Calgary Public Transit II

[Radley77]

Originally Posted by freeweed

Well, it's mostly because the costs involved are significant. It makes sense to differentiate a $500 airfare from a $200 airfare - that's the kind of cost difference that will most certainly change behaviour.

Very small charges rarely have cost differentiation, because it's just not worth the effort (and really, no one cares). Look at concerts - sure, U2 have different price categories. They're charging $50-100-200+ per seat depending on where you sit and other potential perks. But a general show that takes $5 at the door in a local pub? They could have a $3 ticket for people who only watch the opening act or something. Yet no one bothers because it just ain't worth it.

I think implementation would add a potential revenue stream and could be as inexpensive as simply selling a booklet of offpeak passes. Since the current system is honour system, if an officer was asked to produce a ticket, would only have to show the ticket with a time stamp which is the current practice with regular fare passes.

The thing about public transit is it isn't the only service in the city competing for transportation users. And in order for it to be compelling it has to be able to offer the service at a cost that reflects the cost to service that user. I just see more value in using the public transit system to it's full potential, and the current fare structure is cutting out potential revenue generating users.

If ridership was to increase by 5% due to implementation, it could increase revenue by ~$5 million per year, and over a ten year period perhaps save $50 million. This is monies that could be reinvested into improving the transit system.

[freeweed]

Originally Posted by Radley77

I think implementation would add a potential revenue stream and could be as inexpensive as simply selling a booklet of offpeak passes.

Yeah, this like the cheap weekend day pass makes sense. Although you'd get into "interesting" fare enforcement discussions like "honestly officer, my watch said it was before 3pm when I stamped the ticket" and the like.

If ridership was to increase by 5% due to implementation, it could increase revenue by ~$5 million per year, and over a ten year period perhaps save $50 million. This is monies that could be reinvested into improving the transit system.

Sure, but 5% seems pretty optimistic to me. Calgary's transit is already heavily used daily by tens if not hundreds of thousands of people (someone here is sure to have the exact numbers). Other than anecdotally, I find it a bit hard to believe there are thousands of Calgarians sitting around using taxis and driving places only because the bus "should be a buck cheaper in the middle of the day".

It's one of those things where you'd almost want to do a pilot and see what the results are. Maybe I'm completely wrong on this.

[MalcolmTucker]

An issue with incentivizing off peak use is, if you ever need to increase service in off peak due to the incentives, especially on buses, you will be subsidizing all those trips even more. Toronto has this problem big time as usage grows a fair amount of it is on buses, which don't come even close to covering their operating costs. Add to the top of that that to get the ridership needle to move, you likely have to change costs significantly.

You have to be really disciplined to not fall into a downward spiral.

[Radley77]

Originally Posted by MalcolmTucker

An issue with incentivizing off peak use is, if you ever need to increase service in off peak due to the incentives, especially on buses, you will be subsidizing all those trips even more. Toronto has this problem big time as usage grows a fair amount of it is on buses, which don't come even close to covering their operating costs. Add to the top of that that to get the ridership needle to move, you likely have to change costs significantly.

You have to be really disciplined to not fall into a downward spiral.

I agree that you would have to be disciplined about monitoring this. Once a part of the system starts approaching it's operational capacity, it should be generating a profit and average fare would have to be greater thatn the average cost per passenger.

I'd also be curious how sensitive the system would be to implementation of price differentiated pricing. Like you mentioned it could take a lot for the needle to move. It takes me about 10 minutes less time to get to work than bike, plus transit fare is $2.75... Public transit would have to pay me before I found it compelling on a daily basis, but there are probably some people out there where this kind of shift would make it so that it could increase ridership and revenue. Students in particular may fit into a niche that would benefit from this, it's all about fitting into the troughs between the peak demand periods so that one can increase revenue, without incurring extra costs.

I'd be interested in an online survey or telephone survey to see how much potential users are out there.

[MalcolmTucker]

Once a part of the system starts approaching it's operational capacity, it should be generating a profit and average fare would have to be greater thatn the average cost per passenger.

Except on buses. The average bus trip costs double the fare revenue (in 2006, the last year CT broke out its LRT operating costs in an easy to find way that I have seen). I doubt there is a single route on the system that has enough traffic for more than peak time break even. On the other hand, LRT is always generating surplus.

[sim]

Originally Posted by freeweed

Again - this is an improvement to our existing service *how* exactly?

Not picking on you but your description outlines exactly why I'm so mystified by people asking for this. Why complicate things needlessly? I'm seriously having a hard time figuring out why we want to overhaul an entire transit system just because a small minority would take the train if it was 50 cents cheaper to go a shorter distance.

Tap-on when boarding a bus makes sense, it's as quick or quicker than showing the driver/inserting payment into the hopper. But this convoluted tracking where suddenly we have to include the LRT, and make sure everyone taps out as well.. no thanks. It's bad enough running to try to make a train or bus transfer as it is, never mind having to remember every single 🞵🞵🞵🞵🞵🞵 time to tap a card somewhere.

My response was a general one to that of UofC Engineer, as I believe his was a general question. In the case of systems that implement graduated fares, that is how they incentivize people to tap out again.

I'd have to agree that adding gates and such for the Ctrain is not a good idea. Too much retrofitting and upgrading, and there is no gaurantee that fare evasion will fall, as cases have shown, and if it does, it doesn't fall by much.

However, as I've previously stated, I don't think that graduated or at least further differential fares is something that CT should necessarily shy away from. It might have to be done in a uniquely Calgary way, as the system is already so oriented to serve commuters that it could prove tricky. There just isn't much reason for a majority of riders to be going from origins to destinations that don't include downtown. The few activity nodes that we do have are still relatively "inactive." Again, and like all things Calgary, any real overhaul to the fare pricing scheme would have to come in conjunction with land-use change.

Which sort of leads me into this point or the general point about revenue negative bus trips:

Originally Posted by MalcolmTucker

An issue with incentivizing off peak use is, if you ever need to increase service in off peak due to the incentives, especially on buses, you will be subsidizing all those trips even more. Toronto has this problem big time as usage grows a fair amount of it is on buses, which don't come even close to covering their operating costs. Add to the top of that that to get the ridership needle to move, you likely have to change costs significantly.

You have to be really disciplined to not fall into a downward spiral.

I guess in the end it somewhat comes down to what the objective of CT is. Whether, they are trying to run a system that maximizes revenue or whether they are trying to incentivize a different mobile behaviour, which may in the long term, lead to better utilization and thus, higher revenue margins. And like much like that spiral it's sort of a hen and egg thing.


Lastly, I think it is fully fair to at some point introduce graduated fares. I think you are potentially underestimating the demand elasticity a fare drop might have. It may only be a dollar per trip, or even a day, but in a monthly zonal pass system for example, 10 to 20 dollars a month starts to look like something. Perhaps not much, but the perception of "getting what you pay for" and "equality" is also not to be underestimated. I can tell you that I for one sure would have looked at the Ctrain differently in my UofC days from Dalhousie to Brentwood had I had to pay the full fare or full pass. Luckily, herein exists a differential fare (that many a student makes use of,) and one that has potentially pretty large behavioural changes attached to it.

Now it is more or less impossible for anyone to really predict what would happen in Calgary if some sort of zonal faring were to be implemented without it actually being implemented and observed, potentially over a long period of time. However, as peak hour commuters are shown to have the lowest elasticity with price change, I personally am under the thinking that it might not be the worst idea - ie, affect revenues negatively due to lower ridership. The opposite perhaps. Of course, it is more complicated than that.

Lastly, whether it were to ever appear in Calgary or not, I still have trouble believing that such a thing is just too complicated and will discourage people from public trans.

[MalcolmTucker]

I can tell you that I for one sure would have looked at the Ctrain differently in my UofC days from Dalhousie to Brentwood had I had to pay the full fare or full pass. Luckily, herein exists a differential fare (that many a student makes use of,) and one that has potentially pretty large behavioural changes attached to it.

The differential fare is only percieved by the user, not by Calgary Transit, as the UPASS is calculated based on utilization rates then applied to the wider campus community. It is a pure subsidy from non-transit user university students to transit users. The effect of system revenue is designed to be minimal.

You would have to raise rates higher at another time to accomadate any different changes, plus apply congestion charges whenever a portion of the line became too busy to accept new users. It would need to be incredibly complicated for the changes to be economically efficient, which would in and of itself be a disincentive to transit use. Would you use transit everyday if the fares were different in response to demand?

[Radley77]

I like the idea of running a pilot. Some of the studies I have read have noted that the cost of transit service has run higher than inflation due to not implementing differential fares as public gradually takes longer and longer trips. Reason being that the most compelling kinds of trips are long trips and this would accelerate raising fares, which in turn causes short trippers to discontinue using public transit in favour of other options.

During the past couple years in Calgary fares went from $75 to $90, a 20% increase when inflation was much less. Increases like that are going to cause reductions in use by short trippers as above stated. I was looking at the most recent ridership reports and ridership in Calgary is down for the past couple years, the only other time this happened since 1995, was during the transit strike. I question how sustainable a flat fare is.

[ByeByeBaby]

Originally Posted by Radley77

If ridership was to increase by 5% due to implementation, it could increase revenue by ~$5 million per year, and over a ten year period perhaps save $50 million. This is monies that could be reinvested into improving the transit system.

So (as a hypothetical situation), CT makes short trips $1.00 instead of $2.50. Ridership overall goes up by 5%, 5 million riders a year. That's consistent with your $5 million a year.

But, of course, there are already people making these short trips; let's guess 10% of transit trips, so around 10 million riders a year, who are totally willing to pay the $2.50. So CT hands these guys back $1.50 per ride, which costs them $15 million a year, for a net loss of $10 million, or $100 million over ten years. This is money that can be raised by cutting the transit system.

The change in transit ridership with respect to a change in price (actually the change in anything with respect to a change in price) is called elasticity. Litman has a good summary of transit elasticities here, for the nerds. Transit has an elasticity of around -0.3 in the short run and -0.7 in the long run (5 years+). In other words, a 10% cut in fares would increase ridership by 3% in the short run, and 7% in the long run. In other other words, in normal situations, you can't make more money for transit by cutting transit fares. (You would need an elasticity larger than -1.0 to make this happen.)

Transit is already cheaper than driving in most cases. Yet it's around 5% of trips, with car something around 85%. Cutting transit fares has limited effect in making it more attractive relative to auto; it would make it more attractive than walking and cycling, but I don't see a big gain from reducing the use of non-congesting, zero-emission modes. Other than it being personally more convenient for you. (And for me, for what that's worth.)

[sim]

Originally Posted by MalcolmTucker

The differential fare is only percieved by the user, not by Calgary Transit, as the UPASS is calculated based on utilization rates then applied to the wider campus community. It is a pure subsidy from non-transit user university students to transit users. The effect of system revenue is designed to be minimal.

I was looking at it from only from the perspective of what is presented to the customer and not where or how it is funded. Indeed, the non-utilization by many pass holders can subsidize the utilization of the rest. However, looking at it from this angle only, it would then mean that for ever increasing utilization, the Upass price would also have to keep increasing right back to the point of being the same as a regular pass. Does that necessassarily make sense? Of course you can argue that that is actually a perfect self-regulating system - as the Upass price goes up, less people would then make use of it, resulting in the price not going up. However, I largely think that misses the point of public transit, especially when regarding the student population.

You would have to raise rates higher at another time to accomadate any different changes, plus apply congestion charges whenever a portion of the line became too busy to accept new users. It would need to be incredibly complicated for the changes to be economically efficient, which would in and of itself be a disincentive to transit use. Would you use transit everyday if the fares were different in response to demand?

I'm not sure if I'm understanding you here, but I would be suggesting that prices get raised for users in outlying areas, whereas slightly lowered for those nearer to the inner city. I'm not suggesting some sort of continuously dynamic fare pricing scheme based on changing demands. Induced demand would have to be somewhat predicted, but then obviously acting on that prediction changes the demand that would be induced. Ah, the overarching challenge of transport planning.

I think we are looking at it from two different angles. The economic and the overall mobility. However, the system as is isn't economically efficient anyway so I shy away from focusing on that.

[MalcolmTucker]

I would be suggesting that prices get raised for users in outlying areas, whereas slightly lowered for those nearer to the inner city.

But why? If you assume passengers travelling by bus for a portion of a trip to LRTor exclusively by bus is mostly uniform throughout the city, the actual difference in cost to the system is likely less than 25 cents in operating costs from the lowest trip.

For the change to actually increase mobility you have to assume that a 3-7% increase of short trips will induce more passenger route kms than a 3-7% decrease of long trips will reduce them. (you need to offset the cost of this subsidy to short trips somewhere.

If you really want to decrease fares for simple trips: eliminate free transfers for cash fares, and set the cash fare at a level which reflects the change. You get the benefits of a simple fare model, and with smart cards you avoid most of the costs. Of course, you'll induce some weird behaviours with people taking suboptimal trips on long routes unless they are eliminated first, and you will punish people that by necesscity take a bus-lrt-bus commute to casual or part time employment, possibly inducing people to quit their employment.

In the end, none of the proposals I think make the system better. Today only LRT-LRT trips are unsubsidized by the taxpayers (operational cost only), but you have to remember the public paid dearly to enable LRT users to cost the system so little on an ongoing basis. So is it fair to pass additional costs to taxpayers or incent long trips to leave the system to enable short trips to take precedence? I don't think it is any more fair than what we have now, and the evidence is sorely lacking that mobility would increase.

I was looking at it from only from the perspective of what is presented to the customer and not where or how it is funded. Indeed, the non-utilization by many pass holders can subsidize the utilization of the rest. However, looking at it from this angle only, it would then mean that for ever increasing utilization, the Upass price would also have to keep increasing right back to the point of being the same as a regular pass. Does that necessassarily make sense? Of course you can argue that that is actually a perfect self-regulating system - as the Upass price goes up, less people would then make use of it, resulting in the price not going up. However, I largely think that misses the point of public transit, especially when regarding the student population.

Since the UPass fee schedule has to be approved by referendum every couple of years, eventually it won't be passed since the cost will be big enough to cause opposition. This has happened at UOttawa where opposition is so strong there is even a lawsuit to fight for the right to opt out. We will see whether students approve making their pilot project permenant starting at $350 a year. I doubt it.

[freeweed]

Originally Posted by ByeByeBaby

Transit is already cheaper than driving in most cases. Yet it's around 5% of trips, with car something around 85%. Cutting transit fares has limited effect in making it more attractive relative to auto; it would make it more attractive than walking and cycling, but I don't see a big gain from reducing the use of non-congesting, zero-emission modes. Other than it being personally more convenient for you. (And for me, for what that's worth.)

Got it in one. And considering the climate here, the walking/cycling vs transit option is really only a discussion point for maybe half the year. I seriously have a hard time believing there are hordes of people who look out their window in January and say "damn, if transit was only $1 cheaper I'd use it, but screw that, I'm gonna walk in -20".

Someone mentioned Dalhousie and Brentwood for a university student. These stations are 3 or 4 km apart. Again, I have an extremely hard time believing students would decide to walk that twice a day if their transit pass was $20 more (or whatever the Upass savings is).

A lower fare for short trips would encourage a few uses on the LRT - I've often been downtown and wished the free fare zone extended to Stampede or Kensington. In the very rare months I've not had a pass, I've once or twice thought "🞵🞵🞵🞵, $2.50 to go a few blocks? I'll walk instead". So sure, there's definitely a use there. But I have a very hard time believing it's anything other than a small fraction of cases in a city like Calgary. Certainly not enough to justify re-structuring the system, at least the way the city is right now.

I think we'll see distance-based fares once we really get far-flung transit service integrated into the current system. Like out to Cochrane or Okotoks or things like that.

[Radley77]

I was looking at some more of the ridership stats against fare data in real terms. In the last decade, motorbus use has increased by 6%, whereas LRT use has increased by 85%. Also, fares during that period increased in real terms by 40%. Population has grown by 27% over this last decade as well.

To me it looks like Calgary is increasingly becoming a city that is dominated by the LRT system. My understanding is that LRT is seeing some of the higher amounts of transitions from flat fare to differentiated fare. Freeweed might be right it could be not until out to Cochrane or Okotoks. I personally have preferred travelling on public cities like Portland, or Brisbane where they have some sort of differentiated fare system.

[freeweed]

Originally Posted by Radley77

To me it looks like Calgary is increasingly becoming a city that is dominated by the LRT system. My understanding is that LRT is seeing some of the higher amounts of transitions from flat fare to differentiated fare. Freeweed might be right it could be not until out to Cochrane or Okotoks. I personally have preferred travelling on public cities like Portland, or Brisbane where they have some sort of differentiated fare system.

It's very true. With the WLRT and hopefully within our lifetimes the SE and NC lines, this city will be insanely LRT-centric.

My understanding is that the majority of LRT lines in North America are "honour system" payment - how would differentiated fares even work on something like that? Maybe I'm mistaken here but I thought I read that statistic somewhere very recently.

[AgentGibb]

Calgary already has differential fares. There are two zones. There's the $0 fare zone on the 7th Avenue C-Train, and the $2.75 fare zone for everywhere else. This is completely reflective of how the Calgary Transit network is designed to be used -- either for trips into or out of downtown (non-free) or for short trips within downtown (free).

To me, the biggest factor that limits transit ridership has nothing to do with cost (as many others have said, transit is already much cheaper than driving for the most part) and has everything to do with the design of the network. Unless one endpoint of your trip happens to be either a) downtown or b) a C-Train station then the Calgary Transit network is horribly inefficient for you.

I get that taking transit will almost always come at some sort of travel time penalty. I'm totally willing to pay *some* time penalty if it means I can be productive during that time (even if "productive" means reading a book). The problem is that for most "crosstown" trips it comes at a *massive* time penalty.

As an illustration:

I work outside of the downtown core (in a business park near Deerfoot Mall in the NE). It's not an exceptionally large business park, but my company has hundreds of employees, and there are more than ten others around that are at least as big, so there are easily "thousands" of people working in the area. There's also a shopping center (Deerfoot Mall) within walking distance, so between those two factors I'd think that the area would probably qualify as a sort of "activity node" for transit purposes (though admittedly probably not a major one).

From my house in the NW, it takes me about 20min to drive to work during peak time (this is consistent with the google maps estimate). If we say I'm not allowed to use freeways, this becomes 25min.

If I want to arrive at 9am, the best Calgary transit can do is 90min with three transfers. It gets as bad as 120min at other times of the day.

Amusingly, google thinks I can do the same trip by bike in just under an hour (not really practical for a variety of reasons, including winter as noted above).

Probably unsurprisingly, virtually everyone who works in the area drives to work.

If you want to increase transit ridership, never mind reducing the cost (an area where it's already competitive with the alternatives for the most part), focus on giving me a trip solution that isn't 4-5 times as long as it takes to drive the same.

I understand that the largest chunk of people work downtown in this city, but surely we can do a little better than having the transit system be nearly useless for everyone else.

[sim]

Originally Posted by MalcolmTucker

But why? If you assume passengers travelling by bus for a portion of a trip to LRTor exclusively by bus is mostly uniform throughout the city, the actual difference in cost to the system is likely less than 25 cents in operating costs from the lowest trip.

I'm also speaking to the fair capital cost recovery distribution. It costs money to build the LRT further and further out. If the catchment volume in the NW were to be the same from say Banff Trail or University, as opposed to all the way to Crowfoot, you'd be getting a much better bang for your buck. However, not the case. I know you didn't really mention it again here but you've stated before not to punish long distance riders, but then so too should short distance riders not be punished.

For the change to actually increase mobility you have to assume that a 3-7% increase of short trips will induce more passenger route kms than a 3-7% decrease of long trips will reduce them. (you need to offset the cost of this subsidy to short trips somewhere.

Yes if you are using passenger kms as a mobility indicator. I'm not sure that is comprehensive enough. I'm not quite sure though what you mean by this, because why does an induced amount of short trips need to have any affect on long trips? Also, in the case of Calgary, most long trips are commuter trips anyway, and that at peak hours. A price increase changes their behavour the least of all commuters, unless it is drastic.

In the end, none of the proposals I think make the system better. Today only LRT-LRT trips are unsubsidized by the taxpayers (operational cost only), but you have to remember the public paid dearly to enable LRT users to cost the system so little on an ongoing basis. So is it fair to pass additional costs to taxpayers or incent long trips to leave the system to enable short trips to take precedence? I don't think it is any more fair than what we have now, and the evidence is sorely lacking that mobility would increase.

Well those trips are only unsubsidized if we look at the LRT as a single entity. The feeder system undoubtedly contributes to a much higher LRT ridership, which obviously brings down average costs. However, I'm sure you know that and probably have a much better idea of the actual distribution than I do and we're kind of speaking to the same thing anyway. I do think it needs to be regarded as one system though. I'm not explicitly saying that long trips should be dis-incentivized, because I'm talking about fare changes that are fairly moderate. If a user deems it to be too pricey (again, the average such person being a peak hour commuter) they may just try their luck with driving again, but as long as parking rates stay high and congestion exists, it doesn't yet look like a better option. As far as evidence goes, I can't point to any specific case, because I'll have to admit I'm simply regurgitating some pretty credible literature in this case that it does.

In the end, my main point is that Calgary, although a relatively small system in ridership (relative to the world, so no need for the well known NA Monterry blah blah statistic) it is actually already relatively large in how far it reaches geographically. As a quick comparative, from the center of Munich to Allianz Arena which is about 10 km (interesting in itself when comparing center to outskirts of the two) already lies within 4 zones. Of course there are differences, but it is only the natural progression of a fully encompassing transit system. Again, not saying it is ideal to implement in Calgary, just that it is not something to write off.

Since the UPass fee schedule has to be approved by referendum every couple of years, eventually it won't be passed since the cost will be big enough to cause opposition. This has happened at UOttawa where opposition is so strong there is even a lawsuit to fight for the right to opt out. We will see whether students approve making their pilot project permenant starting at $350 a year. I doubt it.

That is indeed interesting.

Originally Posted by freeweed

Someone mentioned Dalhousie and Brentwood for a university student. These stations are 3 or 4 km apart. Again, I have an extremely hard time believing students would decide to walk that twice a day if their transit pass was $20 more (or whatever the Upass savings is).

This would have been me. Indeed it is hard to know how I would have behaved differently as the situation never actually arose. It may have meant that my housing choice - and that of many others might have been different. And that, in all of this is exactly what I'm trying to get at, even with the points above. Long term impacts. I also lived in Capitol Hill for some of my Uni time. Rarely took the train as I used my bike. Now aside from the fact that the Uni station isn't what I would super convenient and added as further dissuation, I would take the train on 🞵🞵🞵🞵 wheather days. That option is something that should be left to the user without ridiculous fees (were I not to have a UPass) and that is at least one part moreso of what I mean by enhanced mobility. I do agree, the few times that it might happen people might pay or they may suffer through a super wet or cold ride or walk - so therein I ask, why should then the short trip rider get punished?

Originally Posted by freeweed

A lower fare for short trips would encourage a few uses on the LRT - I've often been downtown and wished the free fare zone extended to Stampede or Kensington. In the very rare months I've not had a pass, I've once or twice thought "🞵🞵🞵🞵, $2.50 to go a few blocks? I'll walk instead". So sure, there's definitely a use there. But I have a very hard time believing it's anything other than a small fraction of cases in a city like Calgary. Certainly not enough to justify re-structuring the system, at least the way the city is right now.

I'd probably have to agree here, but that is precisely why focus does need to be changed. I'm speaking more to land use here, but again, it may have to come in conjunction with transportation pricing aspects, however that may be accomplished.

Originally Posted by freeweed

My understanding is that the majority of LRT lines in North America are "honour system" payment - how would differentiated fares even work on something like that? Maybe I'm mistaken here but I thought I read that statistic somewhere very recently.

With a zonal system, in the exact same regard. Spot checks on the train. Happens all over. With a sectional/distance based graduated fare system, what comes to mind is spot checking at station exits. People would be required to tap in at the station they get on at, and tap out at the one they disembark at and immediately therafter, spot checks could be done. Feel free to poke holes in that idea, as there was only a bit of thought put into it, but it may have a possibility of working.

Originally Posted by AgentGibb

If you want to increase transit ridership, never mind reducing the cost (an area where it's already competitive with the alternatives for the most part), focus on giving me a trip solution that isn't 4-5 times as long as it takes to drive the same.

Um, a moratorium on any new greenfield development for 40 years?? Obviously tongue in cheek and not overly realistic, but the key words being increase density. Vastly.

[MalcolmTucker]

In regards to your last point, a restriction of greenfield can work without much higher costs if, and it is really hard to do, if you remove restrictions on higher density and allow the market to work.

Unfortunately both usually don't go hand in hand, as can be seen in Portland, where even with poor economic conditions housing is still way above USA averages.

[Radley77]

Kinda offtopic, but wasn't sure who had read about the increases coming to the CBE public school system and removal of the family cap:

http://calgary.ctv.ca/servlet/an/local/C...g_hikes_110607/20110608/?hub=CalgaryHome

Kindergarten – will rise to $21.50/month from $20/month
Elementary – will rise to $29.50/month from $20/month
Junior High/Charter – will rise to $33.50/month from $20/month
High School – will rise to $39.25/month from $35.75
Eligible Special Needs High School – will rise to $29.50/month from $20/month

Some of the increases were up to 67% (worst for JH students). A symptom of baby boomers aging and the kids moving out of established communities?

[DarkKeyo]

Originally Posted by freeweed

On another topic.. the electronic signs are up (but not working) at Crowfoot. I have to comment CT here - I figured they'd only be on the platform itself but they've installed one right within the station. This will be a godsend on those cold winter mornings when the train is delayed. I assume other heated stations are getting them as well. Brilliant idea.

Since I prefer this topic to overly complex, convoluted payment stuff, and I haven't noticed any answers to it...

Crowfoot is the only one, as far as I know; and that would be because "inside the station" covers the middle half of the platform. It is a very good idea, but only happens because of the unique design of Crowfoot. I would certainly appreciate one inside at Dalhousie, Brentwood, or one of the south stations like Heritage and Chinook that I often use.

Signs have been appearing over the last week, starting at the stampede stations and at probably 2/3 of them now, and are supposed to be working for stampede. I think they look quite nice (the garbage bags have been pulled off of some of them), although it's weird comparing them to other places, because I could reach out and touch them (they can't be more than 7 feet up, if that)

The new signs inside the trains are quite nice too, when working.

[mersar]

Yep. Theres 80 or so of the new signs, and they are up at most of the stations and wired in at some of the others. Some stations have 4 signs, but most just have 2 right now. Dalhousie is one of the ones with 4, and will probably be a model of where they will be installed at other similar style stations, with the second set of signs going roughly at the 75m point from the end, so I'd expect to see the second set added to most stations as the platform extensions are completed.