Calgary Public Transit II

[freeweed]

Originally Posted by Radley77

There are other far reaching benefits of a differentiated system that would encourage better use of TOD's, as well as having prices that are reflective of energy costs and therefore more sustainable. The last point is that since the suburbs have greater per capita household income than inner city, that the currently policy is actually regressive. A differentiated system that is equally accomodating in that it doesn't punish one type of rider at the expense of another type of rider, instead it makes the service available to everyone.

Interestingly enough, because most transit revenue is derived from taxes (property and income), those same suburban folks you mention are *already* paying more for transit. Which makes it progressive by design.

Imagine if Air Canada was to suddenly move to a flat fare system across Canada. On day one, they just take the average of all fare prices. The next day people who take short trips (say Calgary to Edmonton) would stop using the service because other alternatives are available. The next day, operational costs rise and Air Canada has to increase the fares. This causes other people who take short trips to discontinue using the service. Eventually the only feasible route for the airline company is the Vancouver to Toronto. i.e. long distances with most users.

This is all fine and dandy if we run Transit as if it were a commercial business (ie: streetcar companies 100 years ago). Problem is, it's not. It's a public good funded by taxpayers. If you want to turn Transit into Air Canada, fine by me - but incidentally, we'll be cutting those under-utilized routes next week. Oh, and that poorer part of town? Sorry, it no longer gets bus service on weekends. Not enough ridership.

We had that before, and then government stepped in and took over. For a damned good reason. Running Transit as a for-profit operation is both stupid and harmful to those who need it most.

[MalcolmTucker]

Originally Posted by Radley77

I agree with Malcolm's comments that peak users should have to pay the same cost if they are passing through a bottle neck.

However, I think that reduced fares could be used in contraflow modes, or also at the end of the lines where there is still ample capacity, even when the system is fully burdened.

There is more capital costs required to expand capacity and there are even more capital costs required to expand capacity and add length.

To really get the most out of the system, could have it so that one taps in and taps out and has to pay based on the travel route and time of day.

There are other far reaching benefits of a differentiated system that would encourage better use of TOD's, as well as having prices that are reflective of energy costs and therefore more sustainable. The last point is that since the suburbs have greater per capita household income than inner city, that the currently policy is actually regressive. A differentiated system that is equally accomodating in that it doesn't punish one type of rider at the expense of another type of rider, instead it makes the service available to everyone based on being a reflection of costs.

Imagine if Air Canada was to suddenly move to a flat fare system across Canada. On day one, they just take the average of all fare prices. The next day people who take short trips (say Calgary to Edmonton) would stop using the service because other alternatives are available. The next day, operational costs rise and Air Canada has to increase the fares. This causes other people who take short trips to discontinue using the service. Eventually the only feasible route for the airline company is the Vancouver to Toronto. i.e. long distances with most users.

If Calgary Transit wants to offer exceptional service, then it must look at fare differentiation.

The other aspect I think that the public transit system is missing out on that you could also offer some premium services at a higher fare as well. Say crosstown BRT's, etc....

The bolded part assumes trips make profits. They do not. Only LRT only trips do.

[5seconds]

Originally Posted by freeweed

Seriously, people arguing for what are in effect user fees for a taxpayer-funded public service, on this forum?? Wow.

What happens if we make public transit entirely free (as in, no fare at the time of use)? Seriously, what does that do to our model?

Since it's already subsidised, why not take that to it's logical end, and have it 100% subsidised by taxes, (Paid for by reducing our spend on other things like road building)

(I'm not actually suggesting we do this, but I am interested in what the outcome of such an experiment would be? Would the system become so popular that it would cost far too much to run? Or would the efficencies lower it's cost, and the money could be made up with reductions in other spending?)

(Or are the current subsidies low enough that this would be too massive a shift in funding for our system to bear?)

[fusili]

I agree with the points above. But because Calgary Transit seems to work on the model or trying to alleviate congestion more than anything (why expand when we are at capacity other than to reduce the marginal benefit of a driver taking transit from the suburbs rather than the inner city?), this results in a situation where those living more inner city are shafted because their costs of driving are less than the costs of someone in Cranston (the point Malcolm Tucker made). But that creates a situation where the location advantages of living inner city (i.e. good transit) are eroded, because you just can't get on the train.

[Radley77]

Originally Posted by MalcolmTucker

If you believe cost will change behaviour on transit you should also believe cost would change behaviour on traffic. The major cost in traffic is time. Adding a marginal traffic user can have a severe detrimental effect on traffic, slowing down everyone by a massively disproportional amount compared to the effect of an average traffic user.

The marginal transit user presents a burden when the system is near capacity for sure (slower boardering times mostly) but the effect on average users is very small. The effect is no where near the effect of a marginal user on traffic.

This creates a huge price mismatch that economics can help solve. If a road user (all examples during congestion) will cause a cost over 10 kilometers, or a road user will cause a cost over 2, which one will create the most cost (a negative externality)? The 10 kilometer user.

Now think of transit users outside of traffic, taking the same trips. The main point of congestion is boarding, and the user's externality on boarding is only applied once, no matter how long the trip. At the point of new users not being able to board the train, only those new users suffer, not everyone already on the train. While the cost to the user left behind is high, the average cost across users is much lower compared to congestion in a traffic system. The longer trip certainly causes a larger negative to the system, but proportionally the negative is quite small.

Moving on to implementing demand control fares on each system, which one makes sense to control demand on? The one where demand hurts everyone while hurting the demander the same amount? Or the one where demand hurts almost exclusively those demanding it?

Now think about a system that imposes costs on both traffic and transit to reduce congestion. In a traffic system, the cost causes a direct benefit to all users of the system. In transit the benefit is very concentrated amongst a few while the cost falls on almost all.

Putting the two together since even in Calgary the modal share very heavily favours the car, and for every transit trip there is a direct subsidy from taxpayers at large (I am talking only operational side here) equal to the transit fare at minimum, where should benefits fall in our system? Should benefits go to those providing the minimal net welfare gain to society at large, or should they go to those providing the maximum welfare gain?

Fortunately we don't need to control demand using price like Washington DC does do to our build form. The city's structure solves this economic problem for us by giving those with the highest externalities the likelyhood that they will not be hit by extremely high individual transit imposed costs.

Not saying it is equitable, just that it is optimal.

Most economists support a differentiated transit system because there are welfare gains for users on a net basis. Also, I think Calgary's urban structure is actually highly suitable for differentiated fares because the way in which Calgarians are using our public transit system has created large opportunities to use it more efficiently and share that resource. Ideas like the downtown can expand to support a lot more residential density without having to increase capacity or taxpayer burden because there is tons of ample supply of outbound public transit.

[MalcolmTucker]

Unless we create a system of incentives and disincentives outside of transit fares to have our city designed in a way to support anything other than our current congestion reduction model, there is no way sane fare changes (within the 100% increase range) would provide enough incentive to change behaviour appreciably.

[polishavenger]

Originally Posted by fusili

Again, you are assuming the system first and then calculating how much people burden it afterwards. That leads to perverted metrics (and not the Toronto band members who oogle women). The operational costs of the system should not be assumed to be fixed.

The system exists, we arent building a new one from scratch, so the costs are known.

[freeweed]

Originally Posted by 5seconds

What happens if we make public transit entirely free (as in, no fare at the time of use)? Seriously, what does that do to our model?

I actually think this is a good idea. Just as I'd advocate fully funding post-secondary education. The net societal benefits outweigh the costs, in my opinion. But then I think of Lowe's comment: "I'm a senior and I can afford more than $35/year". I guess the obvious answer is further progressive taxation.

I dunno where I fully sit here. When I was younger I used to rail against "free riders" as much as anyone. I hated to see rich kids paying the same University tuition that I did. Every year that I get older though, I more and more think that again, the benefits outweigh the costs. I guess I'm turning away from "punish others" and more towards "help us all" when it comes to economic theory.

[Radley77]

Originally Posted by MalcolmTucker

Unless we create a system of incentives and disincentives outside of transit fares to have our city designed in a way to support anything other than our current congestion reduction model, there is no way sane fare changes (within the 100% increase range) would provide enough incentive to change behaviour appreciably.

I am in favour of a system that is more reflective of the capital and operational costs to service a user. Even if public transit was to pay people to use it, there would still be people who don't use the system because of the way they value there time.

[sim]

I'm gonna side with Fusili here.

All this talk of how operationally it costs the system the same whether the rider boards at Crowfoot or Sunnyside is great, as long as we don't regard initial capital costs. I understand that what is done is done, but that doesn't mean it needs to keeping doing so.

I believe it was already said, but it's rather obvious that if the same number of revenue passengers were boarding a system with half the length it would be operationally cheaper per revenue passenger and the amount of capital initially put down would also be (or have been) correspondingly cheaper.

Or course this would have to also then mean (or have meant) that there would be less feeder busses to obtain that kind of ridership, and the ones that did exist wouldn't have been operating as revenue negatively as they currently do.

So again, it is a case of poor land use, something we can't really change from what currently exists. However, why not veer away from it now? If, as said, a hypothetical 30% fare increase is not going to deincentivize transit riders from outlying stations, then why not do it? If it is, then let them take back to their cars. As Malcom said, a few extra cars on the road can have an inproportionate negative effect on the amount of congestion. However, if people want to suffer through it, let them. If people demand more traffic infrastructure, don't supply it. Parking spots downtown? Get rid of even more of them.

I'd like to see the long term elasticity on such a such a fare hike (zonal,) as I gaurantee it is rather inelastic. In fact commuter trips statistically have the lowest inelasticity in fare hiking. Which trips don't? Non-commuter trips. So if anything the zonal fare structure and the corresponding hike is more detrimental outside of commuter hours. I know Calgary's system is commuter oriented, but diversifying it is one way to increase daily ridership and veer it away from soley a means of transportation to get to work and back. That is a key characteristic of many of the world's most successful, ie, least subsidized transit systems/highest utilized systems.

So I don't necessarily understand, especially if people are willing to pay for it, why a base fare couldn't be lowered (all numbers hypothetical) to perhaps 2 or even just 2.50, and to keep it simple for arguement's sake, the outer zone's fair couldn't be increased to 3.50? Of course this would have to be actually calculated, but now we have a situation where as it were, the majority of users are paying 3.50, and (even if the base fare were actually kept at what it is now, then perception-wise,) the inner zone users are paying less. We've just made it more equitable (which I feel is being undervalued and underestimated here on its ability for greater ridership potential,) and it's earning more revenue.

The zonal fare collection and control is a non-issue. Not to pick on you Freeweed (as we often don't seem to see eye-to-eye,) but it is rather simple. It might take a person all of 5 minutes to understand which zone they are in, and they buy the respective daily, weekly, monthly or yearly pass corresponding to it. They are spot checked like before. If a person is in a zone where they did not pay accordingly, they get a fine. This works in many places already, and it is essentially the exact same thing we already do in Calgary.

That being said, zonal has downsides (for those trips just going over the zone.) So why not fully utilize the technology that is about to be implemented (The Connect) and go to full sectional faring. This wouldn't actually require any additional infrastructure on stations (turnstiles, gates,) aside from the readers/swipers. They could also be spot checked. Rider wants to make a trip, taps card, card gets deducted the largest sectional fare possible, when rider gets off, re-taps and gets refunded for those sections not used. To the rider this is the same thing. To the spot checker (done with a electronic device instead) it shows whether the trip has been paid for or not. Done.

Anyway we've had this debate, what like 3 times in the last 2 months on here, but it does remain interesting I guess. It seems to me to be more of a case of what is, and what should be. So do we continue on with the status quo, or do we eventually follow a model that many a city eventually turns to? Isn't this something that is championed on here anyway - that Calgary follows the tried, tested and true? I don't fully understand the aversity to it in this case. I say down with the status quo.

Aside: And since when is road transportation not subsidized?

[freeweed]

Originally Posted by sim

If, as said, a hypothetical 30% fare increase is not going to deincentivize transit riders from outlying stations, then why not do it? If it is, then let them take back to their cars. As Malcom said, a few extra cars on the road can have an inproportionate negative effect on the amount of congestion. However, if people want to suffer through it, let them. If people demand more traffic infrastructure, don't supply it. Parking spots downtown? Get rid of even more of them.

When you're openly admitting that you have no problem discouraging transit use, you're right - we won't see eye to eye on very much.

Carrot vs stick. I prefer encouraging positive behaviours, instead of basically saying "fuck you, you're stuck in the suburbs, what are you gonna do, drive? I'll take away your parking spots then muahahaha!". Quite frankly, the "what other choice do you have?" could also apply to poorer inner city residents. Why don't we jack their rates, I bet transit use is pretty inelastic when you don't own a car!

Seriously, you guys need to take a step back and look at what you're saying, and how this looks to your average taxpayer. The people, remember, that are primarily funding our transit system. Like I said earlier, this seems a lot less about equitable fare distribution and a lot more like "screw the suburbs". And *I* am fairly familiar with how discussions go here and realize that it's a lot more nuanced than that. But how does this come across to the average person who doesn't follow the discussions on SSP?

I'm reminded of the PnR discussion with just about every post. One of the single most hated CT decisions in my time in Calgary. Except by a few people here who openly admitted they had no problem screwing the suburbanites.

Incidentally, and this may be more due to my own ignorance than anything, every zone-based system I've seen has been in much larger cities where transit eventually becomes efficient an self-sustaining. But not because of the zones. It's because the cities are freaking huge and there really aren't many other viable options. Calgary is nowhere close to that yet, unless you're seriously proposing banning cars. Honest question - how many cities of a million people are zone-based?

[Cage]

With regard to fare strategy and the current CTransit funding issues, the Fare and Funding Strategy document from a few pages back makes a painfully obvious point.

The current discounts offered to Seniors, Low Income Seniors, and Low Income Adults cost the system inexcess of $35 million per annum. The revenue shortfall from 51% fare funding to 55% fare funding is aboiut 10 million dollars. From a purely economic standpoint, it would be easiest to end the low income and senior subsidies. The economics are fairly compelling in this regard however the political and social aspects are equally compelling (essentially kicking the most vulnerable in our society to the ground).

From the Fare and Funding Strategy document, table 5 on page 16 is most interesting:
- Low Income Adult passes (1/2 the monthly rate of monthly adult pass) generate a subsidy of $3.9 million based on 78k of passes sold. Ending this program would not resolve the funding shortfal situation it self. That said if the City of Transit decides that its not their issue to resolve low income situation, perhaps the city should lobby the federal and provincial governments for funding the subsidy.
- Low Income Seniors currently pay $15 PER ANNUM. There are 12k passes sold under this program and the subsidy is $12.7 million per annum (subsidy assumes that Ctranist could convert all senior to monthly adult pass holders at $90/month). It is unlikely that Ctransit could force the conversion of low income seniors over to monthly pass purchasers over night. However as compromise measure, C Transit could transition Low Income Senior passes to the Low Income Adult passes. This would generate $6.3 million per annum of additional revenue. The low income seniors have the same income levels (assuming OAS and/or CPP are paid) as low income adults - so the principle of fairness should allow for the seniors to transition to the new rate.
- Other Seniors currently pay $35 PER ANNUM. There are 18k passes sold under this program and the subsidy is 18.8 million per annum. Transitioning this senior group to the monthly adult rate would provide an additional $19.3 million dollars per annum.

[Radley77]

Originally Posted by freeweed

When you're openly admitting that you have no problem discouraging transit use, you're right - we won't see eye to eye on very much.

Carrot vs stick. I prefer encouraging positive behaviours, instead of basically saying "fuck you, you're stuck in the suburbs, what are you gonna do, drive? I'll take away your parking spots then muahahaha!". Quite frankly, the "what other choice do you have?" could also apply to poorer inner city residents. Why don't we jack their rates, I bet transit use is pretty inelastic when you don't own a car!

Seriously, you guys need to take a step back and look at what you're saying, and how this looks to your average taxpayer. The people, remember, that are primarily funding our transit system. Like I said earlier, this seems a lot less about equitable fare distribution and a lot more like "screw the suburbs". And *I* am fairly familiar with how discussions go here and realize that it's a lot more nuanced than that. But how does this come across to the average person who doesn't follow the discussions on SSP?

I'm reminded of the PnR discussion with just about every post. One of the single most hated CT decisions in my time in Calgary. Except by a few people here who openly admitted they had no problem screwing the suburbanites.

Incidentally, and this may be more due to my own ignorance than anything, every zone-based system I've seen has been in much larger cities where transit eventually becomes efficient an self-sustaining. But not because of the zones. It's because the cities are freaking huge and there really aren't many other viable options. Calgary is nowhere close to that yet, unless you're seriously proposing banning cars. Honest question - how many cities of a million people are zone-based?

Portland has a population of about half a million, a zone based system, and one of the best public transit systems I have seen.

There is a lot of issues here that is more than just long distance users, but also that there is no incentive for people from Cochrane to say live near a TOD in Calgary, which I think is a much more holistic answer and wouldn't result in Calgary taxpayers subsidizing those in Cochrane.

[mersar]

Thanks for pulling the numbers out. There certainly is quite a bit of room to play to make things work better, and still be fair.

[freeweed]

Originally Posted by Radley77

Portland has a population of about half a million, a zone based system, and one of the best public transit systems I have seen.

Portland's metro is over twice the size of Calgary. And their LRT, from numbers I've seen, isn't anywhere near as successful as Calgary's. Unless I'm completely out to lunch with that one.

If the motivation here is to increase ridership... may not be the best example. Mind you I'm not sure how the rest of their system fares. Maybe their buses are a lot more popular.

[freeweed]

Cage, thanks for these numbers.

Originally Posted by Cage

- Low Income Adult passes (1/2 the monthly rate of monthly adult pass) generate a subsidy of $3.9 million based on 78k of passes sold.

Good luck changing this. Sure, technically if we're going to go based on "real costs" and "fair share" as many seem to advocate here, we should do it. And this is the LEAST elastic group when it comes to transit, so based on prior arguments presented we should definitely raise fares here. But it seems, as you said, to be kicking the most vulnerable. Not very popular politically but does Air Canada charge a lower fare for low income people?

- Low Income Seniors currently pay $15 PER ANNUM. There are 12k passes sold under this program and the subsidy is $12.7 million per annum

- Other Seniors currently pay $35 PER ANNUM. There are 18k passes sold under this program and the subsidy is 18.8 million per annum.

30,000 seniors, wow. Is this age 65+? I think I've only ever seen 5 of them in Calgary (kidding).

I think seniors are possibly one of the more elastic groups out there. Raising their rates just means they don't go out as much, for the most part. They don't (typically) have jobs, most of their transit use would be optional trips. So I'm not sure you'd squeeze much money here. If it changed dramatically, they'd just stop going out. Massive quality of life loss, but we gotta be fair.

The biggest piece of the pie, and likely the least controversial politically, would be to eliminate or modify the regular seniors pass. My personal take on this is that I have no problem "subsidizing" seniors for the most part. Certainly ones that qualify as "low income". I believe post-secondary education is still free for seniors, and that's a hell of a larger expense. Why not transit? A compromise might be to eliminate it altogether (hey, a senior's ass takes as much space as my ass, "fair share" and all that), but bump up the income threshold for "low income" - so that we're helping out a few more that are on the fence income-wise.



Sarcastic (but with a point) comments aside.. I wonder if instead of zones, why isn't CT looking at time-based fares? I know plenty of places who do this and it makes a lot more sense. Seniors don't often travel during rush hour anyway, so they won't be nearly as affected. And it could encourage more off-peak use (plenty of Calgarians are flexible in their work start/end times) which could spread out the load more, and help with our capacity issues. Vehicles get hit with this in terms of differential parking rates, why not transit? Surprised no one's brought this up during today's discussion.

[DizzyEdge]

Originally Posted by sim

If people demand more traffic infrastructure, don't supply it. Parking spots downtown? Get rid of even more of them.

Except.... if council proclaims this, the suburban (ie majority) of voters will just boot them out of office and vote in people who will. Although I agree with where you're coming from, I think an 'us vs them' polarization will end badly for the minority urbanites.

[sim]

Originally Posted by freeweed

When you're openly admitting that you have no problem discouraging transit use, you're right - we won't see eye to eye on very much.

Fair enough, but I'm not discouraging transit-use, I'm encouraging it on the long term. I can't stress enough how much land-use interacts with transit/transportation, so though it might seem like it, I'm not discouraging transit use, but instead bad land-use.

Carrot vs stick. I prefer encouraging positive behaviours, instead of basically saying "fuck you, you're stuck in the suburbs, what are you gonna do, drive? I'll take away your parking spots then muahahaha!". Quite frankly, the "what other choice do you have?" could also apply to poorer inner city residents. Why don't we jack their rates, I bet transit use is pretty inelastic when you don't own a car!

Seriously, you guys need to take a step back and look at what you're saying, and how this looks to your average taxpayer. The people, remember, that are primarily funding our transit system. Like I said earlier, this seems a lot less about equitable fare distribution and a lot more like "screw the suburbs". And *I* am fairly familiar with how discussions go here and realize that it's a lot more nuanced than that. But how does this come across to the average person who doesn't follow the discussions on SSP?

I can understand how it comes across like that and admittedly, the subjective part of me might be saying that. However, objectively... well see above. It isn't about screwing anyone, it's about reflecting true costs holistically. Of course we can argue this until the cows come home, but our current model is guaranteed, way off.

I'm reminded of the PnR discussion with just about every post. One of the single most hated CT decisions in my time in Calgary. Except by a few people here who openly admitted they had no problem screwing the suburbanites.

Incidentally, and this may be more due to my own ignorance than anything, every zone-based system I've seen has been in much larger cities where transit eventually becomes efficient an self-sustaining. But not because of the zones. It's because the cities are freaking huge and there really aren't many other viable options. Calgary is nowhere close to that yet, unless you're seriously proposing banning cars. Honest question - how many cities of a million people are zone-based?

Two things: When you say large city do you mean population-wise or geographically? I've mentioned this before on here, Calgary is a large city geographically, and so too is its LRT network- at least in radial distance.

Secondly, that list is extensive. Or course every situation has its own conditions, but believe me it is.

Munich - 1.3 mil, exclude metro pop (MVG basically turns a profit)
Stuttgart - same
Karlsruhe
Aachen
Kassel
Bern
Zurich
Basel
Lucerne - not even 100,000 people
Innsbruck
Salzburg
Porto
Helsinki
etc, etc. Without being too exhaustive.

Virtually any city with para-transit - of which exists in developing countries.

Of course some of the above cities extend into their region, but often their region is still of similar geographic size and still doesn't have the population Calgary has. I knew about half of those of the top of my head, and had to do some quick checking for some others, also hence the heavy bias toward german speaking countries, but to my knowledge it is much the same throughout Europe.

My point being, we are the exception not the norm, and we are that exception because of land use practises - of which I do openly aim to discourage.

[DizzyEdge]

A thought about out-of-towners using transit.

In a scenario where the ctrain keep pace with city development, so that the last station is 'local' to the houses which are closer to it than the next station closer to downtown, why not make every parking spot like a $5 a day charge. The theory being that people who live in the same hood as the LRT station can just walk, bike, take the bus, but out of towners will have to drive to it.

I can see out of towners then trying to drive to the 2nd last station, still trying to determine how to manage that.

[sim]

Originally Posted by DizzyEdge

Except.... if council proclaims this, the suburban (ie majority) of voters will just boot them out of office and vote in people who will. Although I agree with where you're coming from, I think an 'us vs them' polarization will end badly for the minority urbanites.

Oh can't argue that.

A friend once put it pretty well in that "sometimes people have to be told what to do so they can get what they want." I believe we were chatting within the same context, but what I mean by this is that I think there are few whatever-anites (suburb, urban exurb) that don't somehow want to see a more walkable community. So to do, what I'm sure would amount to a majority, want to see better public transport; more frequent bus service, etc. Well....

Not to say what just I myself say should go, but transportation and urban planning is one of those things that everyone has an opinion about, and don't necessarily have any expertise on. Of course this site itself deviates from that.