Calgary Public Transit II

[RyLucky]

on a related note: http://www.calgaryherald.com/news/More+time+needed+work+city+charter+says+Nenshi/7678826/story.html

[DarkKeyo]

I think that, somehow, 4th Av NEEDS to be grade separated when putting the 201 underground, since that intersection is where most of the delays and accidents happen. 4 car trains are going to make a mess of that area, as well, since they don't fit on the N-S blocks.

[MalcolmTucker]

There is room to do that I think, just barely.

[mersar]

Originally Posted by MalcolmTucker

There is room to do that I think, just barely.

Yep. I'll see if I can dig out the map that I did up a few years ago with exact measurements, essentially from what I recall you'd have to elevate 4th Ave over the tunnel and 10th/9th street as it comes to grade too far to the south in order to not excede the max grade that the ctrain operates at.

[Cage]

Originally Posted by mersar

Yep. I'll see if I can dig out the map that I did up a few years ago with exact measurements, essentially from what I recall you'd have to elevate 4th Ave over the tunnel and 10th/9th street as it comes to grade too far to the south in order to not excede the max grade that the ctrain operates at.

Can we get Thomas, James and Emily to help out getting the trains up the hill. Oy!!! Been watching too much Thomas and Friends with my daughter.

On the flipside, the "slam dunk" landing going to the south would be quite the ride. Perhaps the CT staff could yell out YEEHAW to wake up the sleepy commuters.

[fusili]

Originally Posted by Cage

Can we get Thomas, James and Emily to help out getting the trains up the hill. Oy!!! Been watching too much Thomas and Friends with my daughter.

On the flipside, the "slam dunk" landing going to the south would be quite the ride. Perhaps the CT staff could yell out YEEHAW to wake up the sleepy commuters.

How did you forget Percy and Gordon? You're going to need Gordon for those large hauls. Plus, Percy delivers the mail on time.

[Offside_Ref]

Could the tunnel portal fit just east of the existing LRT at the intersection with 4th Ave? There is a parking lot on the north side and a lane on the south side, so there is the horizontal room for it. In that case, they could build the portal without interrupting the LRT for months or years, then just link it into the existing bridge. Anybody think that could work? As a bonus, they could keep the existing tracks when they're done, assuming the whole intersection at 4th doesn't need to be elevated, for route flexibility (easy transfer of trains from OBMF to the NW line).

Also, is anyone else curious to what they're going to have to do to the traffic signals on 9th St when 4-car LRTs go in? They won't be able to fit into the N-S blocks. Retiming all of downtown would be a real nightmare (I've seen the DT Synchro file, it's MASSIVE). Seems to me it would probably cause a whole lot of trouble for traffic flow. On the bright side, there are now fewer buses and hopefully fewer cars crossing that stretch thanks to the WLRT, meaning somewhat less impact, though i'm sure by the time we get the tunnel it will be back up to normal, if not sooner. Is timing the lights so that the LRT can block 5th ave while it waits for 4th or 6th feasible? Safe? Legal? Might be the lesser of evils compared to having all three avenues stopped for a minute for LRT traffic to go through in each direction.

[You Need A Thneed]

Originally Posted by Cage

Can we get Thomas, James and Emily to help out getting the trains up the hill. Oy!!! Been watching too much Thomas and Friends with my daughter.

On the flipside, the "slam dunk" landing going to the south would be quite the ride. Perhaps the CT staff could yell out YEEHAW to wake up the sleepy commuters.

Originally Posted by fusili

How did you forget Percy and Gordon? You're going to need Gordon for those large hauls. Plus, Percy delivers the mail on time.

Including Thomas characters would bring down the safety standard significantly. I'm really surprised that the entire railway system of Sodor hasn't been shut down yet.

[You Need A Thneed]

I think that the only feasible way to have no level crossings on 9th Street is for the train to keep descending down off of the bridge right under 4th. 4th might have to be raised to make this possible.

I can see the train crossing 4th at grade though before going down into a tunnel - when the 8th Ave tunnel does get built.

[suburbia]

Originally Posted by RyLucky

In 2011, Calgary had a median total family income of $88k. (2009) Each household spends about 16k/yr on shelter, 4k on household operations, 11k on transportation, 2k on healthcare, 1400 on personal care, 5k on recreation, 300 on books, 1400 on education, 2k on booze/smokes, ...
In total: 60k on expenditures, 19k on taxes, 7k on pension/donations/insurance.

Interesting to note: Albertan households pay around 18k to taxes, more than any other province. This is because of our higher incomes, putting more of use in higher tax brackets. The Canadian average is 14k per household.

You've not said anything completely wrong, however, the statement about higher tax bracket is misleading. There is technically a huge different between saying "higher tax bracket" and saying "higher marginal tax bracket". The higher tax percentage is only for the portion that is beyond a particular threshold. Additionally, your comments are incomplete, as other variables come into play, in particular, things like how many children you have, how much charitable giving you do, or how much you save as RRSP's have major impact on what tax you pay at the end of the day. Also, you've listed income of the average Calgarian but not the average Canadian. The report is about expenditures and thus is not normalized to household revenue.

Anyway - mish-mash of numbers doesn't result in a usable analysis.

[Radley77]

Thought some of the transit geeks would find this map interesting... From the latest Calgary census data showing where public transit ridership is the heaviest:

https://www.google.com/fusiontables/embe...506277465822&z=11&t=1&l=col1&y=3&tmplt=4

No big suprises that much of the ridership is along light rail lines. Was a bit suprised how heavy ridership is already though along where NCLRT would be compared to the SE LRT...

[RyLucky]

Originally Posted by suburbia

You've not said anything completely wrong, however, the statement about higher tax bracket is misleading. There is technically a huge different between saying "higher tax bracket" and saying "higher marginal tax bracket". The higher tax percentage is only for the portion that is beyond a particular threshold. Additionally, your comments are incomplete, as other variables come into play, in particular, things like how many children you have, how much charitable giving you do, or how much you save as RRSP's have major impact on what tax you pay at the end of the day. Also, you've listed income of the average Calgarian but not the average Canadian. The report is about expenditures and thus is not normalized to household revenue.

Anyway - mish-mash of numbers doesn't result in a usable analysis.

Agreed. I kind of let my typing get away from me there.

That said, looking forward to seeing a city charter. We can afford better.

[Doug]

Originally Posted by andasen

The Ogden Yard's are CP not CN.

If the city bought something it would be the yards paralleling 50th Ave, Since the Conrich yard will replace this.

The one along 50th is the one I think the City purchased.

[simster3]

Here is another bullshit article against the train.

http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2012...w-lrt-should-act-as-a-warning-to-others/

The guy misleads the readers by not including what the actual cost included in the estimate and the actual. I really wish journalists would do their work. Or newspapers would be able to be fined for printing misleading articles. I guess this is why it would be considered a comment.

[Doug]

The cost of Calgary’s new LRT should act as a warning to other
Jesse Kline | Dec 11, 2012 1:49 PM ET | Last Updated: Dec 11, 2012 4:11 PM ET
http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2012...w-lrt-should-act-as-a-warning-to-others/

It’s been a long time coming, but the west leg of Calgary’s light-rail transit (LRT) system opened to the public on Monday. There were a few hiccups on opening day, and a local reporter found that at least one passenger’s trip took seven minutes longer than before. While some opening-day issues are to be expected, talk among residents and city councillors has already moved to the next expansion — no one wants to address the fact that the west LRT cost taxpayers twice the initial estimate.

The west leg extends the city’s blue line from 10th Street to 69th Street SW. The new line, which runs mostly above ground, but contains a few elevated and underground sections, was the first major expansion of Calgary’s rapid-transit network in 25 years, and the largest infrastructure project in the city’s history.

There’s no question that the rapidly growing Western city was due for an upgrade to its rail network. But according to Steve Lafleur, a policy analyst at the Frontier Centre for Public Policy, the project was supposed to cost taxpayers $700-million, but came in at just under $1.5-billion.

That means that the 8.2 km of new track cost $195-million per kilometre. With an expected ridership of 35,000 per day, that’s $42,857 per passenger — enough to buy them each a shiny new car. Over its lifetime, the new line will last much longer and service many more people than a fleet of new cars, but the statistic gives a sense of just how much the project ended up costing.

In comparison, Vancouver’s Canada Line, which was built for the 2010 Olympics and runs between downtown and the airport, cost just over $2-billion for 19.2 km of subway and elevated track. How the city of Calgary could have done such a horrendous job with the original budget estimates and provided taxpayers with so little value for their hard-earned money relative to other large infrastructure projects is a question all Calgarians should be asking.

Instead of heads rolling over this latest boondoggle, Calgary’s elected officials are already moving on to discuss new and innovative ways to waste money. Council is set to debate its RouteAhead plan on Wednesday, which calls for $12.9-billion in transit upgrades — including $11-billion for new LRT and bus lines — by 2040. If that estimate is as bad as the west LRT, it could cost taxpayers closer to $25-billion.

[simster3]

Also, the writer is using this to bash the LRT projects in Toronto. He is obviously a Rob "SUBWAYS SUBWAYS SUBWAYS" Ford supporter.

[Doug]

Originally Posted by simster3

Here is another bullshit article against the train.

http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2012...w-lrt-should-act-as-a-warning-to-others/

The guy misleads the readers by not including what the actual cost included in the estimate and the actual. I really wish journalists would do their work. Or newspapers would be able to be fined for printing misleading articles. I guess this is why it would be considered a comment.

The argument that the original estimate didn't include land acquisition is just backpedaling by the City. The project as originally scoped did not require much land because the RoW was mostly already in place (ex. City owns the golf course, when the drive-in theatre alonf 17th was redeveloped in the 70s, the Cop Station and AMA were set back, the 17th extension west of Sarcee around 1990 preserved RoW). wLRT was a poor investment that will likely compromise the ability of the City to fund future projects. If it had been built for $700M it would have only been a marginal project.

[DizzyEdge]

It would be nice to have a detailed look at why it cost almost $200 million per km vs Vancouver's $100 million.

[Radley77]

Originally Posted by simster3

Here is another bullshit article against the train.

http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2012...w-lrt-should-act-as-a-warning-to-others/

The guy misleads the readers by not including what the actual cost included in the estimate and the actual. I really wish journalists would do their work. Or newspapers would be able to be fined for printing misleading articles. I guess this is why it would be considered a comment.

Yeah, that Steve Lafleur guy's writing is bunk. Would need to compare the cost to build transit versus the alternative to build roads, plus parking (in which it would have been vastly more expensive). In a lot of cases, I'd guess that it's not the cost constraint of an auto that is a barrier to driving, but also the value of time that people are spending sitting in traffic, or the cost of parking, or the cost to build major interchanges.

[You Need A Thneed]

Originally Posted by DizzyEdge

It would be nice to have a detailed look at why it cost almost $200 million per km vs Vancouver's $100 million.

What I want to see what the final cost is, that doesn't include things like the high school, interchange, library, etc, and also removes the land sales for the land the city now must "dispose" of.

Saying that the total project is $1.6 billion (or whatever it is), isn't quite accurate.

I know that Vancouver's line only has 40 metre platforms, vs Calgary's 100 metre. That saves a bunch for each station.