Calgary Public Transit II

[srperrycgy]

Originally Posted by mersar

Another thing I noticed of late is that CT seems to be changing the naming for the stations in most of their news releases, Victoria Park/Stampede is being called Stampede Station, and Erlton/Stampede is now just Erlton. I know that a few people including the Beltline Community association has been pushing for this of late, and CT seems to be going that way. Too bad that actually changing the names of the stations requires a vote by council, maybe it might happen though after the election as from what I've heard the new transportation boss at the city seemed open to the idea when he was told about it and supposedly the Stampede Board was in favour of it too.

I'd like to see Somerset-Bridlewood shortened to just Somerset. Considering Bridlewood is a fair distance from the station.

[YYCguys]

McKnight-Westwinds Station is closer to 64th Ave NE than it is to McKnight and should be shortened to Westwinds, as well.

[Cage]

Hopefully the Station name shortening also catches up with Jubilee/SAIT/ACAD. The station should simply be SAIT.

[hulkrogan]

The X/Y Stations drive me nuts.

I also noticed that on the route maps on board some stations are X-Y and some are X/Y which makes no sense.

I really wish they would start including route names when referencing trains instead of just terminus stations which change way too often.

I prefer the color line naming scheme, but even 201 North - Crowfoot, 201 South - Somerset would be a big improvement and less confusing for people not familiar with the system.

I always hear people on the platform asking "Is this a Northeast train?".

[SubwayRev]

Half the stations on the system should be changed. There shouldn't be any double (or triple) names, nor any hyphens or slashes.

I would also prefer if they were named after streets, and not communities.

[fusili]

Originally Posted by hulkrogan

The X/Y Stations drive me nuts.

I also noticed that on the route maps on board some stations are X-Y and some are X/Y which makes no sense.

I really wish they would start including route names when referencing trains instead of just terminus stations which change way too often.

I prefer the color line naming scheme, but even 201 North - Crowfoot, 201 South - Somerset would be a big improvement and less confusing for people not familiar with the system.

I always hear people on the platform asking "Is this a Northeast train?".

Or how about just direction. NW, South, NE, West and the future SE and North should do it.

[Stang]

I hope that the trend to shorter names sticks. The simpler the better.

Pick the most prominent landmark, street, community etc. nearby and just leave it at that.

[srperrycgy]

Originally Posted by hulkrogan

I prefer the color line naming scheme, but even 201 North - Crowfoot, 201 South - Somerset would be a big improvement and less confusing for people not familiar with the system.

I always hear people on the platform asking "Is this a Northeast train?".

Using red and blue to differentiate the two lines would be easy to implement. The "what train is this?" question, should abate a little with the New LRVs; they have a side destination sign as well as the front and back ones. However, people will likely be as oblivious as they are now.

[Mazrim]

Based on this thread, we should consider ourselves fortunate that the Tuscany-Rocky Ridge station got shortened to just Tuscany. I would hate to see the backlash for that.

[Ferreth]

Originally Posted by srperrycgy

Using red and blue to differentiate the two lines would be easy to implement. The "what train is this?" question, should abate a little with the New LRVs; they have a side destination sign as well as the front and back ones. However, people will likely be as oblivious as they are now.

YES! Hopefully the side destination signs will be kept accurate. I've had many a situation where I missed seeing the sign on the front of the train as it whizzed by, then try to second guess if the signs in between cars are right or not (pretty much 50-50, from my experience). The whole terminus thing should calm down a bit after these latest expansions are done - I don't see another one happening for at least 10 years.

[Koolfire]

Originally Posted by Ferreth

YES! Hopefully the side destination signs will be kept accurate. I've had many a situation where I missed seeing the sign on the front of the train as it whizzed by, then try to second guess if the signs in between cars are right or not (pretty much 50-50, from my experience). The whole terminus thing should calm down a bit after these latest expansions are done - I don't see another one happening for at least 10 years.

Depends, if the airport tunnel gets build I could see expansions for the next ten years. Saddletown-> Airport -> Aurora Business Park -> Harvest Hills -> Panarama. The only problem I see is that the 301 would be still faster from North Pointe to Downtown then the LRT. I say it's possible but I'm not sure if it will/should.

[MalcolmTucker]

Airports are notoriously bad trip generators, and the NE LRT already has a route. The way route planning works in the city one would have to move heaven and earth to get a report out of notice of motion that showed a higher value for serving the airport than the current future plans.

It is just like the servicing to Mount Royal College in the last go round - there was enough support to examine it but when the chips were down council couldn't build a line that was technically inferior and served less people for more money.

[DizzyEdge]

Originally Posted by Sir.Humphrey.Appleby

Airports are notoriously bad trip generators, and the NE LRT already has a route. The way route planning works in the city one would have to move heaven and earth to get a report out of notice of motion that showed a higher value for serving the airport than the current future plans.

It is just like the servicing to Mount Royal College in the last go round - there was enough support to examine it but when the chips were down council couldn't build a line that was technically inferior and served less people for more money.

Speaking of MRU, I've always thought that some sort of streetcar, going from MRU -> Marda Loop -> Beltline -> Inglewood -> 17th Ave SE would be awesome, connecting the school and two retail areas that are not easy to walk to from downtown to the centre of the city. No idea if that would be at all feasible.

[The Chemist]

Originally Posted by srperrycgy

Using red and blue to differentiate the two lines would be easy to implement. The "what train is this?" question, should abate a little with the New LRVs; they have a side destination sign as well as the front and back ones. However, people will likely be as oblivious as they are now.

Yes, ideally they'd have different colours on the vehicles themselves to indicate what line the train belongs to. Here in Shanghai there's a stretch of track/stations shared by two subway lines, but I've never gotten confused as to which line is which because the two lines have completely different colours on their trains (one is purple, the other is yellow).

Still, I don't think Calgary has anything nearly as confusing as Shanghai Metro where two adjacent stations have nearly the same name (one is Shanghai Stadium, the other is Shanghai Indoor Stadium) and one is a transfer station and the other is not. I get the impression that even locals get confused quite frequently by this.

[srperrycgy]

Originally Posted by The Chemist

Yes, ideally they'd have different colours on the vehicles themselves to indicate what line the train belongs to. Here in Shanghai there's a stretch of track/stations shared by two subway lines, but I've never gotten confused as to which line is which because the two lines have completely different colours on their trains (one is purple, the other is yellow).

If both lines were separated, I could see that. If the SELRT was low-floor as we suspect, a different livery and colours might happen.

Originally Posted by The Chemist

Still, I don't think Calgary has anything nearly as confusing as Shanghai Metro where two adjacent stations have nearly the same name (one is Shanghai Stadium, the other is Shanghai Indoor Stadium) and one is a transfer station and the other is not. I get the impression that even locals get confused quite frequently by this.

From looking at pics of the Shanghai system, that doesn't surprise me at all.

[Riise]

Originally Posted by The Chemist

Yes, ideally they'd have different colours on the vehicles themselves to indicate what line the train belongs to. Here in Shanghai there's a stretch of track/stations shared by two subway lines, but I've never gotten confused as to which line is which because the two lines have completely different colours on their trains (one is purple, the other is yellow).

The other day I was thinking that when the lines stop sharing trains, they could change the colour the poles and handrails to match the line's colour.

[fusili]

Almost every city I have been to that has a metro uses colours to identify the lines. The problem is when you start to get more than 10 or so lines, you just run out of easily distinguishable colours. You have red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple and then lighter versions of each. After that it gets confusing. A combination of colours and numbers is best. And the routes should be numbered 1-10 not this 201-202 crap.

[Riise]

Originally Posted by fusili

Almost every city I have been to that has a metro uses colours to identify the lines. The problem is when you start to get more than 10 or so lines, you just run out of easily distinguishable colours. You have red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple and then lighter versions of each. After that it gets confusing. A combination of colours and numbers is best. And the routes should be numbered 1-10 not this 201-202 crap.

Colours and numbers are probably the all-round best but I do like names. When I was going to Uni last year I enjoyed taking the Victoria line to the Jubilee line. Since Calgary doesn't have any rail companies to derive the names from, they could use animals and colours. You could have:

The Monkey Line
The Elephant Line
The Flamingo Line
The Dove Line
The Smurf Line

[Stang]

Originally Posted by Riise

Colours and numbers are probably the all-round best but I do like names. When I was going to Uni last year I enjoyed taking the Victoria line to the Jubilee line. Since Calgary doesn't have any rail companies to derive the names from, they could use animals and colours. You could have:

What do those names have to do with the rail companies? I think that they're based on the monarchy. Not that we need to honour monarchs with our line names, of course.

[MalcolmTucker]

The Crowchild-Macleod line mayhaps?