Calgary Public Transit II

[Allan83]

Originally Posted by fusili

Ok, it saves 13 minutes. It is also the most expensive project by an order of magnitude and has lower ridership projections than most of the other projects.

As a thought exercise: would you rather save 10K people 30 minutes per day for $3 billion, or save 30K people 15 minutes per day for $50 M?

Ok, let’s move on to the ridership projections, which also immediately looked wrong to me. If you could dig up the report that would help and I’ll get back to this later this evening. I’ll just make a few comments now from what I remember. As I recall, the report showed a large increase in jobs predicted for the area serviced by the SETWAY, and yet it only predicted a modest increase in ridership. Again I submit that this doesn’t make sense on its face. Not only will the large time savings produced by the dedicated roadway that only public transit can use give it a huge advantage over commuting by car, but beyond that the increase in jobs in this area will produce a lot of new commuters, going both ways. Not only will commuters have much better access to downtown, but people from all over the city will have greatly improved access to Inglewood, the Crossroads Market area, the Glenmore Hotel Area, Quarry Park, and on down to Seton. Yes, this is a very expensive project and I’m sure lots of legitimate questions can be asked about who should pay for it, and how, but I don’t think this study does anyone any good by pretty obviously significantly misrepresenting the value of the SETWAY.

Originally Posted by ByeByeBaby

Which details? Are you talking about the lower current ridership, the lower ridership increase, the lower CO2 reduction, or the order-of-magnitude higher cost?

I think a lot of those numbers are highly suspect.

As a side note, I just saw this slide deck of comparison charts, which actually stacks the projects next to each other in chart form, which helped show the differences between the projects to me.

Thanks, I’ll have a look at that later.

[Allan83]

Originally Posted by RyLucky

While objectively comparing capital projects is a worthy goal, this study came short of delivering (as did routeahead, but that's another rant). Explicit methodology could have justified the numbers, but it was omitted. Lack of explanation in a novel ordinal ranking system is a cardinal sin! Pun intended. No offense, but why not have somebody who understands statistics create this kind of study. It looks and smells like science, but it offers fewer challengable conclusions than a TED talk. I'm not saying the outcome of the study is incorrect; I'm saying it is impossible to tell from what was shown, and as a result this "objective study" comes across as a breath short of biased propaganda, consciously or otherwise.

Calgary Transit and RouteAhead, if you are reading this, I will happily proofread your future studies before they go public. Transparency is impossible with McStudies like this one.

I strongly agree with this.

[Cage]

Originally Posted by Allan83

Ok, let’s move on to the ridership projections, which also immediately looked wrong to me. If you could dig up the report that would help and I’ll get back to this later this evening. I’ll just make a few comments now from what I remember. As I recall, the report showed a large increase in jobs predicted for the area serviced by the SETWAY, and yet it only predicted a modest increase in ridership. Again I submit that this doesn’t make sense on its face. Not only will the large time savings produced by the dedicated roadway that only public transit can use give it a huge advantage over commuting by car, but beyond that the increase in jobs in this area will produce a lot of new commuters, going both ways.

Use of LRT to commute outside the downtown core is much less than commutes into the core. Reason, free or close to free parking at the employer for people outside the downtown core. Unless the city smacks noncore commuters with $400 per month parking fee, they will continue to drive to work. This is the reason for a large employment increase without a corresponding increase in LRT users.

To put this into practice, I work about 4 minute walk from Chinook Station with about 250 other souls. We might have 10 people using transit to get to work. The others either drive (like me) or car pool. When I worked in the downtown, I commuted via train from crowfoot to downtown.

[MasterG]

Originally Posted by Cage

Use of LRT to commute outside the downtown core is much less than commutes into the core. Reason, free or close to free parking at the employer for people outside the downtown core. Unless the city smacks noncore commuters with $400 per month parking fee, they will continue to drive to work. This is the reason for a large employment increase without a corresponding increase in LRT users.

To put this into practice, I work about 4 minute walk from Chinook Station with about 250 other souls. We might have 10 people using transit to get to work. The others either drive (like me) or car pool. When I worked in the downtown, I commuted via train from crowfoot to downtown.

I understand the desire to place all routes into downtown, however given the cost and the relatively "dead" space that the LRT would have to travel to get from South Hill - Quarry Park Area to the CBD included bridges, tunnels etc. What would the implications be for keeping the southern Leg of the SELRT as is, but branching North of Glenmore Tr. to connect with the Chinook area. Not necessarily an interlining, but a transfer station and continue the route over the causeway to the Westmount campus, MRU, connect in with Westbrook.

Much of the pressure in the SE has to do with jobs in the east, residential in the west of the city. A route like that would not be cheap, but certainly would cost less that the downtown to South Hill section that costs the most but delivers the least benefit.

A downtown to Quarry Park line can be created later if necessary.

[Doug]

Originally Posted by ByeByeBaby

If we're broadening the analysis, then if we want to talk about quadrant fairness, we should note that there is an $800 million road project (Stoney Trail) currently being built in the SE. Over the next 10 years, the City's capital spending on roads is planned to be less than half of that; $360 million. Oh, and the single largest City road project? In the SE. (Glenmore/Ogden interchange).

It's sort of interesting that the area that is getting 77% of the roads spending over the next decade is crying foul if they don't also get 100% of the transit spending.

The SE also leads the city by a wide margin in population and job growth plus suffers the geographic barrier (from a transportation perspective) of Fish Creek Park. It has few redundancies in its existing transportation infrastructure, being highly reliant on Deerfoot. If anything, the SE share of city wide job and population will only grow in coming years due to the abundance of raw land and the emerging employment hubs around Quarry Park and the South Calgary Health Campus. It will be interesting to see how much difference the SE ring road will make. I suspect it will almost instantly overload Glenmore which will become an even more vital east-west corridor, and will force accelerated timelines around the Ogden interchange and Deerfoot interchange.

In terms of transit, LRT will succeed if it offers significant time savings. Unlike the NC BRT, the current SE BRT route is painfully slow. A side advantage of SE LRT will be to off load the south line, which will likely still be at capacity even with 4 car trains. Some other possibilities to consider are: redevelopment of east Beltline, Ramsay and Inglewood creating demand along the SE LRT alignment, start of the Railtown project, possible redevelopment of CP's Alyth yards (could see it becoming too small for CP but would likely incur huge reclamation charges) and further up-zoning of Quarry Park. Remington has been up-zoning by stealth for many years (ex. a 4th floor was added to the u/c Quarry Crossing, the former Inland Pipe lands are being marketed as up to 1.5 M sq ft of office space, a new project called Quarry Crossing North is being marketed as 500 K sq of office space.

[ByeByeBaby]

Originally Posted by Allan83

Ok, let’s move on to the ridership projections, which also immediately looked wrong to me. If you could dig up the report that would help and I’ll get back to this later this evening. I’ll just make a few comments now from what I remember. As I recall, the report showed a large increase in jobs predicted for the area serviced by the SETWAY, and yet it only predicted a modest increase in ridership. Again I submit that this doesn’t make sense on its face. Not only will the large time savings produced by the dedicated roadway that only public transit can use give it a huge advantage over commuting by car, but beyond that the increase in jobs in this area will produce a lot of new commuters, going both ways. Not only will commuters have much better access to downtown, but people from all over the city will have greatly improved access to Inglewood, the Crossroads Market area, the Glenmore Hotel Area, Quarry Park, and on down to Seton. Yes, this is a very expensive project and I’m sure lots of legitimate questions can be asked about who should pay for it, and how, but I don’t think this study does anyone any good by pretty obviously significantly misrepresenting the value of the SETWAY.


I think a lot of those numbers are highly suspect.

From my reading of this, it seems you don't trust the numbers because it doesn't make sense to have a large increase in population and employment in an area not result in a similarly large increase in transit ridership on a corridor. (I underlined the key sentence to me). Others have voiced similar concerns. Here's why an area can have a large increase in population and employment while a transit corridor has lower ridership growth.

This is the southeast as it exists now, in general terms of land use. I'm not picking out every single detail, but working in broad strokes, with five types of land use: single family detached and multifamily residential, and retail, office/institutional and industrial employment lands.



Here is a view of what the future land use is planned to be. This is more than 10 years from now, maybe more like a 20 year future; again, it's a rough broad stroke draft. I've included the two most important transportation projects in the next 30 years in this part of the city; SE Stoney Trail (with squares showing interchanges) and the SE LRT (with squares showing stations).



And here is a map showing just areas of growth. Note that the existing industrial lands can still have job growth; a parcel that currently has a very low intensity use, like a material storage yard, can easily be sold and developed into something like a 5 bay light industrial building and have employment go from 5 to 100; the neighbours are unlikely to complain. On the other hand, redeveloping a house in Douglasdale into a fourplex adds only a small number of units and is much more difficult to get approved.



You can see the employment growth is in three basic nodes; Quarry Park (by far the smallest), a potentially dense area in Seton, and a huge amount of industrial employment growth along Stoney. Quarry Park is (relatively) well connected to both the existing and the growth areas by LRT. I say relatively; it is a 1 km walk from the LRT station to the 18th St/QP Bvld intersection by Jacobs and the retail area. That's the distance from the U of C LRT station to the far side of the Olympic Oval, or from 7th to 17th Ave -- I wouldn't say those areas are well served by LRT. So the long walks aside (a circulator shuttle can help), this area could be attractive for LRT use, and have ridership growth as the jobs grow. If the parking is free, though, it will still be a car-heavy commute.

The second node is Seton. It's also well connected to the LRT system, but generally not well connected to the residential areas by the LRT. It is also well connected to the roads, including a new interchange off of Deerfoot as well as the improved 22X connection. Pretty well everybody south of 22X will drive (or walk) to Seton, as will everybody in Douglasdale/McKenzie Lake. People who live in the McKenzie Towne area may take the LRT; those who can walk to the stations especially. The hospital has pay parking, currently $10 a month cheaper than a transit pass. Job growth here will result in relatively small ridership gains.

The third area of growth is in the massive industrial area. This is an area that is not served by the LRT at all; it is, however, really well served by the new freeway being built. Industrial areas are in general areas of very low transit ridership for about a dozen reasons; low density prevents effective coverage, many workers need cars or tools to do their jobs, etc. The LRT doesn't help people get here. Job growth here will have absolutely no ridership gain.

So even though there is a lot of employment growth in the SE, the bulk of it is not anywhere that will be well served by the LRT. A relatively small share is in the nodes where LRT may be used. And similarly, most of the population growth is in areas that are distant from the LRT. Plenty of growth a long way away from the LRT and close to a freeway, plus Calgary's largest freeway project in 30 years running from the growing residential area to the largest employment area in the sector. That is why it is entirely reasonable for an area to have plenty of jobs and employment growth without a commensurate growth in transit ridership.

[Allan83]

Originally Posted by Cage

Use of LRT to commute outside the downtown core is much less than commutes into the core. Reason, free or close to free parking at the employer for people outside the downtown core. Unless the city smacks noncore commuters with $400 per month parking fee, they will continue to drive to work. This is the reason for a large employment increase without a corresponding increase in LRT users.

To put this into practice, I work about 4 minute walk from Chinook Station with about 250 other souls. We might have 10 people using transit to get to work. The others either drive (like me) or car pool. When I worked in the downtown, I commuted via train from crowfoot to downtown.

I’m sure that’s very often true, but the SETWAY is a different case. The area between QP and downtown is a maze of congested freeways, railway lines, and a major river, and it’s time consuming and frustrating to get from one place to the other even with a moderate traffic levels. The SETWAY would cut a direct path through the maze, which is what accounts for the projected 13 minute time saving on a one way trip between downtown and QP. Commuters in their cars can’t take this shortcut. Even if the parking at QP is free the cars would still have to take the long way, and fight the traffic, while the SETWAY busses take the shortcut on a road with no congestion at all. There will be people who live in the SE and far SW who will be able to drive to QP quicker, of course, but from most parts of the city SETWAY shortcut, which also bypasses the congestion, will have a big advantage.

As a footnote, I doubt that the time savings was calculated with an express service in mind. With a peak time express service, i.e. nonstop between downtown and QP, I bet the time savings would be several minutes more each way.

[Allan83]

Originally Posted by ByeByeBaby

From my reading of this, it seems you don't trust the numbers because it doesn't make sense to have a large increase in population and employment in an area not result in a similarly large increase in transit ridership on a corridor. (I underlined the key sentence to me). Others have voiced similar concerns. Here's why an area can have a large increase in population and employment while a transit corridor has lower ridership growth...

Very good post. I’ll have a closer look at it this weekend reply to it then.

[mellbell416]

Bye Bye Baby, which LRT is only 1km walk from Jacobs Engng (18th St. and QP) to an LRT??
Walking to Heritage Station takes almost an hour... Are you talking about an LRT that might someday get built?

[ByeByeBaby]

Originally Posted by mellbell416

Bye Bye Baby, which LRT is only 1km walk from Jacobs Engng (18th St. and QP) to an LRT??
Walking to Heritage Station takes almost an hour... Are you talking about an LRT that might someday get built?

I'm talking about the design for the SE LRT; the Quarry Park station would be on the east edge of QP.

[Allan83]

My response to BBB. Very good and useful maps, btw.

You can see the employment growth is in three basic nodes; Quarry Park (by far the smallest), a potentially dense area in Seton, and a huge amount of industrial employment growth along Stoney. Quarry Park is (relatively) well connected to both the existing and the growth areas by LRT. I say relatively; it is a 1 km walk from the LRT station to the 18th St/QP Bvld intersection by Jacobs and the retail area. That's the distance from the U of C LRT station to the far side of the Olympic Oval, or from 7th to 17th Ave -- I wouldn't say those areas are well served by LRT. So the long walks aside (a circulator shuttle can help), this area could be attractive for LRT use, and have ridership growth as the jobs grow. If the parking is free, though, it will still be a car-heavy commute.

I think there’s a good opportunity for growth elsewhere as well. For many people Inglewood is a difficult place to get to right now, and a difficult place to park once you do get there. The SETWAY would change that for a lot of people. Further, as part of the Inglewood station I understand there is to be a walkway over the tracks connecting Ramsey and Inglewood. I think both of these factors would provide a not insignificant impetus for development and growth in Inglewood. The Crossroads Market area has similar issues, except I would say that it’s somewhat harder to get to and easier to park once you’re there. I think it would see a big increase in traffic with a SETWAY stop at its back door, and I could see other related businesses and developments moving into the area. Putting high quality public transit into this area and on down to the Glenmore Inn in general opens the door to more labour intensive but modest paying industries. Current public transit into that area is miserable and time consuming, and that becomes a disincentive for employees and a cost to employers. A developer told me the other day that he thinks CP will open up some of its land in Ogden for development. I’m he was just speculating, but it made sense to me. With a SETWAY stop at the front door that area would go from being isolated to a short, premium, bus ride from downtown, and it would be a short ride from a number of other employment centers and residential neighbourhoods as well. The Lynwood and Glenmore Inn stops would also be good endpoints for a bus or shuttle route that loops through the industrial neighbourhoods to the east. And depending on how the SETWAY busses handled bikes, a person could also easily ride to their job from one these stops. I think residential redevelopment would move forward quicker in Lynwood and Ogden with the SETWAY in place as well.

Another option I don’t think has been discussed is the potential to bring busses from west of the Bow via the Deerfoot to QP or perhaps Douglasdale. There are about a half a dozen C-Train stops between about Anderson and downtown, but an express bus from QP or DD would have 0 stops to downtown, and that could well make it competitive time wise, and it would take some pressure off the south C-Train line.

The second node is Seton. It's also well connected to the LRT system, but generally not well connected to the residential areas by the LRT. It is also well connected to the roads, including a new interchange off of Deerfoot as well as the improved 22X connection. Pretty well everybody south of 22X will drive (or walk) to Seton, as will everybody in Douglasdale/McKenzie Lake. People who live in the McKenzie Towne area may take the LRT; those who can walk to the stations especially. The hospital has pay parking, currently $10 a month cheaper than a transit pass. Job growth here will result in relatively small ridership gains.

If parking is almost on par with a bus pass I would expect that a lot of people would choose to take the bus. There are gas and vehicle costs on top of the parking, and the transit pass can be used for non work purposes as well. For most people it would cost a lot more to drive, and the congestion problems in the SE would make it a much bigger headache.

The third area of growth is in the massive industrial area. This is an area that is not served by the LRT at all; it is, however, really well served by the new freeway being built. Industrial areas are in general areas of very low transit ridership for about a dozen reasons; low density prevents effective coverage, many workers need cars or tools to do their jobs, etc. The LRT doesn't help people get here. Job growth here will have absolutely no ridership gain.

I addressed this area above, but as an additional comment I think there are lot of relatively low paying jobs in these areas as well, low enough that having to drive to work would eat up a significant percentage of their paycheck. The low density in these areas is tough for public transit, but I think having SETWAY stops beside this area opens up a number of possibilities. A company like SMED - or whoever owns that place now – could perhaps run a shuttle bus of its own back and forth to the SETWAY stop as well.

So even though there is a lot of employment growth in the SE, the bulk of it is not anywhere that will be well served by the LRT. A relatively small share is in the nodes where LRT may be used. And similarly, most of the population growth is in areas that are distant from the LRT. Plenty of growth a long way away from the LRT and close to a freeway, plus Calgary's largest freeway project in 30 years running from the growing residential area to the largest employment area in the sector. That is why it is entirely reasonable for an area to have plenty of jobs and employment growth without a commensurate growth in transit ridership.

I’m not in agreement on this point. I see a lot of potential growth, and the city must have as well. I’m sure they didn’t plan a project like this without some solid studies showing there was a demand for it. This most recent report and ranking, otoh, suggest that there would be very little additional demand, but it doesn't show how they came to this conclusion, and imo it does not seem reasonable on its face.

[RyLucky]

I'd just like to add that (1) I agree that there is a lot of potential for growth in Inglewood/Ramsay and Crossroads, but not without LRT. (2) There is little room for auxiliary LRT infrastructure on the NCLRT, so it may be more practical to build both ends at the same time. The NC and the SE lines are better together than they can be alone, especially if there were an airport spur.

Unfortunately, there is no revenue to build the infrastructure necessary. Successful implementation looks like it will almost definitely require some creative problem solving. The success of Calgary's original LRT is in part thanks to revolutionary parking regulations and the controversial closure of 7th and 8th avenues to cars. In fact, the SLRT had a similar problem to the SELRT, with 3 miles of low-ridership wasteland between Chinook and Stampede. In my opinion, the LRT only started to REALLY succeed in the 2000s though when lines were extended to the distant suburbs, downtown parking rates soared, and traffic in Calgary increased dramatically.

[Doug]

Have any ridership numbers for the West Line been published? I am curious to see if it is living up to the expectations of 30-35K/weekday.

[ByeByeBaby]

Originally Posted by Doug

Have any ridership numbers for the West Line been published? I am curious to see if it is living up to the expectations of 30-35K/weekday.

Preliminary counts are 28,000 a day, right in line with the projections of 25,000. (There were a number of projections floating around, based on both minor changes in design, and on different future horizons; for planning purposes, looking at what ridership will be in 10 or 15 years may be more useful than the day it opens, but that causes confusion as a 2029 scenario gets quoted as a ridership projection for today.)

I'd suggest that a projected ridership within around 10% of the actual ridership adds some credibility to other ridership projections published by Transit.

[UofC.engineer]

A document regarding the new transit only lanes on Centre street:

http://www.calgarytransit.com/pdf/Centre-Street-Transit-Only-Lanes.pdf

[MasterG]

Originally Posted by UofC.engineer

A document regarding the new transit only lanes on Centre street:

http://www.calgarytransit.com/pdf/Centre-Street-Transit-Only-Lanes.pdf

I am really happy about that project. Its a good proof-of-concept to convince Transit and users that this may be a good idea to do in many, many more places.

Seems to have gone off smoothly too, albeit I don't think they had to fight to get a auto-lane re-designated on this one so it was a bit of an easy win.

[Doug]

Originally Posted by ByeByeBaby

Preliminary counts are 28,000 a day, right in line with the projections of 25,000. (There were a number of projections floating around, based on both minor changes in design, and on different future horizons; for planning purposes, looking at what ridership will be in 10 or 15 years may be more useful than the day it opens, but that causes confusion as a 2029 scenario gets quoted as a ridership projection for today.)

I'd suggest that a projected ridership within around 10% of the actual ridership adds some credibility to other ridership projections published by Transit.

I'd be surprised if ridership grows that much over the long term given that the west side is almost out of raw land. Sure there will be some densification, but that will be working counter to declines that 1980-current vintages suburbs will experience. The Westbrook TOD might add a few thousand riders.

[MasterG]

Originally Posted by Doug

I'd be surprised if ridership grows that much over the long term given that the west side is almost out of raw land. Sure there will be some densification, but that will be working counter to declines that 1980-current vintages suburbs will experience. The Westbrook TOD might add a few thousand riders.

Agreed. You probably won't see significant ridership growth until CT gets serious about its BRT plans and really creates a first-rate mainline bus route in the area.

i.e. Imagine the route from Westbrook - MRU - Westmount Campus - Heritage. Now imagine if it was good. Then you'd be in business to see big bumps in ridership.

barring that, he slow density/congestion growth that will be the big driver for ridership.

I would love to see CT start acting more boldly, they seem to be one of the laggards in the city's push to act like a big city with a progressive approach to urban life. (excluding the success of the C Train obviously). A could really go for a few direct B-Line Vancouver -style main routes. Hopefully route Ahead gets them thinking in the right direction.

[MalcolmTucker]

The issue like many in the province is funding. With the growth rates we have, hard to even stay at a steady level of services, let alone have improvement.

[mellbell416]

I wonder how the funding situation is going to be now that there are huge post-flood costs of repair and cleanup. Are the dollars that were earmarked for transit upgrades going to be siphoned off for other purposes?