Calgary Public Transit II

[frinkprof]

Apparently there was an incident along 7th Avenue yesterday evening. Must not have caused much delay.

C-Train hits car running red light, police say


By Deborah Tetley, Calgary Herald May 4, 2011

CALGARY - Police say it appears a 70-year-old female driver ran a red light downtown before the vehicle she was driving was hit by a C-Train.

The driver and a 58-year-old female passenger became trapped after being struck at the intersection of 7th Avenue S.E. and Macleod Trail just before 7 p.m. on Tuesday.

[...]

Link to rest of article

[Policy Wonk]

2016 looks to have drawn its final breath this afternoon on 7th ave. Apprently it is completely seized and they need to dismantle it to disconnect the traction before it can be towed out.

Rush hour should be anarchy,

[You Need A Thneed]

Discussion about refurbishment of U2 cars vs buying new going on right now at city hall.

Administration's report doesn't make the case for refurbishment sound too good.

[freeweed]

Been out of town... So CT has added another section of reserved PnR to Crowfoot. Of course it's basically empty (I think I saw 5 cars in there yesterday afternoon), but with the excess reserved space, Crowfoot is even crazier in the morning. It's basically all full before 7 now (or at least was yesterday). And this is with the extra spots opening up thanks to the snow finally melting. People ended up parking all over the place and getting ticketed as a result.

I wonder if someone in CT has a secret plan to eventually turn the entire lot reserved (and basically, revert it back to entirely paid). This sure would be a good way to go about that.

[mersar]

Originally Posted by freeweed

I wonder if someone in CT has a secret plan to eventually turn the entire lot reserved (and basically, revert it back to entirely paid). This sure would be a good way to go about that.

They can't. Council only authorized reserved parking in 50% of the lot.

[freeweed]

Originally Posted by mersar

They can't. Council only authorized reserved parking in 50% of the lot.

Well OK, up to 50% in a hurry - and then return to Council, cap in hand, pointing out how the reserved parking needs to be expanded due to "demand".

Demand that's arguably being created by needless expansion of the reserved spots. Clever, that.

[Cage]

I follow the Crowfoot lot very closely, as a daily reserved parker.

The number of allotted spots is equivalent to the number of reserved spaces. For May this was about 340 spaces.

What is most interesting is that there appears to be a lot of part-time parkers who are buying a reserved space. This is why some portions of the reserved lot are seen as empty. I estimate the part time parkers have about 50-70 empty spaces per day.

Part time parkers are not the only cause of empy spaces. In my case for June, I have about 10 business days where I am out of town. Should I buy a reserved spot for June or not? If I don;t take a reserved spot, then for 12 days I have to either drive to downtown or take the bus because all the free parking locations are taken up by the time I arrive at Crowfoot about 7:40am. For me, I am inclined to pay the $70 reserved spot rather than pay to park down town ($17/day). Note my employer pays for the monthly transit pass.

I don't believe CT is needless creating new reserved parking spaces or has a hidden agenda. Rather, the market for reserved spaces is being taken up by nontraditional customers (people who are part time parkers).

[DarkKeyo]

According to the Calgary Transit website, we will see the new Real Time Destination Signs, as well as new announcements, in July. I look forward to it.

[freeweed]

Originally Posted by Cage

I don't believe CT is needless creating new reserved parking spaces or has a hidden agenda. Rather, the market for reserved spaces is being taken up by nontraditional customers (people who are part time parkers).

By definition, that's needless use of parking space. By design, these people will only use their allotted space "some of the time". I'm not sure exactly what a good balance is, but if CT knows that some spots are always empty, perhaps they should oversell the reserved spots by a small amount.

Seeing all that asphalt sit empty all day long is infuriating. Imagine if we had surface parking lots downtown that looked like this (hey, not everyone parks downtown every day too). People here would be up in arms about the waste of space.

I'm with you on the paying for your spot when you're out of town for a while. I still continue to buy a monthly pass even if I'm on vacation half the month - the convenience far outweighs the few dollars I'd be saving otherwise.

[Bassic Lab]

Originally Posted by freeweed

By definition, that's needless use of parking space. By design, these people will only use their allotted space "some of the time". I'm not sure exactly what a good balance is, but if CT knows that some spots are always empty, perhaps they should oversell the reserved spots by a small amount.

Seeing all that asphalt sit empty all day long is infuriating. Imagine if we had surface parking lots downtown that looked like this (hey, not everyone parks downtown every day too). People here would be up in arms about the waste of space.

I'm with you on the paying for your spot when you're out of town for a while. I still continue to buy a monthly pass even if I'm on vacation half the month - the convenience far outweighs the few dollars I'd be saving otherwise.

That is why the daily parking fee was so much better. It could be set to achieve the most efficient use of the limited resource that is parking stalls. The entire reserved spaces plan shows that we don't want to return to the old system where the resource was allocated based on first come first serve. Which benefitted those who start work earlier or don't care about waking up early pointlessly. So instead of that, we now have the worst of both worlds with some spots first come first serve and some under utilized by people that only occasionally need it but are willing to pay anyway. It is completely inefficient.

I really wish that Nenshi had realized the error of his promise and let it be his "scrap the GST" moment.

[freeweed]

Or.... *gasp* - we could just go back to how we had it before. Which was Nenshi's actual promise. I don't recall so many people having such an issue with the lots back then, it was purely a cash grab to bring in the fee in the first place.

I honestly believe that the original fee introduction is what's made people scramble for spots. I used to occasionally use the PnR lots before there was a fee, and I never once had a problem getting a spot as late as 10am. I may have had to drive down the street a bit to the next station, but no problem actually parking.

[kw5150]

I knew the reserved spot were a bad idea.......fail. These spots should be at the back of the lot. And when they dont fill up by a certain time......they should be fair game!! I knew this wouldn't help the common person parking everyday........just the people willing to fork out money as usual...

Why dont we make a way to donate to transit every month if you use the free train line. Or have a yearly pass for 50 bucks to ride the inner city line....... god, i would pay it.

[freeweed]

Originally Posted by kw5150

And when they dont fill up by a certain time......they should be fair game!!

They are, after 10am. Which could handle a lot of the "casual/late" parking crowd if they just changed this to say 9am.

I knew this wouldn't help the common person parking everyday........just the people willing to fork out money as usual...

This is exactly it. Anyone with money to burn, that wants to go to work precisely between 7 and 10 gets a spot. Everyone else has to fight it out.

[Cage]

Originally Posted by freeweed

This is exactly it. Anyone with money to burn, that wants to go to work precisely between 7 and 10 gets a spot. Everyone else has to fight it out.

Freeweed and KW5150, TANSTAAFL

The reserved parkering crowd made an economic decision and that's it. They wanted a reserved space and CT saw the economic opportunity and took it. I say "way to go CT!!!" for showing a business oriented profit motive.

I appreciate that you guys want a free lunch, however there are 300+ people at Crowfoot that are willing to buy that lunch. This is just pure supply and demand economics at work.

[DizzyEdge]

A lot of this conversation reminds me of this:

http://www.thefreemanonline.org/featured/scarcity-parking-and-the-price-system/

[You Need A Thneed]

Whitehorn Station Renovation progress photos from this morning:

[freeweed]

Originally Posted by Cage

Freeweed and KW5150, TANSTAAFL

The reserved parkering crowd made an economic decision and that's it. They wanted a reserved space and CT saw the economic opportunity and took it. I say "way to go CT!!!" for showing a business oriented profit motive.

I appreciate that you guys want a free lunch, however there are 300+ people at Crowfoot that are willing to buy that lunch. This is just pure supply and demand economics at work.

I think you completely misunderstand me. I'm not a frequent PnR user and never will be. If I chose to, I could afford a reserved spot without batting an eye. I'm not looking for a free lunch, I'm looking for the best utilization of our public resources.

I'm generally against is taking public infrastructure and applying "pure supply and demand economics" to it. Not only does that defeat the purpose of it being *public*, but it actively discourages some from using it. I was against the original PnR fee from day one because it discourages transit use. Plenty of people reverted to driving to work once it came in.

And think about it - you could apply the "supply and demand" argument to the feeder buses too. Why shouldn't I pay more as a transit user when I take a feeder bus, vs. a person who can walk to the LRT station? Also, for feeder buses with less demand, we could save money by completely eliminating them. The counter-argument is that having the feeder buses available encourages transit use, which is kinda the entire point of a mass transit system. Not just to make it cozier for those that can afford it.

Here's another one - would you support a higher fare train if you were guaranteed a seat? Say every 2nd or 3rd train was a "1st class" car, where standing was not allowed? I know damned well that plenty of Calgarians would pay for this, not getting a seat is one of the major complaints about the C-Train. Sure, there would be a ton of wasted capacity on these trains, just like there are in the PnR lots today, but people paid for it so it's OK, right? It's just supply and demand, after all. Hell, from a pure economics perspective you could double the cost of a transit fare/pass and most folks who park at Crowfoot could easily afford it. But does that make it right?

CT saw an easy cash grab with a captive audience and took it. It amazes me that people think this is a good thing, but from a purely selfish perspective I can see how it works out well for specific individuals. However I have a hard time believing that 50% of LRT riders in the NW need a reserved spot. It's not like thousands of people weren't taking the LRT before the fees came in. They're only paying it because they're worried about not getting a spot.

[reflexzero]

Originally Posted by DarkKeyo

According to the Calgary Transit website, we will see the new Real Time Destination Signs, as well as new announcements, in July. I look forward to it.

Well it would be nice for the annunciator to mention the name of the desitnation when the train arrives, not as it is about to depart the station.

[freeweed]

Originally Posted by reflexzero

Well it would be nice for the annunciator to mention the name of the desitnation when the train arrives, not as it is about to depart the station.

The newer 7th Ave stations used to do this.

[suburb]

Originally Posted by Cage

Freeweed and KW5150, TANSTAAFL

The reserved parkering crowd made an economic decision and that's it. They wanted a reserved space and CT saw the economic opportunity and took it. I say "way to go CT!!!" for showing a business oriented profit motive.

Agree completely. A hybrid 'smart solution' that moved us away from us versus them politics.

Originally Posted by Cage

I appreciate that you guys want a free lunch, however there are 300+ people at Crowfoot that are willing to buy that lunch. This is just pure supply and demand economics at work.

Yeah - stop using my wireless Internet, you leaches! And get a job!

Edit - sorry, he's looking for "free weed" and not "free lunch".