The Great Canadian Transit Thread

[CanadianCentaur]

I thought I've read somewhere that it would be extremely difficult, if not as difficult as Edmonton, to build an LRT tunnel under downtown Calgary because of the high water table. Is this true?

As for Edmonton's LRT stations, I like the Bay/Enterprise Square and Corona ones the best. I love those shiny 70s-era metallic walls and those huge chandeliers in the Corona Station. Grandin happens to be one of my least favourite - those escalators have been closed for God knows how long, and it's a pretty deep station, which means a lot of stairs to/from the surface. And that's especially if the elevators get closed, too.

[Chadillaccc]

I don't know... part of the tunnel is already built under city hall, and it connects with an operational tunnel under the tracks. I don't see how it could be any more difficult for us to build a tunnel under a street if Vancouver could build one under false creek? We have underground parkades in Calgary only one or two hundred meters from the river... so I can't really see that being part of the issue. The tunnel would be under 8th Avenue, about a kilometer from the river.


PS. I agree with you about Grandin Station being too deep, that's where my bf and I got off the train the other day to start exploring downtown, and it's quite the trek just to get out of the station, especially considering his legs were in serious pain from rugby

[Chadillaccc]

A direct synchronized comparison of the Expo Line of the skytrain line 26 years ago, and the Expo Line today. Wow, Metro Vancouver has changed so much. This uncatalogues the changes in only a small portion of Vancouver, about half of Burnaby, and less than half of New Westminster. I think the video is beautiful.

• Video Link

[Morningrise]

Awesome video! It's really incredible how much Vancouver has changed since then.

[Riise]

Originally Posted by Layton's Brylcreem

And now Calgary needs to build a very expensive tunnel—or is it two tunnels—though the downtown to connect the proposed SE and North Central lines, and increase capacity on the existing lines.

The major difference is Calgary's commuting/development patterns have solidly latched onto the radial network and the City has built around it. It is now a matter of meeting the demands of a public with a transit mentality rather than developing the transit mentality. Before I get called out for saying Calgary is a transit city, I'm mainly talking about the work commute.

[Doady]

Originally Posted by shreddog

Hmmmm, both Calgary and Edmonton have spent roughly the same on their LRT networks. Calgary's is twice as big and carries 3 times the passengers.

Sure, Calgary could have spent a shitload on the DT ug portion and had a smaller network with less boardings but at least it wouldn't have any congestion DT!!

Funny, I always thought the role of public transit was to move people and not reduce congestion DT ... silly me!

Revenue ridership per capita, 2012

Edmonton Transit System - 102
Calgary Transit - 88

[SHOFEAR]

Originally Posted by Chadillaccc

We have underground parkades in Calgary only one or two hundred meters from the river... so I can't really see that being part of the issue. The tunnel would be under 8th Avenue, about a kilometer from the river.

My sisters parkade in the Marquis floods every year. It's only one floor iirc.

[Chadillaccc]

Oh shit, I have heard about that, I forgot. But again, the subway tunnel will be much farther from the river than that. I work in Suncor Energy Centre less than half a km from the river and our 4.5 level parkade has never flooded as far as I know.

[ssiguy]

Went to the APTA reports {god it pisses me off having to go to a US site to get Canadian info!} and Calgary ridership is up a blistering 11% from last year and Ottawa down 5% which makes Calgary Canada's fourth largest transit agency for the first time I believe...............good work Calgary!

Toronto and Montreal are both off slightly but the BC stats are unreal. Vancouver is down 11% and Victoria an unbelievable 15%! Calgary now has higher per capita ridership than Vancouver. Population growth has greatly slowed in BC and unemployment has been rising but still that's an unbelievable drop for both cities.

[nname]

Calgary have the new West LRT, thus for the increase in ridership. It is now getting really close to the peak level in 2008.

Vancouver had a fare increase on Jan 1st, that would lower ridership at least in the first half of this year.

It is normal for a decrease in ridership this year though, due to having one less day (Feb. 29), and Easter long weekend span from the end of March to April (instead of fully in April last year). In BC, there's the new Family Day long weekend in February too. From TransLink's stat, just February alone, ridership dipped as much as 16%...

[Metro-One]

Originally Posted by nname

Calgary have the new West LRT, thus for the increase in ridership. It is now getting really close to the peak level in 2008.

Vancouver had a fare increase on Jan 1st, that would lower ridership at least in the first half of this year.

It is normal for a decrease in ridership this year though, due to having one less day (Feb. 29), and Easter long weekend span from the end of March to April (instead of fully in April last year). In BC, there's the new Family Day long weekend in February too. From TransLink's stat, just February alone, ridership dipped as much as 16%...

Just ignore ssiguy, all his posts are about BC unemployment or population growth become negative, honestly it gets tiresome, he has some bizarre vendetta against BC and his findings are always proven to be dead wrong or grossly exaggerated though hard facts / stats, others on this forum have grown tired of correcting his b.s. though.

[ccw219]

Originally Posted by ssiguy

Went to the APTA reports {god it pisses me off having to go to a US site to get Canadian info!} and Calgary ridership is up a blistering 11% from last year and Ottawa down 5% which makes Calgary Canada's fourth largest transit agency for the first time I believe...............good work Calgary!

Toronto and Montreal are both off slightly but the BC stats are unreal. Vancouver is down 11% and Victoria an unbelievable 15%! Calgary now has higher per capita ridership than Vancouver. Population growth has greatly slowed in BC and unemployment has been rising but still that's an unbelievable drop for both cities.

New to these. Which reports are you accessing on the APTA site?

[ccw219]

Originally Posted by Doady

Revenue ridership per capita, 2012

Edmonton Transit System - 102
Calgary Transit - 88

Also fascinated by this. Source?

Comparable numbers in other Canadian metros?

[Innsertnamehere]

Annual ridership for the ttc per capita:

197

(514,000,000 / 2,600,000)

Important to note that a lot of TTC ridership comes from outside of the city of Toronto, meaning that if you we're to only count then residents of the city of Toronto it would likely be lower. Even if you use the population of the entire GTA (which isn't fair as for 2/3rds of the population the TTC isn't their main service) you still end up with 88.

[Chadillaccc]

Where did you get the 2.6 million number from? 514 million rides in one year equals out to 1.408 million rides per day.

[Innsertnamehere]

2.6 million is the population of Toronto.

[Chadillaccc]

Toronto is 2.8 million now... remember a few months ago the city of Toronto estimates surpassed the city of Chicago estimates...

[Wigs]

[OwenChurch]

The now and then video for Vancouver is amazing. I have never been to Vancouver, but I like the look of the elevated trains! I wish we had transit like that in Toronto, it seems like it would be more enjoyable than the subway and add to the fabric of the street-scape.

Does anyone know what is going on with LRT in the Peel and Waterloo regions?

[Chadillaccc]

Last I heard was the KW lrt is starting construction this year. I think the one in Peel is on hold? Not certain though.