Calgary Area Regional Transit

[Beltliner]

Starting to wonder whether the most cost-effective carbon sequestration mechanism would be a wadded-up sock, folks...

Minister unimpressed with Calgary-area transit proposals

By Jason Markusoff, The Fishwrap
27 Feb 2009

Transport Minister Luke Ouellette said the proposals by Calgary and other cities for intercity bus and train services are disappointingly not innovative, but he reaffirmed that Alberta’s $2 billion fund for regional transit proposals will eventually come.

Thursday’s provincial fiscal update downsized the current size of the fund to $195 million, and Ouellette has signalled only up to $50 million of that will be available this coming year, thanks to a recessionary budget crunch.

At a transit symposium, Calgary Regional Partnership formally released their vision for an express-bus service serving Calgary from Cochrane, Okotoks, High River and Airdrie, with trains coming a decade or so later.

“I was hoping people would come up with better ideas,” the minister told reporters after his speech to the symposium.

“It looks more like people are saying, ‘We just need public transit.’

“The innovative ideas that I was talking about is: What’s going to lower the most greenhouse gas? Just because you go out and buy a bunch of buses, is that going to take a bunch of cars off the road? We don’t know that yet.”

Cochrane Mayor Truper McBride, heading the region’s transit venture, said he was pleased that Ouellette agrees that transit is an important measure to limit climate change. But he was taken aback by the minister’s critique.

“I think that if you look at our plan, it’s innovation at its best,” McBride said. “We have a vision of transit that’s never been done before on a very large scale.”

The mayor argued that a commuter service that uses light rails and the existing Canadian Pacific heavy-rail lines wouldn’t be cheap, but would cost less than a ring road that encourages more car traffic.

Regional officials have warned their early plans for intercity buses, which they’d like to start running in 2010, would cost more than the Calgary area would get from the smaller-than-expected funding pool the province is offering.

Airdrie Mayor Linda Bruce also said smaller communities will need provincial or federal money to run a new bus system, although Ouellette said operating costs are a local responsibility.

[Bigtime]

Bigtime Unimpressed with Provincial Government

27 Feb 2009

Seriously? That is what counts as a critique of the ideas put forth?

Seriously?

I guess we should have been coming up with ideas like hovercars and hoverbuses, oh and transporters and faster than light drives...

[frinkprof]

I'd like to know what he was expecting. The GTA has GO plus buses from the closer suburbs, Montreal has commuter rail and buses, the GVRD has West Coast Express and buses. Why should anything more than taking what works and applying it to this region be needed? Was he expecting the re-invention of the wheel? Does it take a ground-breaking study to discover that providing bus service will take cars of the road?

[lubicon]

“I was hoping people would come up with better ideas,” the minister told reporters after his speech to the symposium.

“It looks more like people are saying, ‘We just need public transit.’

If this is what people want then maybe they should look at funding for some transit projects that peopel will actually use and appreciate. Like SELRT for example.

[fusili]

Our government sucks....that is all.

[fusili]

Oh, and maybe we should be asking our government where their innovative ideas are.

[Bunk]

It honestly just looks like they're looking for any way to not dole out the promised money. They'll probably be saying for years they don't like the ideas, or they are not innovative enough.

Regional transit and transit in general is not a complicated science. Provide service - make it ultra-convenient, reliable, comfortable and affordable. No more, no less.

[mersar]

Originally Posted by frinkprof

I'd like to know what he was expecting. The GTA has GO plus buses from the closer suburbs, Montreal has commuter rail and buses, the GVRD has West Coast Express and buses. Why should anything more than taking what works and applying it to this region be needed? Was he expecting the re-invention of the wheel? Does it take a ground-breaking study to discover that providing bus service will take cars of the road?

Exactly. Why should anything but whats been proven to be an effective method be proposed for use here? Last I checked the definition of innovation was the act of introducing new things or methods of doing things, which for this area regional transit certainly is. Perhaps someone needs to buy the minister a dictionary?

[MalcolmTucker]

What did the Minister want, Segway freeways? Teleportation? IT?

They designated it for public transit in the very announcement of the money, and now they say they don't like public transit?

Sounds like someone should have been handling the Minister that day and let him get a question he wasn't briefed for. The question is, at a PUBLIC TRANSIT SYMPOSIUM what did he expect?

[outoftheice]

The Calgary Regional Partnership now has the draft regional plan on their website, along with a survery asking for feedback. I'd encourage people to take the time and complete the survey. While the survey covers all aspects of the plan, there are a few sections that focus on the regional transit system such as operating hours, park and ride, type of busses to be used, etc... After looking at the document, it looks like the region is trying to move in the right direction, but in light of the recent controversy with the PlanIt document, I'm sure some vocal support wouldn't hurt!

http://www.calgaryregion.ca/crp/

[Zilla]

Message from CRP:

Representatives of Calgary City Council and the 16 other municipal members councils of Calgary Regional Partnership worked with stakeholders to prepare a DRAFT plan for the Calgary region. This plan will guide our region’s development for the next 60 to 70 years. This DRAFT regional plan and the development of Plan It Calgary are proceeding along a parallel and integrated path.

Please join planners and representatives from the City of Calgary and the Calgary Regional Partnership THIS SATURDAY April 4 for a specially requested Open House being held at the Calgary Metropolitan Centre from 1 - 4 PM to learn more about the broader directions of this DRAFT regional plan and how it impacts Calgary and Calgary’s neighboring municipalities. Short presentations will be made at throughout the afternoon.

We look forward to hearing your comments and getting your feedback prior to moving forward with this draft plan.

For further information and to provide your feedback, please visit our website at www.calgaryregion.ca .

[jeffwhit]

Originally Posted by Bigtime

Bigtime Unimpressed with Provincial Government

27 Feb 2009

Seriously? That is what counts as a critique of the ideas put forth?

Seriously?

I guess we should have been coming up with ideas like hovercars and hoverbuses, oh and transporters and faster than light drives...

Well, hovercars would take cars "off" the road.... zing!
Goddam, I hate this government. Also, does anyone actually know what "the innovative ideas that he was talking about" are, or did he seriously just request "some innovative ideas?"

Originally Posted by lubicon

If this is what people want then maybe they should look at funding for some transit projects that peopel will actually use and appreciate. Like SELRT for example.

But lubicon, we need solutions that work for all Albertans, by which I mean the ones that don't live in Edmonton or Calgary.

[para transit fellow]

in other news, the Capital region board has their transit plan up for display

http://capitalregionboard.ab.ca/index.php/transit

[Vascilli]

Originally Posted by para transit fellow

in other news, the Capital region board has their transit plan up for display

http://capitalregionboard.ab.ca/index.php/transit

I read through the PDF and I don't think Calgary was mentioned once.

[frinkprof]

^Capital Region Board. As in the capital of Alberta, Edmonton. para_transit_fellow posted it for comparitive reasons.

[MalcolmTucker]

For the 6.7 billion Edmonton is looking for, Calgary could do the SE LRT, centre street subway, and commuter rail south and west. Plus a bunch of other miscellaneous things.

[Vascilli]

Originally Posted by frinkprof

^Capital Region Board. As in the capital of Alberta, Edmonton. para_transit_fellow posted it for comparitive reasons.

Mhmm, that makes more sense.

I see they have smart cards on the drawing board, we'll see how those work out..

[mersar]

Was just reading one of the local forums for Cochrane, specifically the discussion about the regional rail and found two posts that show that at least some of our elected officials 'get it' when it comes to why its important:

Originally Posted by kdhynes

Just as an aside, I've looked at Canadian municipalities that run LRT type transit systems and the heavy rail Go Train in the Toronto. All lose money and are heavily subsidized by municipal/regional taxes. Therefore, the decision seems to be whether to offer this form of trasportation and lose money or to not offer it and continue to rely on other transportation means (cars, trucks, buses). Clearly, there may be good reasons to offer light and/or heavy rail transit options, but all of them mean higher taxes. The question is are they, in the minds of the ratepayers, worth the extra tax levy?

Originally Posted by Truper McBride

Hi Ken, do roads produce revenue for us? Last I checked they were a big black whole for public dollars.
Are you aware of the cost of a large scale interchange in Calgary? We're looking at around $400 million to $600 million. Four of these things run the tax payer $1.6 billion to $2.4 billion ..... those numbers are higher than what we are asking for for transit. We are always playing catch up trying to build more of these as the population grows. So, certainly we agree that we need more than four of these interchanges and the number of them needed on the books just keeps increasing. The case quickly becomes to be seen that transit is the solution and not more and more highways.
Most of your arguments on here seem to be grounded in the fact that transit is too expensive so we should just keep using roads. Roads are in the long run more expensive to upkeep and build than transit systems. People are very quick to forget that roads are 100% subsidized by taxpayers and are also exclusive to an extent that you must have a car to use them. Transit in Calgary's case is only 50% subsidized by the tax payer ..... which one do you see currently as the more expensive choice for the tax payer? If one were to follow your arguments on the cost of transit to conclusion we would need to be putting tolls on our roads as they simply cost too much tax payers money to keep building more of.
A society based on public transportation is less expensive than a society where everyone drives individual cars on every increasing road surfaces in both private and public dollars.
Too often people get stuck in mindsets where because we've always done what we've always done, trying to understand how doing something completely different is better can be quite difficult, especially some of the more seasoned people that are products of failed paradigms. Younger generations seem to be able to adjust much more easily to these needed paradigm shifts. We've entered a period right now in Cochrane (and the region from all direction right now being taken by CRP) where many of the old practices, ideas, mindsets, and ideologies are going the way of the dinosaur ...... this is a good thing, after seven and a half years trying to affect these changes on council it is finally happening.
This ought to spark some lively debate and Point of View Truper bashing . Let the games begin!
The journey continues,
Truper

Source

The first post was by a former Cochrane councillor, the second is the reply by the current Cochrane Mayor.


Theres quite a bit of interesting talk over on that forum about the regional rail plans, including some posts by a guy who claims to be a consultant who is working on an independent proposal from the CRP for commuter rail in the Calgary region, supposedly they have backing from several big industry players as well.

[MalcolmTucker]

^ Perhaps that you can add that GO has 80% operational cost recovery since it is more of a premium service.

What is the forum, might take a look through it?

[mersar]

The link is right below the second comment