Calgary Area Regional Transit

[para transit fellow]

Originally Posted by MichaelS

Would this bus be meant to go from Cochrane into Downtown Calgary? And if so, would it fit underneath plus 15's? (could be a stupid question on my part, but they do look pretty tall).

The concept is to go from Cochrane to the LRT station every 30 minutes

[srperrycgy]

I don't think using the double-deckers is a wise choice. The distance from Cochrane to Crowfoot can be easily covered with a 40ft New Flyer or NovaBus; eventually a 60-footer. If they are looking for a "premium" service, a conventional 40-ft bus can be modified.

[MalcolmTucker]

Well, you will likely want a different bus to begin with due to both highway speed travel and if you want changes for the climb out of Cochrane.

[polishavenger]

Originally Posted by Wooster

I have an editorial on this topic I am submitting to the Herald in the next day or two. I'll post it when its a little closer to being done. It has to do with creating a regional transit authority, rather than having a separately operated commuter rail system (Like the GO Train). Also a real estate development company that acquires and is land developer for TODs in the region.

As a case study, you may want to look at MTS in hong kong.

[Rise_of_the_West]

So I finally got around to developing some visuals to describe my vision for the Calgary Regional Rail Network.

For the most part I tried to use existing rail ROW (mostly CPR). I've broken the system down into a bunch of different phases. First a little reference

Purple thin lines- LRT (fully expanded system)
Grey- HSR
Red- Bow Valley Line
Blue- North Line
Orange- Wheatland Line
Green- South Line
Yellow- Prarie Line (Possibly bus service only)
Cyan- Calgary Ring
Purple- Outer Connector

In Addition Dashed lines are underground sections, thin dashed are envisioned express collector bus routes.

Also I have used some station conditions:

HO- Hour Service Only for envisioned low useage stations
P- Peak used for stations with service only during rush hour
NP- Non-Peak Service to optimize network for rush hour traffic


Phase 1- Bow Valley (Red) Line & North (Blue) W/ Airport Connection
Local View


This inital phase of construction would involve constructing dedicated lines in the CPR ROW up the Bow Valley and Nose Hill Creek areas. Ideally these lines would be electrified. Design speed would be in the region of 120-140km/h. Frequency of trains would be every 20 minutes, unless otherwise indicated.

For the north line, termination would be at a newly constructed Calgary Central Rail Station on what is currently planned for the HSR terminal. The airport would have a station directly in the terminal (either underground or re-designing the parking structure to accomidate it). A branch line for express service during peak times would use the existing ROW. This line would then continue north to Balzac and Aridrie in this stage

For the Bow Valley Line, it would start at Calgary Central, having a station for U of C (with dedicated bus service), one at Tuscany then continuing onto Cochrane.

Phase 2- Wheatland (Orange) Line and South (Green) Line



This one is fairly self explanitory, The Wheatland line connects Strathmore and Chestermere, with stations in east Calgary, elliston (possible future 17th ave LRT connection), Forest Lawn, Foothills Industrial, and then throught he central calgary stations

South Line will take over for the envisioned SELRT as it is right now, providing faster service for those in the deep south east. It will continue to Dewinton and Okotoks.

The Bow Valley line will also be extended to the airport (reason why will become apparent in Phase 3). This will provide better frequency for airport travellers too.

Regional View Phase 1 & 2


Phase 3 Bow Valley Line- Banff Connection


The Bow Valley line will be extended to Canmore and Banff, which would provide airport to banff service in under 1.5 hours for tourists and calgarians alike. Ski buses would provide service from the Banff station up to the hills. Trains with bike racks in summer and ski racks in winter would be purchased/retrofitted.


Ultimate Vision
Local


So the ultimate vision includes a ring track which will follow in the ring road ROW, and provide a link to the intra city lines for those living in the majority of the far flung regions of the city.

Also as the westbrook area fills out (seen as a smaller down town), some if not all the lines would be extended to a multi mode transit hub there. This would be quite far down the road.

Also seen on there is the HSR, which will stop at the airport using the same tunnels as the Regionals, however shortly after the airport it will begin using its own ROW, with operating speeds at or above 250km/h

Regional


In the ultimate regional plan, lines will now extend as far as Lake Louise, Lethbridge, Medicine Hat, and Red Deer. Trips to these outer regions would be operated more as an inter city service (half hour to hourly departures).


Now to build it...

[youngregina]

Just for wanting to know i guess.. how much would something like this cost in say 2020 dollars? (estimate)

[Rise_of_the_West]

Well i'm no expert on costing so i can only give a very rough estimate:

Phase 1: $2.5-3 Billion
Phase 2: $3.5-4 Billion
Phase 3: $3 Billion

Ultimate Vision: $45-50 Billion, maybe higher

But keep in mind this will be over many years.

[MalcolmTucker]

^ While I like heavy rail very much, I do think for the volume of population / riders the most logical lines will serve, the costs are just atrocious. Most of the heavy rail lines radiating from New York only have hour service off peek, and most radiating from Montreal and Toronto have no service. To expect Calgary to do better is a bit crazy.

There are specific cases where it might work, such as express commuting from the deep south when it becomes too expensive to expand the capacity of the south LRT line anymore, or the west line if Cochrane suddenly had 100,000 people to support the half a billion dollar capital cost.

I think it is easy to forget that compared to most other cities, Calgary's non contiguous suburbs are really small. When we look at other examples, like the FrontRunner in Utah, the suburbs served are much bigger and more removed from the core than Calgary's. Even then, with 35 round trips a day on 70 km of track it only garners a ridership just over 5,000 people. They spent $611 million for these 5,000 people. I don't think that is a good payoff. Or there is the New Mexico Rail Runner Express, which connects Albuquerque and Santa Fe - $380 million for 4,500 passengers over 156 km. Or the Northstar Line in Minneapolis, $317 million for 2,000 people over 64 km.

Now I know these are american examples, so ridership all other things being equal would be higher on a similar implementation here, but for value for money these projects are bad news bears. The only line that I believe would be even half viable would be one to Airdrie and heavy rail link to the airport from downtown, since up to a certain point the trains could piggyback on the HSR tracks (there will be lots of extra capacity on those lines). Even then, it might be cheaper to build the NC LRT up to Airdrie instead, but that would be a complicated case to make, since you have very different service models on the competing lines.

[Rise_of_the_West]

You have some good points, particularly with the ridership issue. If this plan was to be implemented today, then yes it would definitly be the case, the cost would not be justified. However my plan is a long term vision, cover about 100 years down the road. By this time the CMA will have the population to support such a network. The capital cost would also be spread out over this time period.

As for the frequency, the north american model (limited or no service during non peak hours) has a major negitive impact on the public view of transit on our continent. While it should be cut back during lower ridership times, it should not be to the point of making the system unusable.

[Bassic Lab]

Originally Posted by Rise_of_the_West

You have some good points, particularly with the ridership issue. If this plan was to be implemented today, then yes it would definitly be the case, the cost would not be justified. However my plan is a long term vision, cover about 100 years down the road. By this time the CMA will have the population to support such a network. The capital cost would also be spread out over this time period.

As for the frequency, the north american model (limited or no service during non peak hours) has a major negitive impact on the public view of transit on our continent. While it should be cut back during lower ridership times, it should not be to the point of making the system unusable.

Just a heads up, your SE LRT is going to the wrong place.

As for your system, I would prefer to see long range plans focus more on the current area of the city. Basically things like a 16th Ave N crosstown and an inner circle hitting major nodes like Chinook, Rockyview Hospital, Mount Royal University, Foothills Hospital, the U of C.

I agree with Sir. Humphrey that for the foreseeable future the only commuter line that might make sense is to the north along track that can pull double duty for HSR.

[Rise_of_the_West]

SE LRT was rerouted to not duplicate service to the extreme SE portion of the city.

My plan was ment for a regional vision, not an inner city rail system (that would be the focus of the LRT, which i did not want to touch in terms of future planning). I'd love to see a circle route LRT/Subway, along with some other improvements.

As for the feasability, you can't think short term about this. Calgary has a major issue of not having very many free flow major routes (ring road, glenmore, deerfoot, and parts of crowchild). As our city keeps expanding this is going to cause more and more problems. Getting people out of there cars when commuting into the inner city is the goal. To have a way that is faster then Transit options today, and arguably faster than a car, would be attractive to many.

Commuter rail will also help solve the crush of people heading into down town via LRT during rush hours. LRT in my opinion should become more of a metro type system where its focused on moving people around the inner city, vs providing commuter services to outer areas as it does today.

And like it or not, these bedroom communites will grow perhaps faster than the city itself in the future, so thinking proactivly now and starting to plan for this is a good idea.

[MalcolmTucker]

Running the SE LRT into the dead end of Bow Bottom isn't the smartest, even if those communities may be under serviced. The catchment area of any service down there is really small, since it is reasonably close to the existing line. The bus to train service is likely highly effective there already.

While it would be tempting to try to support south heavy rail with giving it the loads for the SE LRT, it would be really hard to balance the load between the further south communities and the 52nd St SE communities. Realistically, without the communities in the deep SE, the business case for the SE LRT ceases to exist.

You might think it would be easier to upgrade that corridor than to run regular two way heavy rail down next to the current south LRT line, but I don't think that is the case. It is my impression, informed by the location of intermodal terminals and warehouses in Calgary, that the SE freight rail line your service would upgrade and run on is likely busier than the South freight rail. You likely end up with a wash for costs (corridor expansion, bridge rebuilds) and you relieve an overburdened south LRT line (effectively creating 'express tracks').

I also don't think running the rail outside of the CMA is really useful - it will be interesting to see if the CMA boundaries change with the next census (even if it will be hard to trust the data, since CMAs are based on commuting patterns from the long form)
CMA Map (ignore the data, the maps purpose here is to just show the CMA)

[para transit fellow]

the Wheatland line looks difficult to implement as there is no natural right of way to borrow once you leave Calgary and thus land costs skyrocket.

But no great vision should be held back ( well done)

[MasterG]

Originally Posted by para transit fellow

the Wheatland line looks difficult to implement as there is no natural right of way to borrow once you leave Calgary and thus land costs skyrocket.

But no great vision should be held back ( well done)

Agreed. But i like the idea of your wheatland line going through all of the small towns. ROW would be an issue, but if it was established the growth of these communities would be directed completely onto the commuter rail line, as the road connections to those towns aren't quick to get into the city.

It could work as a kinda return to the golden age of rail, where towns and cities grew up along the line.

Excellent imagination and thought about the details!

[mersar]

Service itself has been delayed due to a recalled part on the buses, but Airdrie Transit has installed signs for the ICE service. This one is located at the stop north of 16th ave on Centre Street. Didn't look to be any signs on the southbound side, which is dropoff only and I assume at the 301 stop just south of 16th ave.


Airdrie Transit ICE sign by Jason R. Reid, on Flickr

[Riise]

Originally Posted by mersar

Service itself has been delayed due to a recalled part on the buses, but Airdrie Transit has installed signs for the ICE service. This one is located at the stop north of 16th ave on Centre Street. Didn't look to be any signs on the southbound side, which is dropoff only and I assume at the 301 stop just south of 16th ave.

The region really does need better bus signage. Thanks for the photo!

[srperrycgy]

Airdrie ICE service will start on Monday. There was some contradictory information between CT's website (service starting) and the City of Airdrie's (service suspended), which I clarifed through a couple of tweets.

[mersar]

Transit applications approved

September 28, 2010
By: Kelsey Hipkin
http://www.cochraneeagle.com/2010/09/transit-applications-approved/

Cochrane’s new transit program is one step closer to reality with a council motion to submit an application for the first year of GreenTRIP funding.

The application is in conjunction with the Calgary Regional Partnership (CRP) for funding at an estimated cost of $27 million.

The provincial government reconfirmed it’s support for GreenTRIP in June of this year, a funding program to provide $2 billion for transit capital assistance in Alberta.

The program is part of an initiative to reduce the province’s greenhouse gas emissions.

There is $800 million of that is set aside for the CRP including the Bow Valley area.

The $800 million will be broken down into phases with only $42 million available for this round of requests in the Calgary region, said senior manager of corporate services for Cochrane Paige Milner.

Council agreed at the Sept. 27 meeting if a move wasn’t made on applying for a grant now, they would be competing with communities like Airdrie and Okotoks for transit grants in the future.

Applicants for the grant are required to fund one third of capital costs.
So, of the $27 million for Cochrane’s application, grant funding would total $18.1 million.
...

[mersar]

A few more details about what the Cochrane transit service will look like in terms of equipment and facilities from this weeks Cochrane Eagle:

Council applies for transit funding, but will wait on transit feasibility study to plan implementationhttp://www.cochraneeagle.com/2010/12/cou...easibility-study-to-plan-implementation/

At their Dec. 13 meeting, council unanimously reaffirmed endorsement of an application, in conjunction with the Calgary Regional Partnership (CRP), for $18 million in transit funding from the province’s GreenTrip program.

“This is an incredible opportunity,” said Mayor Truper McBride. “I do not know if we are going to see something of this magnitude again.”

The capital start up costs of transit here in town are pegged at $27 million, and initial plans included four double-decker buses, four community shuttles, a 50,000 square foot bus barn complete with all the equipment required to do mechanical repairs and maintenance and the land to build it on.

However, Mayor Truper McBride said what the money is actually spent on will depend on the transit feasibility plan that council hopes to see before the end of 2011.

The $9 million needed to achieve the entire $27 million in start up costs would come from other provincial grants that the town receives each year for infrastructure, and McBride said the town is already starting to set aside part of its Municipal Sustainability Initiative (MSI) provincial grant.

...

[polishavenger]

Those are some very interesting maps. My first thought is that its huge over kill for a city like calgary. I would love it if we lived in a dense enough city to merit such and extensive plan, but something tells me simply running such a system would bankrupt the CMA around Calgary.

Second thought, if you have regional transportation, any lines connecting to outlying areas IMO should connect with the LRT at the edge of the city rather than having dedicated lines going into the core of the city (with the exception of the HSR). The line going to cochrane/bank/Lake Louise would connect to the end of the NW line, and a south line to okotoks/high River should connect to the terminus of either the south lrt or SE lrt. I cant see ever needing a line heading east.