Calgary Public Transit II

[mersar]

TVM's have been installed at 4th Street station. So we should be down to only a couple weeks at most before it reopens. My money is on January 25th.

[freeweed]

Originally Posted by Sir.Humphrey.Appleby

To have to wait five minutes is likely an exaggeration - it means a particular train basically caught up with the one ahead of it. If it happens continuously (almost like a standing traffic wave) it means the schedule is wrong.

You're mostly right about this. 5 minutes is the extreme but every single day with very few exceptions it's 1-2 minutes that my train sits under the Nose Hill Dr. overpass, waiting for a departing train. About 1/3 of the time, we also wait just west of Silver Springs Gate/Sarcee, which means we're waiting on 2 trains.

The schedule is designed for near-continuous trains moving through 7th Ave, which is great by the way. I rarely wait more than 2 mins for a train when leaving downtown during the peak. But it catches up with the system at the terminals. Not sure how the schedule could be adjusted to fix this - I think a lot of it is due to the fact that trains sit for lights and frequent stops on 7th, but they move damn fast once they're past Banff Trail - basically 80km/h with very few stops.

[srperrycgy]

Found this on the CT website:

Transit E-mail Alerts

You provide your e-mail and CT will send you alerts based on your preferences.

[mersar]

A great find. They've already used it to send out a notice about this weekends 201 schedule changes due to work at Erlton.

Noticed tonight that the LED's are on at 4th Street as well... platform looked to be cleared of some construction debris as well from what I could tell from a distance.

[Policy Wonk]

A C-Train just about took out a police car on 7th today,

[freeweed]

Finally got a ride in the new LRT cars. Not bad - they definitely have more seating than one would expect (I count 11 seats for every 12 in the old setup), however they're the contoured style so they assume everyone is a 30" waist. It got very uncomfortable very quickly once every seat was full.

In terms of jamming the doorways - it was interesting to watch. The new cars definitely encourage people to move into the car - but only at first. So you don't see the first 4-5 people cramming the doorway immediately, which is good. However once more than a handful of people are standing in the middle of the car, the doorways get jammed up anyway. Until they're too full, then finally it occurs to people to spread out into the comparatively empty middle of the car.

I really liked the "next station" announcements but the timing was a tad off, this may be because it's a new feature. The end-of-car signs for stops was awesome (about time!) however you can't actually see them during rush hour when 30 people are jammed up against the sign.

Very smooth ride. Not sure if it's just because they're new, or if someone has finally figured out how to make an LRT car that has suspension. But wow - I was very impressed. Maybe we just had the best driver ever.

[mersar]

Originally Posted by freeweed

I really liked the "next station" announcements but the timing was a tad off, this may be because it's a new feature. The end-of-car signs for stops was awesome (about time!) however you can't actually see them during rush hour when 30 people are jammed up against the sign.

Its something thats still a bit buggy. It isn't based fully on GPS, but also on RFID transmitters on the caternary poles and the distance travelled (GPS is pretty much useless in the downtown, or in the tunnels which is why this system was devised). So every once in a while the operator needs to sync up the train with where its actually at, at least until they get things a bit more automated.

Originally Posted by freeweed

Very smooth ride. Not sure if it's just because they're new, or if someone has finally figured out how to make an LRT car that has suspension. But wow - I was very impressed. Maybe we just had the best driver ever.

Yep, the new cars do ride a lot smoother. Part of it actually though I think isn't just that the ride is smoother, but even on the older LRV's it feels smoother if you are in the inwards facing seats rather then the front or back facing seats (at least it does for me).

[frinkprof]

Originally Posted by Policy Wonk

A C-Train just about took out a police car on 7th today,

As I understand it, this isn't altogether uncommon due to the LRT sharing 7th Avenue with emergency vehicles. In discussing it with transit operators (consider the source of course), it's often times the fault of the emergency vehicles, usually turning sharply on or off 7th Avenue in front of moving trains. Makes sense since they rule the roads everywhere else whereas on 7th Avenue they tend to forget that they have a several-ton train barreling down on them that can't stop as quickly and also can't swerve or pull over.

[freeweed]

Originally Posted by mersar

Its something thats still a bit buggy. It isn't based fully on GPS, but also on RFID transmitters on the caternary poles and the distance travelled (GPS is pretty much useless in the downtown, or in the tunnels which is why this system was devised). So every once in a while the operator needs to sync up the train with where its actually at, at least until they get things a bit more automated.

Thanks for the info; I was wondering if it was manually triggered by the driver, or automated, and if so, how. This must mean we're *very* close to signs at platforms saying "next train, 5 mins" etc.

[MalcolmTucker]

Well next train signs were funded no?

In any case, they are very hard to keep reliable except in completly new builds (but who knows, maybe Canada Line's next train signs will start to break down next year)

[Aegis]

Originally Posted by fusili

Off vehicle fare payment.

Fare payment isn't the only reason why customers hold up a transit vehicle.

[CTrainDude]

Originally Posted by Sir.Humphrey.Appleby

Well next train signs were funded no?

They were funded, and they are on the way...not that I'm anti-Nenshi or anything, but I hope he doesn't get the credit when they do show up. They've been in the works for a couple of years, so he had zero to do with it. They should be showing up later this year.

[fusili]

Originally Posted by Aegis

Fare payment isn't the only reason why customers hold up a transit vehicle.

What other reasons are there? Multiple doors and off vehicle fare payment can significantly speed up station times of buses almost to the point of a rail vehicle. And wouldn't other delays apply to any trains as well. Just because the system isn't perfect, doesn't mean it isn't good.

[srperrycgy]

Originally Posted by Aegis

Fare payment isn't the only reason why customers hold up a transit vehicle.

Next time I'm boarding a bus, I won't say "Hi" or "Thank You" to the operator....because it slows boarding down soooooo much.

[MalcolmTucker]

He will get credit, that is just the nature of the beast.

[freeweed]

Nenshi also shouldn't get credit for removing the Park 'n Ride fee - I was vocally against that from the very first rumours.

[Aegis]

Originally Posted by srperrycgy

Next time I'm boarding a bus, I won't say "Hi" or "Thank You" to the operator....because it slows boarding down soooooo much.

Are you serious?

My original point was, why create a weakness in the system (one vehicle holding up the rest) when you can avoid the problem by separating the two modes without much additional land use or cost. The benefit of the land savings doesn't seem to outweigh the time loss to users.

Fusili responded to the content of what I was saying..do you have an argument that is content-based, or just purely sarcastic..?

[fusili]

Originally Posted by Aegis

Are you serious?

My original point was, why create a weakness in the system (one vehicle holding up the rest) when you can avoid the problem by separating the two modes without much additional land use or cost. The benefit of the land savings doesn't seem to outweigh the time loss to users.

Fusili responded to the content of what I was saying..do you have an argument that is content-based, or just purely sarcastic..?

The idea was meant to use it in land-restricted areas. When you don't have the space, you need to make compromises. On any urban ROW in the City, it would be difficult to fit a ROW for a train and a bus. Hence the sharing.

[srperrycgy]

Originally Posted by Aegis

Are you serious?

Fusili responded to the content of what I was saying..do you have an argument that is content-based, or just purely sarcastic..?

Sarcasm was appropriate. So I went with that.

[Aegis]

Originally Posted by srperrycgy

Sarcasm was appropriate. So I went with that.

I thought it was kind of lame, actually.