Calgary Public Transit II

[sim]

Originally Posted by freeweed

More like nothing will change. Every generation for the past 100 years comes in convinced that technology is going to revolutionize the office, and every generation leaves with some things gained, and some things lost. We've already seen 90% of the productivity gains to be had from computers. Entire departments of people have been let go as a result in the past 50 years - only to be replaced with new departments. Hours get filled up with other work.

Also, anyone who thinks something like Skype is a game changer and means you can suddenly work from home... hasn't worked in an office very long, and obviously has missed the telephones that still sit on most desks. We could have been working from home 20, 30 years ago for many if not most jobs. I can't think of a single newish technology that changes that. Yet we didn't, because forcing you to be at work has little to nothing to do with necessity.

I think I'm mostly picking on Skype because I've seen modern videoconferencing in action. The old guys can hardly get the projector turned on, so instead give up after 5 minutes and end up having the meeting without the hassle. And the young guys struggle to understand why the corporate firewall isn't just wide open to the world, why they can't just install whatever the hell they want on their laptops, why can't the company just let any device of their choosing get into the corporate network, and why can't we just completely re-configure every single IT device on the spot.

Just so that we can accomplish a 15 minute discussion that could just as easily happen via face or phone (or is probably not needed at all).

TLDR; I haven't seen a game changing technology in decades. We had dumb terminals and dialup available long before most of the current incoming generation was even born, and we still trudged into the office each day. Of course, we also had touchscreen devices, but the kids wanna pretend that stuff is new and fresh as well and the only reason it's not everywhere doing everything is because of old people being old.

Oh, and in my experience as a semi-old fart - 90% of people who think they're the ones who can get stuff done in under 8 hours, aren't. Not by a long shot.

Off topic (sort of):

I'd like to nominate this post and Blue Cypress' the other day in the Construction Thread for being some of the most level-headed, pragmatic and simply good posts lately.

The world is spiky, not flat. Where I currently work, we also have Teamviewer (better than Skype?) meetings at least once a week. While obviously better than nothing, they're also very annoying and frustrating at times, with echos, drops, lags etc ever present, and hard to have any really good discussions with. Even with purpose built conferencing systems, there is an element that technology can never replicate - basic human interaction. Any meaningful transactions that occur - those in charge would have to be crazy not to meet in person beforehand, and likely several times - and while I have no solid proof, I'm sure this is the case for any competent manager or business leader.

The belief that technology can transcend natural limitations and basic human nature is actually a rather dangerous one in my opinion. Back to Public Transportation (sort of) - autonomous vehicles - we haven't even begun to understand the societal implications these will have, and I'd put my money on it that they won't be good, yet they are being almost unrelentlessly pursued.

But then if you want to live like a robot, head buried in a Smartphone being transported around in a moving cage, the future looks bright. Forget about not being able to use a hammer and wrench, we won't even have to use our minds.

[floobie]

Originally Posted by freeweed

Oh, and in my experience as a semi-old fart - 90% of people who think they're the ones who can get stuff done in under 8 hours, aren't. Not by a long shot.

And, in my experience, it's those self-proclaimed old farts who make those claims, who waste half their day chatting in the kitchen with people over coffee, surfing msn.ca (or SSP), or ineptly fumbling through software they've been using for 20 years, and basically distributing 2 hours of actual work over 9 . Literally every company I've worked for at this point, even in my inept summer student days, has been a case of "You're already finished?! That would've taken me a week to do!"

I don't want to further derail the thread, though. I'll just leave it at: I have made it my main goal in life to disprove this convention, and I've already taken steps (self employment and general entrepreneurship) to make it happen. So, I'll get back to you on how that goes.

[kw5150]

But these old farts can make split second decisions, something i have yet to see a newbie do. You can give a newbie (who know every single program known to man) a 10 minute task that takes him 10 hours to do just in research alone. There is a reason why old farts have time to burn here and there. They get paid for these quick (spot on) answers. Besides, the new generation cant even put a sentence together or look anyone in the eye.......lol

Originally Posted by floobie

And, in my experience, it's those self-proclaimed old farts who make those claims, who waste half their day chatting in the kitchen with people over coffee, surfing msn.ca (or SSP), or ineptly fumbling through software they've been using for 20 years, and basically distributing 2 hours of actual work over 9 . Literally every company I've worked for at this point, even in my inept summer student days, has been a case of "You're already finished?! That would've taken me a week to do!"

I don't want to further derail the thread, though. I'll just leave it at: I have made it my main goal in life to disprove this convention, and I've already taken steps (self employment and general entrepreneurship) to make it happen. So, I'll get back to you on how that goes.

[MichaelS]

Originally Posted by floobie

And, in my experience, it's those self-proclaimed old farts who make those claims, who waste half their day chatting in the kitchen with people over coffee, surfing msn.ca (or SSP), or ineptly fumbling through software they've been using for 20 years, and basically distributing 2 hours of actual work over 9 . Literally every company I've worked for at this point, even in my inept summer student days, has been a case of "You're already finished?! That would've taken me a week to do!"

I don't want to further derail the thread, though. I'll just leave it at: I have made it my main goal in life to disprove this convention, and I've already taken steps (self employment and general entrepreneurship) to make it happen. So, I'll get back to you on how that goes.

This is the best way to achieve what you are looking for, and I wish you all the best. But people who want part time hours, with full time pay, are going to continue to be disappointed I think.

[freeweed]

Originally Posted by MichaelS

This is the best way to achieve what you are looking for, and I wish you all the best. But people who want part time hours, with full time pay, are going to continue to be disappointed I think.

Self-employment almost never leads to either. At least not until a person gets into their 40s (or later). I don't think that's what he's aiming for, here.

[kora]

Some of my West LRT fears have been confirmed. The Route 104 Strathcona bus has been reduced from peak hour frequencies of 6-8 minutes to 15-minutes. Roughly half the level of service during peak hours. I guess they assume some people will walk to the LRT or perhaps park-and-ride. Off-peak service seems unchanged.

[DizzyEdge]

Originally Posted by freeweed

Self-employment almost never leads to either. At least not until a person gets into their 40s (or later). I don't think that's what he's aiming for, here.

yeah I was going to say, self-employment, at least for a while tends to be more fulltime hours (or more) with part-time pay.

[floobie]

Originally Posted by DizzyEdge

yeah I was going to say, self-employment, at least for a while tends to be more fulltime hours (or more) with part-time pay.

Short term pains for long term gains! I'm guessing that's an actual saying, because it rhymes. If it isn't, consider it copyrighted. 2 bucks per use! See how great my business is going?!

Edit: Joking aside, I appreciate the encouragement juxtaposed with good-intentioned cynicism.

[Yahoo]

Originally Posted by kora

Some of my West LRT fears have been confirmed. The Route 104 Strathcona bus has been reduced from peak hour frequencies of 6-8 minutes to 15-minutes. Roughly half the level of service during peak hours. I guess they assume some people will walk to the LRT or perhaps park-and-ride. Off-peak service seems unchanged.

I've lived in 2 areas of the city that eventually received LRT lines. In both cases it resulted in slower service. Yes, the train was faster, but the extra bus trip and waits meant the overall trip took longer. I'm sure there are people within walking distance of the train station who have better experiences - but I don't think LRT is the savior many people think it is.

[MasterG]

Originally Posted by Yahoo

I've lived in 2 areas of the city that eventually received LRT lines. In both cases it resulted in slower service. Yes, the train was faster, but the extra bus trip and waits meant the overall trip took longer. I'm sure there are people within walking distance of the train station who have better experiences - but I don't think LRT is the savior many people think it is.

Yeah I don't really understand that. the 101 / 104 are definitely peak-heavy bus routes with huge volumes in the mornings and evening and very low in off-peak hours. CT already has put more and more buses on those routes over the years due to frequency demands, why lower frequency when they start up a project that will drive even more transit use and demand?

Another thing: can someone with a background explain to me what route planners think when they come up with these?

http://www.westlrt.ca/contentreports/calgarytransit.cfm

Many route changes make sense, but why choose the route for the 93/94 (old 101/104)? why send them down into glamorgan and wildwood in bizarre directions? Could they not just loop coach hill, strathcona, signal hill and back again? create another route for the inner communities to loop to their closest station. Wouldnt that be better from a reliability, frequency standpoint?

Is there some sort of minimum length requirement for bus routes or something? why are they like that? anyone with planning, transit experience know the answer??

[freeweed]

Originally Posted by Yahoo

I've lived in 2 areas of the city that eventually received LRT lines. In both cases it resulted in slower service. Yes, the train was faster, but the extra bus trip and waits meant the overall trip took longer. I'm sure there are people within walking distance of the train station who have better experiences - but I don't think LRT is the savior many people think it is.

The LRT, every single day, steams past cars (busses if they still ran the same routes) on Crowchild. That's a regular day - when traffic is bad due to weather or accidents, it's 2-3x faster.

The LRT in the NW is a braindead decision. It's pretty much NEVER faster to drive during rush hour.

[RyLucky]

Originally Posted by MasterG

Yeah I don't really understand that. the 101 / 104 are definitely peak-heavy bus routes with huge volumes in the mornings and evening and very low in off-peak hours. CT already has put more and more buses on those routes over the years due to frequency demands, why lower frequency when they start up a project that will drive even more transit use and demand?

Another thing: can someone with a background explain to me what route planners think when they come up with these?

http://www.westlrt.ca/contentreports/calgarytransit.cfm

Many route changes make sense, but why choose the route for the 93/94 (old 101/104)? why send them down into glamorgan and wildwood in bizarre directions? Could they not just loop coach hill, strathcona, signal hill and back again? create another route for the inner communities to loop to their closest station. Wouldnt that be better from a reliability, frequency standpoint?

Is there some sort of minimum length requirement for bus routes or something? why are they like that? anyone with planning, transit experience know the answer??

Good point. It is going to be a lot harder for people from Coach Hill and Strathcona to get to UofC and MRU. Had they connected to Westbrook (perhaps an extension of the buses that terminate there) that station would be a true hub. I understand the "wining" from the 101 users and I understand the resistance to running a downtown express. Certainly, the WLRT will be a huge asset, but we must demand better transit. All routes. Bus and LRT. It might cost us more taxes, but it'd be worth it. Transit is the one municipal asset that has the power to directly influence local economy.

[sim]

Originally Posted by MasterG

Yeah I don't really understand that. the 101 / 104 are definitely peak-heavy bus routes with huge volumes in the mornings and evening and very low in off-peak hours. CT already has put more and more buses on those routes over the years due to frequency demands, why lower frequency when they start up a project that will drive even more transit use and demand?

Another thing: can someone with a background explain to me what route planners think when they come up with these?

http://www.westlrt.ca/contentreports/calgarytransit.cfm

Many route changes make sense, but why choose the route for the 93/94 (old 101/104)? why send them down into glamorgan and wildwood in bizarre directions? Could they not just loop coach hill, strathcona, signal hill and back again? create another route for the inner communities to loop to their closest station. Wouldnt that be better from a reliability, frequency standpoint?

Is there some sort of minimum length requirement for bus routes or something? why are they like that? anyone with planning, transit experience know the answer??

Well speaking from a more general sense:

If you use a delay recovery time of 10 - 15% of the route travel time, on too short of a route, that may entail having an overall terminal time of only a couple minutes (also dependent on the frequeny, but nevermind for now.) This would be fine, except that drivers also need breaks for bathroom activities or what have you and to adhere to whatever is stipulated in the union contract.

Thus, if let's say that time is a short 5 minutes (because 1-2 mins for sure isn't suitable for a bathroom break,) and you have a route with a 15 min cycle time, 1/3 of that bus (and driver's) operating time are essentially non-productive. So it's important to have the terminal time at a reasonable percentage of overall cycle time to avoid this, hence making for a route that in essence, does have to have a certain length (in time.)

Not to say that a lot of the routes in the document are productive more than 50% of the actual route cycle time anyway, but that is also due largely in part to the geography and the road network topology. There does seem to be some unnecessary overlap though.

Finally, the opposite is also true. Too long of routes can also be rather problematic in that you get much greater delay propogation (leading to large schedule variances, and bus bunching) as well as again coming back to drivers - situations where they might go without a break for too long of a span and driver scheduling itself becomes harder, because its harder to have a certain bus and driver at a terminal where driver switching can occur - ie: If the traveling time portion of a route's cycle time is 1.5 hours for example, then that driver only has the possibility to be switched out (effectively) once per 1.5 hours. Makes for a more challenging, less flexible assignment of driver duties.

[eggbert]

City releases 30 year RouteAhead report
CBC News Posted: Dec 7, 2012 5:30 PM MT Last Updated: Dec 7, 2012 6:35 PM
RouteAhead Report
(Note:CBC does not endorse and is not responsible for the content of external links.)

The city of Calgary released the RouteAhead report on Friday which lays out the blueprint for Calgary Transit's future.

The report covers short-term improvements such as bringing wi-fi service to C-Train stations and providing real time information on the internet for all buses.

It also includes long-term plans for dedicated busways, more bus rapid transit routes and a new LRT line from the far north end of Calgary to the new South Hospital.

The plan comes with a $13 billion price tag over the next three decades.

Read More http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/story/2012/12/07/calgary-transit-route-ahead.html?cmp=rss

[ByeByeBaby]

Originally Posted by MasterG

Yeah I don't really understand that. the 101 / 104 are definitely peak-heavy bus routes with huge volumes in the mornings and evening and very low in off-peak hours. CT already has put more and more buses on those routes over the years due to frequency demands, why lower frequency when they start up a project that will drive even more transit use and demand?

Is there some sort of minimum length requirement for bus routes or something? why are they like that? anyone with planning, transit experience know the answer??

I'll try an analogy to your question about the 101: "I keep ordering hamburgers at this restaurant, and I get bigger and bigger hamburgers because I'm getting hungrier. But today I ordered the 16 oz Porterhouse steak, and then they looked at me funny when I tried to also order a hamburger. Why would they not serve me a hamburger when I'm getting more beef than ever before?

The 101, 104, etc. are redundant with LRT service. (They were always redundant, in that there were a bunch of buses all going down Bow Trail, with different route numbers and only the suburban 1/3 of their route varying.) When west LRT opens, there are five main routes: 17, 101, 104, 106 and 108 from the west that are cancelled, along with at least 3 express routes (67, 166, 179).

Let's look at the 101 as an example. It takes an hour to drive a circuit of the route. In the AM peak, there are 10 runs heading downtown between 7:00 and 8:00. So there need to be 10 buses in service, just for this route; the 104, 112 etc. are somewhat similar, maybe a little less, and there are 3 express routes with about 3 runs apiece. So there are roughly 50 buses in service, spending much of their time going from neighbourhoods in the west to the downtown and back.

The West LRT takes 30 minutes round-trip from the west end of downtown to 69th and back (the rest of the trip to Saddletowne is already existing service). There are a dozen trains from 7:00-8:00. So there are only 6 trains needed for service on the West LRT. Driver cost is the majority of transit operating cost.

So rather than paying 50 guys to sit in traffic on Bow Trail, with one full bus of 40 people after another, they only need to pay 6 guys to drive 300 person trains, plus whatever is needed for the first part of the route that goes from each neighbourhood to Bow Trail.


On the new feeder routes, there are a number of things under consideration. Every route has some extra time for "recovery"; if there is extra traffic, you don't want that to ripple through, and drivers need breaks too. If you want to run on a regular schedule, say every 15 minutes, your run time needs to be a multiple of that. So if a Coach Hill-69th loop takes 17 minutes to drive (including a couple of minutes for recovery), if you want a bus every 20 minutes, you have to have the bus sit for another 3 minutes, doing nothing.

One reason for the route designs like that could be to minimize this waste time; another is to reduce transfers. Right now, to go from Coach Hill to Westhills for instance, you have to transfer at 69th Ave. With the 93, there is a direct bus. The communities north of 17th and east of 69th get a direct connection to Westhills; they didn't before.

[RyLucky]

Why not remove the 93 between westside and coachhill, and extend the 93 from westbrook to coach hill?

That way trips between coach hill and downtown become shorter (currently, it will take longer to get downtown from coach hill once wlrt opens), and riders from coach hill only need to transfer once instead of twice to get to MRU and U of C. This would save time from commutes SUBSTANTIALLY. Someday, when WLRT, 72, and 73 are running every 120 seconds, maybe the way they have it would be more suitable. Anyway, there is decent bus infrastructure already in place on Bow Trail!

Better yet, extend the 6 or 306 from westbrook to coach hill. Do the 306! Do it! That's how you make a transit system!

[DarkKeyo]

I'm not sure what makes Coach Hill and Strathcona different than the other ~250 (~26 that are near the WLRT) communities in Calgary that also have to get downtown, or to MRU, or to Westhills...

I haven't had time to read much of Routeahead's stuff yet, but I look forward to it. It's unfortunate that it's up to $13B now, instead of $8B from the first draft.

[MasterG]

Originally Posted by ByeByeBaby

I'll try an analogy to your question about the 101: "I keep ordering hamburgers at this restaurant, and I get bigger and bigger hamburgers because I'm getting hungrier. But today I ordered the 16 oz Porterhouse steak, and then they looked at me funny when I tried to also order a hamburger. Why would they not serve me a hamburger when I'm getting more beef than ever before?

The 101, 104, etc. are redundant with LRT service. (They were always redundant, in that there were a bunch of buses all going down Bow Trail, with different route numbers and only the suburban 1/3 of their route varying.) When west LRT opens, there are five main routes: 17, 101, 104, 106 and 108 from the west that are cancelled, along with at least 3 express routes (67, 166, 179).

Let's look at the 101 as an example. It takes an hour to drive a circuit of the route. In the AM peak, there are 10 runs heading downtown between 7:00 and 8:00. So there need to be 10 buses in service, just for this route; the 104, 112 etc. are somewhat similar, maybe a little less, and there are 3 express routes with about 3 runs apiece. So there are roughly 50 buses in service, spending much of their time going from neighbourhoods in the west to the downtown and back.

The West LRT takes 30 minutes round-trip from the west end of downtown to 69th and back (the rest of the trip to Saddletowne is already existing service). There are a dozen trains from 7:00-8:00. So there are only 6 trains needed for service on the West LRT. Driver cost is the majority of transit operating cost.

So rather than paying 50 guys to sit in traffic on Bow Trail, with one full bus of 40 people after another, they only need to pay 6 guys to drive 300 person trains, plus whatever is needed for the first part of the route that goes from each neighbourhood to Bow Trail.


On the new feeder routes, there are a number of things under consideration. Every route has some extra time for "recovery"; if there is extra traffic, you don't want that to ripple through, and drivers need breaks too. If you want to run on a regular schedule, say every 15 minutes, your run time needs to be a multiple of that. So if a Coach Hill-69th loop takes 17 minutes to drive (including a couple of minutes for recovery), if you want a bus every 20 minutes, you have to have the bus sit for another 3 minutes, doing nothing.

One reason for the route designs like that could be to minimize this waste time; another is to reduce transfers. Right now, to go from Coach Hill to Westhills for instance, you have to transfer at 69th Ave. With the 93, there is a direct bus. The communities north of 17th and east of 69th get a direct connection to Westhills; they didn't before.

Oh yeah I have no problem with getting rid of the direct route to downtown, that's okay. I'd trade them for the reliability of the train to get off the hill during the 2 hr snow-day delays. I was just curious the route pattern seems so circuitous.

Your explanation makes sense regarding cycle times and the need for a certain route length. It just seems such a strange route. I guess instead of a point to point (i.e. downtown to coach hill) its more a point to point to point linking all the stations to their respective communities, but having few long distance riders (they will mainly depart off at the LRT stations). I think the main issue will be route-finding for those not in the communities and that won't be familiar to the route. Like the distance between the Wildwood leg and the coach/hill patterson leg is 500m, which would be a 30 - 45 min ride lol. The line zigs and zags 3 times across or to the LRT (69th, 45th, Westbrook).

I think from a scheduling, efficiency standpoint it makes sense. It just looks weird and not intuitive to users. I'm sure after a year no one will remember how it used to be anyways

[RyLucky]

Today's the day!

[drto]

So I just brought the wife and kids down to Sunalta Station. Petting zoo, face painting, cookies...nice job by the city!
First train was a little late but so far so good! Kids are loving it and dad thinks its pretty neat too!