020, 3:22 PM
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I find it refreshingly cute how Calgary seems to think that Edmonton is part of its realm.
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  #1219  
Old Posted Nov 3, 2020, 1:58 AM
Corndogger Corndogger is offline
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I find it refreshingly cute how Calgary seems to think that Edmonton is part of its realm.
What are you referring to?
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  #1220  
Old Posted Mar 22, 2022, 6:08 PM
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Province commissions economic impact study on Calgary-Banff passenger train proposal

“It is an economic impact study that was commissioned in December. Further details will be available upon completion of the study,” said Rob Williams, press secretary for Alberta Transportation Minister Rajan Sawhney.

Cathy Ellis Cathy Ellis
Mar 16, 2022 5:15 PM

https://www.rmotoday.com/banff/provi...oposal-5164072
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