Calgary Public Transit II

[UofC.engineer]

Originally Posted by CTrainDude

Actually yes, the SD-160s feature regenerative braking capabilities.

Really?? How does the regeneration work?

[jeffwhit]

Originally Posted by Riise

Knowing Jezza, he was probably taking the piss and talking about 1v1 situations. For example, a single train will use more fuel than a single car.

I've seen every episode of TG most more than once and I can't remember this particular quote. However, it sounds like something he'd say, and you're 1v1 analysis is probably the formula he was using. TG is hardly the place to go to to get reliable info about public transit.

[Policy Wonk]

You really can't generalize when talking about trains and their relative efficiency since in the present day there is more or less sixty years worth of rolling stock operating on the worlds railroads. In isolation rail can represent the single most efficient and absolute least efficient form of transportation. In aggregate it probably doesn't fare very well when even relatively modern rolling stock is not necessarily efficient by modern European electric standards which rail advocates invariably draw upon when arguing for rails efficiency.

[thager]

An Out of Service D60LFR caught fire on the Deerfoot this morning:

http://www.globaltvcalgary.com/City+catches+fire+Deerfoot+Trail/3959056/story.html

[srperrycgy]

A CT iPhone app was released today: http://calgarytransitschedule.com/ for $0.99.

IMHO, a good start but could do so much more.

[Mazrim]

Originally Posted by thager

An Out of Service D60LFR caught fire on the Deerfoot this morning:

http://www.globaltvcalgary.com/City+catches+fire+Deerfoot+Trail/3959056/story.html

Sigh...
"There are reporters that the fire began after the breaks seized."

Journalism at its finest.

[The Chemist]

Originally Posted by Mazrim

Sigh...
"There are reporters that the fire began after the breaks seized."

Journalism at its finest.

The inevitable result of a generation that grew up on the internet and computers - people that can't spell or write properly to save their lives.

[MikieCGY]

Have you seen 14th Street during rush hour? its only 2 lanes.. one being a turning lane for the most part.. the South West BRT SHOULD NOT go down this path.. Better to flow South on 8th and up the hill like the Mount Royal 13 bus currently goes then cross over on 33rd or something.

[mooky]

I'll just leave this here, I thought it was well done when I found it on reddit.

• Video Link

[frinkprof]

^I was trying to figure out the routes this person takes, at least what is implied. At the start, the house is on route 56 (Woodbine), they take the train from Southland, then they take the 2 to somewhere around Signal Hill or Westside Rec Centre. Makes me wonder where the kid goes to school, and why a school nearby Cedarbrae or Braeside or wherever they live wouldn't be adequate. Not a judgement call, as I'm not familiar with special programs, etc. that might be offered at a school near Westside Rec. Just curious. Alternatively, the college student mom might go to Ambrose, which is up in that area.

At any rate, interesting video, and captures the difficulty of a commute involving more than one transfer.

[freeweed]

I hate to be a jerk, but having kids when you can't conceivably afford them means your life is going to be a huge pain in the ass, period. Transit is never going to be designed to accommodate people who:

a) cannot afford to move anywhere closer/more convenient

b) send their kids to a school 16km away (shit, even in the farthest-flung new suburbs we have far closer schools)

This video reminds me of the occasional suburbanite I meet who gets all whiny because his particular commute doesn't have a nice empty freeway dedicated to his use. I don't even know that she's really saying much about transit; her words:

"Sure a car would help. But I'd still have to commute".

Seems to me that her major problem is her lifestyle choices, and she even acknowledges this. I guess I just came away wondering what her point really was.

Cute kid, at any rate.

[frinkprof]

Originally Posted by freeweed

Transit is never going to be designed to accommodate people who:

a) cannot afford to move anywhere closer/more convenient

Would you mind clarifying and/or qualifying this point?

[McPaul]

That's an "escalator".

[freeweed]

Originally Posted by frinkprof

Would you mind clarifying and/or qualifying this point?

Admittedly it's a bit simplified, but what I was getting at is that you cannot design a transit system that will work with minimum transit time for every single use case.

If I decide to live in Royal Oak, send my kid to school in Signal Hill, and work at the SE hospital - do you really think CT can possibly make a convenient transit route for me? Or is it not more reasonable to expect me to at least *attempt* to adapt to the more common transit patterns of the rest of the city?

I've dealt with some horrendous transfers in my life, including literally an end-to-end run of Winnipeg for 18 months, and many years of school where driving took 15 minutes, but the bus took well over an hour. It's part of the choices we make in life, and yeah, it can suck. I just don't fully understand what this video is trying to say, especially when it acknowledges that driving would be just as bad.

I mean sure - we COULD quintuple CT's budget (and associated property taxes) and have buses all over the place that run near-empty all the time, just so that every possible weird route is taken into consideration. Short of that though - I don't think the problem here is really with transit. Although I think the original route of the SWRR might have helped this girl a lot.

[UofC.engineer]

Yea, looks like a pretty tough commute. The problem is they are going from Woodbine/Cedarbrae/Braeside to somewhere near Glendale. Probably two, maybe three transfers, going end to end in any city using public transit can take a while. Especially if you live in a lower density neighborhood and are travelling to another one across town. Perhaps the West LRT will speed things up once it gets built?

When I was in Buenos Aires I had to take a few brutal commutes across town, and that is a very high density city.

[frinkprof]

Originally Posted by freeweed

Admittedly it's a bit simplified, but what I was getting at is that you cannot design a transit system that will work with minimum transit time for every single use case.

If I decide to live in Royal Oak, send my kid to school in Signal Hill, and work at the SE hospital - do you really think CT can possibly make a convenient transit route for me? Or is it not more reasonable to expect me to at least *attempt* to adapt to the more common transit patterns of the rest of the city?

Yeah, that's all good. I was just a bit puzzled by your throwing-in of the words "afford to." While transit, specifically, isn't the cause of or solution to that problem, I think it speaks a bit to the bigger picture involving land use patterns, economic impacts of them, and transit's role in that.

At any rate, I would have changed your point from:

cannot afford to move anywhere closer/more convenient

to

do not live anywhere closer/more convenient

[Policy Wonk]

That brings us to the great urban impasse, the type of urban development that is championed by most of those on this website is the very thing that makes any tenable urban community unaffordable. There is no land-use pattern conducive to high density affordable housing in the adult urban playground aspired to here.

It is the white collar gaze, most of us were or will be earning the median income within five years of graduation. It is a world of Apple products, cupcake boutiques and sincere outrage at the amount of paperwork you have to do to make a dental claim.

Although depending on this girls circumstances it is quite possible she really couldn't afford to live independently anywhere in the city.

[freeweed]

I'll still stand by my comment. On a forum where I'm regularly berated to move somewhere to fulfill someone *else's* idea of a better lifestyle, I don't think it's out of line to suggest that someone should be willing and able to move if it will improve *their* lifestyle.

And if one cannot, then one should learn to deal with the consequences.

I've been stuck in a shitty area before, but I didn't have Youtube to whine to about it. Just my friends and family. If anything, that Youtube video shouldn't be about "sustainable communities" (or whatever the end credits were about) - it would be a great public service announcement for "you too can actually plan for your future".

I wish someone had shown me a video like THAT back when.

[freeweed]

Originally Posted by Policy Wonk

It is the white collar gaze, most of us were or will be earning the median income within five years of graduation. It is a world of Apple products, cupcake boutiques and sincere outrage at the amount of paperwork you have to do to make a dental claim.

Beautiful poetry. I love it! As I often have to point out to my cow-orkers: if our biggest challenges in life are how to spend our money, I think we're doing pretty damned good.

Although depending on this girls circumstances it is quite possible she really couldn't afford to live independently anywhere in the city.

That is almost certainly the case. Single mom going to school? She probably doesn't have the proverbial 2 nickels to rub together.

However that is in no way the fault of our urban design, nor transit, nor any other social structure (well, beyond the fact that we continue to convince very young women to have and keep children, but that's a multi-generational change and we're barely past the 1960s in some respects here).

[MasterG]

I agree with waht alot of you guys are saying. That video is not really about how calgary transit is not sufficient, a route like that would be crazy in any city. Are there no elementary schools in the SW of oak ridge or braeside or whatever? 16km is a long and unnecessary way to go.

If you dont like commuting that far everyday, switch the kid into a school along the way, that route passes about half of the elementary schools in the inner city.

Yes, sometimes people are in situatiions they cant change and perhaps should be accomidated for wit h more sensitivity, but what was presented in that video was not one of those situations.