Calgary Public Transit II

[Policy Wonk]

Either is appropriate, but I think i'm going to stay put.

Groupthink, a term coined by social psychologist Irving Janis (1972), occurs when a group makes faulty decisions because group pressures lead to a deterioration of “mental efficiency, reality testing, and moral judgment” (p. 9). Groups affected by groupthink ignore alternatives and tend to take irrational actions that dehumanize other groups. A group is especially vulnerable to groupthink when its members are similar in background, when the group is insulated from outside opinions, and when there are no clear rules for decision making.

This is fundamentally about the thirty plus years of rehashing the North Central LRT debate and the perception a Centre Street LRT is the urban alternative and the Nose Creek LRT is the suburban one. I really don't believe for a second anyone here actually has strong feelings about interlining or really believes that 7th Ave ROW will somehow cope better in the future with than it does today.

[MalcolmTucker]

With the alignment of the west LRT over 11th St, and the eastern approach into downtown of the NE LRT, it will be exceedingly hard to integrate it into tunnels, no matter what project is chosen to move it underground in the distant future. Actually building the facilities for interlining before they are needed isn't a prudent use of capital, but provisioning for it in the future is prudent.

50 years from now protected corridors could be seen as thoughtful planning. Whether the NE or west line ever generates more than 10,000 ppdph is something we can't really predict. The amount of infrastructure changes to even get to the point is likely large, particularly the elimination of level crossings, and changing back to large scale stations.

Personally I'd rather see more lines of less capacity be built than fewer with larger catchments. As always, would be important to do detailed studies to find out which is actually better from a cost point.

For example, if you built the 7th avenue subway for the NE LRT, would you be able to avoid building a transit river crossing to serve 17th ave se, by interlining somewhere near Max Bell? Similarly but not as radically, for servicing Mount Royal University, would a branch line work better if there was that extra capacity versus alternatives?

Also, it might be cheaper to use a future greenline as a higher capacity backbone service with it built from scratch to serve 30,000 ppdph and interlining instead of converting the existing line to LRT.

First thing first, need the tunnel study that was authorized half a decade or so ago. I have to wonder at this point, was it even conducted?

[Rusty van Reddick]

Originally Posted by Policy Wonk

Either is appropriate, but I think i'm going to stay put.

We're not making decisions on SSP. So your choice of insult wasn't the correct one.

Credit sources when you quote them.

[sim]

Originally Posted by Rusty van Reddick

I just took the 300 home from the airport for the first time. Great service, very pleased. But when the bus is carrying many foreign or otherwise out of town visitors, I think that stop announcements are crucial.

Got off, grabbed a car2go by the Globe theatre, very nice commute.

Unless you happen to do this on a very regular and repetitive basis which, given the context I suspect is not the case, the word you may want to use here is "trip" or "journey."

Sorry, but I had to.



These are strange times indeed.

[Policy Wonk]

Originally Posted by Rusty van Reddick

We're not making decisions on SSP. So your choice of insult wasn't the correct one.

Credit sources when you quote them.

You're arguing that no decision making goes into forming a consensus?

[joe498]

Apparently during the West LRT Planning, some of council wanted it to go to Mount Royal university.

Still not a dumb idea, 4k of track to sunalta considering the density of Richmond, South Calgary, Altadore Lincoln park and all the new office /residential space up for grabs at the military base.

[ByeByeBaby]

Originally Posted by Policy Wonk

Scary... i'm agreeing with sim on something...



That is only true if you believe that after the construction of the 8th Ave subway that 7th Ave will once again be allowed to reach anywhere near its present level of traffic, which at its peak sees a quarter of trains fall behind schedule and create cascading delays. Status quo is tolerated only out of absolute necessity. Once this is alleviated by by the construction of the 8th Ave subway 7th Ave will never be allowed to return to such a situation. So projecting capacity based on allocating a presently unworkable schedule to only a single line is ridiculous. The need for a 7th Ave subway will occur decades before the Nose Creek LRT line is built and even if it is never built.

And once again, interlining does not reduce capacity, capacity is movements per interval. Building a ROW in any challenging, costly urban environment without provisions for interlining is criminal negligence.

But I realize this is all unshakable SSP group think, so I will leave it at that.

Speaking of unshakable ideas, I'm always baffled by your insistence that Far-Future Us will absolutely, guaranteed, gladly, spend a billion dollars to build a 7th Ave Subway to prevent the exact same conditions that Past Us have lived through for a decade, that Present Us are making modest improvements to, and that Near-Future Us are still ignoring to the point that the priority list of improvements do not include building the 8th Ave subway to improve the current situation for at least the next decade. That somehow, Future Calgary Transit and Future City Council and Future Citizens would never tolerate a status quo out of necessity and limited budgets, even though we're currently celebrating about the 12th anniversary of tolerating the status quo, many happy returns.

Have you been warned that the Mole People will show up in 2025 and teach us all their techniques for low-cost tunnel construction or something? If you have been warned about the Mole People, it is your civic duty to tell us plainly, rather than through dogmatic insistence on minor points on urban transit infrastructure.

[Policy Wonk]

Originally Posted by ByeByeBaby

Speaking of unshakable ideas, I'm always baffled by your insistence that Far-Future Us will absolutely, guaranteed, gladly, spend a billion dollars to build a 7th Ave Subway to prevent the exact same conditions that Past Us have lived through for a decade,

Well applying the logic that returning to a situation only begrudgingly tolerated in the past is potentially a future solution, perhaps the solution to the Bowness sewer capacity issues can be found in cesspools, Calgary managed with those for decades.

[You Need A Thneed]

Certainly, an 8th Ave tunnel mist be designed so that interlining through it is possibile if needed someday. That probably doesn't take much though. I don't think it makes sense to build connections though, you don't even know where the connections will come from if they are needed in the future. It may be the existing blue line that eventually gets routed through there too, or maybe it's a completely different line that none of us have even thought about.

Perhaps 7th Ave also gets a tunnel someday because a different line is interlined with IT.

[fusili]

What I fail to understand is why we would think 7th avenue will return to the state it is in today when only the blue line will be operating on it? As YNAT consistently points out, it will have a 267% increase in capacity when the Red Line is using 8th avenue subway. Is projected growth in the NE so massive that a 267% increase in capacity is not enough?

7th avenue will hit a capacity crunch if, and only if, the NC line interlines with the NE line at the zoo, but that is my entire point. If the NC line interlines with the 2nd street subway, it completely eliminates the need for the 7th ave subway. So, does the additional cost of the Centre Street subway (or elevated, or whatever) over the Nose Creek alignment outweigh the cost of a 7th avenue subway? (including operational costs of running additional trains out to 69th Street station)

[outoftheice]

I found this to be an interesting article in the Calgary Sun. Some of the points I found most interesting....

Calgary mayor and alderman tango on Twitter over Southeast LRT costs
By Dave Dormer, Calgary Sun

Funding the proposed Southeast LRT line turned into a small Twitter tête-à-tête over the weekend between the mayor and a city councillor.

The back and forth began Saturday when Ald. Shane Keating responded to a Twitter user’s claim the Southeast LRT (SELRT) line would cost 10 times as much to build as the airport tunnel. Keating said the tunnel will cost $295 million, while the SELRT will cost $1.5 billion.

Mayor Naheed Nenshi questioned Keating’s numbers, tweeting about discussions around the SELRT that pinned the actual cost as twice that at $3 billion. The higher number, Keating fired back, also includes the cost of building a downtown tunnel for the proposed North-Central LRT line and a transit maintenance yard

and...

Should he be re-elected in October, Keating said one goal of his will be to get planning done for a southeast transit route over the next four years.

“That’s doable,” he said.

“But the plan doesn’t mean we’ve got the money and will start construction.”

Article: http://www.calgarysun.com/2013/08/19/cal...ango-on-twitter-over-southeast-lrt-costs

I can see Alderman Keating's point that a tunnel into downtown may not be considered a required expense for any SE LRT project... the line could terminate at 4 Street SE and allow people to walk into downtown from there or transfer to a 7th Ave shuttle bus. However I'm pretty certain that since the SE LRT will operate completely separate from the existing LRT network that a maintenance yard will be a required expense.

I also find it sad that a detailed planning study is now what is considered an acceptable goal for a four year term on council. Cities like Toronto and Vancouver are in the middle of adopting alternative funding solutions to press ahead with multi-billion dollar rapid transit construction projects. It seems that while other cities are busy doing things, Calgarians are content to just sit around talking about it and planning for the day, we maybe will have money to build stuff.... we hope.

[You Need A Thneed]

Originally Posted by outoftheice

I found this to be an interesting article in the Calgary Sun. Some of the points I found most interesting....



and...



Article: http://www.calgarysun.com/2013/08/19/cal...ango-on-twitter-over-southeast-lrt-costs

I can see Alderman Keating's point that a tunnel into downtown may not be considered a required expense for any SE LRT project... the line could terminate at 4 Street SE and allow people to walk into downtown from there or transfer to a 7th Ave shuttle bus. However I'm pretty certain that since the SE LRT will operate completely separate from the existing LRT network that a maintenance yard will be a required expense.

I also find it sad that a detailed planning study is now what is considered an acceptable goal for a four year term on council. Cities like Toronto and Vancouver are in the middle of adopting alternative funding solutions to press ahead with multi-billion dollar rapid transit construction projects. It seems that while other cities are busy doing things, Calgarians are content to just sit around talking about it and planning for the day, we maybe will have money to build stuff.... we hope.

That twitter user mentioned is me. The article is really making something out of nothing, as it wasn't really more than friendly discussion.

The storage yard and maintenance facility is certainly required, and would almost certainly have to be a Quarry Park. So phase one would have to go that far. I don't get spending $1.5 billion to bring the line only to the edge of downtown either - leaving people to walk 4-5 blocks to the other LRT lines. People won't use the line simply becasue of that. Also, the city really needs some kind of relief for bus capacity across the river on Centre Street, and is probably looking to spend some money solving that problem in the near future.

Building from Quarry Park to 16th Ave N with a maintenance/storage yard is probably a $3 Billion project. If you do anything at all, IMO, you have to do at least that much.

[RyLucky]

Originally Posted by fusili

What I fail to understand is why we would think 7th avenue will return to the state it is in today when only the blue line will be operating on it? As YNAT consistently points out, it will have a 267% increase in capacity when the Red Line is using 8th avenue subway. Is projected growth in the NE so massive that a 267% increase in capacity is not enough?

7th avenue will hit a capacity crunch if, and only if, the NC line interlines with the NE line at the zoo, but that is my entire point. If the NC line interlines with the 2nd street subway, it completely eliminates the need for the 7th ave subway. So, does the additional cost of the Centre Street subway (or elevated, or whatever) over the Nose Creek alignment outweigh the cost of a 7th avenue subway? (including operational costs of running additional trains out to 69th Street station)

Exactly.

[Policy Wonk]

The 267% number is similar to claiming the passenger capacity of a Boeing 727 is 330 because that many people were physically stuffed on a 727 during an evacuation flight from South Vietnam and it still got off the ground. In any event, I think the N.E. is going to densify along 36th Street more than anywhere else in the city outside the core. I don't believe that mid-century 7th Ave will be able to perform satisfactorily at grade at reasonable headways.

Capacity for this purpose should be the peak number of movements that can occur comfortably within the limitations incurred by operating at grade and at low speed with a large number of surface crossings. We passed that threshold a very long time ago.

Perhaps we just aren't thinking in the same timeframes here. I doubt much more than the S.E. LRT will be built in my lifetime. I don't think I will live to see the 8th Ave Subway, much less 7th Ave or the North Central LRT. Politics will dictate the S.E. LRT comes first and I think the 8th Ave subway should have come before the West LRT. I also believe we're about to enter an era of severe austerity and low commodity prices.

[fusili]

Originally Posted by Policy Wonk

The 267% number is similar to claiming the passenger capacity of a Boeing 727 is 330 because that many people were physically stuffed on a 727 during an evacuation flight from South Vietnam and it still got off the ground. In any event, I think the N.E. is going to densify along 36th Street more than anywhere else in the city outside the core. I don't believe that mid-century 7th Ave will be able to perform satisfactorily at grade at reasonable headways.

Capacity for this purpose should be the peak number of movements that can occur comfortably within the limitations incurred by operating at grade and at low speed with a large number of surface crossings. We passed that threshold a very long time ago.

Perhaps we just aren't thinking in the same timeframes here. I doubt much more than the S.E. LRT will be built in my lifetime. I don't think I will live to see the 8th Ave Subway, much less 7th Ave or the North Central LRT. Politics will dictate the S.E. LRT comes first and I think the 8th Ave subway should have come before the West LRT. I also believe we're about to enter an era of severe austerity and low commodity prices.

No. It is simply saying that adding a fourth car and removing one line from 7th avenue (the line which uses more than 50% of the capacity) will result in a 267% increase in capacity. We are just saying that if you add 30% more to a consist and double the number of trains by removing one line, that equals 267% capacity.

I agree 36th street and the NE in general is going to handle massive growth. Will that growth equal the 220K catchment area currently served by the south line? I don't think so. The NE Regional Policy Plan estimates ~50K new residents in that area, so that means ~170K people could move into new development along 36th street for it to be a wash. 7th avenue can handle the ~200K person catchment that will live in the NE, it currently handles 350K right now (South and NE), so yeah, I think it can manage.

[MalcolmTucker]

Originally Posted by outoftheice

I also find it sad that a detailed planning study is now what is considered an acceptable goal for a four year term on council. Cities like Toronto and Vancouver are in the middle of adopting alternative funding solutions to press ahead with multi-billion dollar rapid transit construction projects. It seems that while other cities are busy doing things, Calgarians are content to just sit around talking about it and planning for the day, we maybe will have money to build stuff.... we hope.

Toronto would love to have the dedicated, municipally directed provincial funding Calgary has, as would Vancouver and region.

Last thing we want is to approve a $3 billion dollar project, and have it go to $6 billion. In Toronto transit city went from less than ten billion for seven light rail projects to around twenty for four projects. I ugess forgetting to count rolling stock and maintenance yards and assuming you have to do zero traffic mitigation has consequences...

[Policy Wonk]

Originally Posted by fusili

We are just saying that if you add 30% more to a consist and double the number of trains by removing one line, that equals 267% capacity.

And this is our fundamental quarrel. I don't believe 7th Ave will ever be allowed to see anything near its present level of peak traffic at grade after the 8th Ave subway is built and I don't believe a 7th Ave LRT reasonably constrained by its surroundings will be sufficient in perpetuity.

I agree 36th street and the NE in general is going to handle massive growth. Will that growth equal the 220K catchment area currently served by the south line? I don't think so. The NE Regional Policy Plan estimates ~50K new residents in that area, so that means ~170K people could move into new development along 36th street for it to be a wash. 7th avenue can handle the ~200K person catchment that will live in the NE, it currently handles 350K right now (South and NE), so yeah, I think it can manage.

The 2006 Northeast Regional Policy Plan is based on the projected form of a Calgary of 1.5 million people and no particular date. The province projects the "Calgary Region" will have a population of 2.5 million by 2050.

I'm curious as to what timeframe you guys imagine for the buildout of the S.E. LRT, 8th Ave Subway and North Central LRT because we seem to be talking past one another by decades.

[ByeByeBaby]

Originally Posted by Policy Wonk

The 267% number is similar to claiming the passenger capacity of a Boeing 727 is 330 because that many people were physically stuffed on a 727 during an evacuation flight from South Vietnam and it still got off the ground. In any event, I think the N.E. is going to densify along 36th Street more than anywhere else in the city outside the core. I don't believe that mid-century 7th Ave will be able to perform satisfactorily at grade at reasonable headways.

Capacity for this purpose should be the peak number of movements that can occur comfortably within the limitations incurred by operating at grade and at low speed with a large number of surface crossings. We passed that threshold a very long time ago.

Perhaps we just aren't thinking in the same timeframes here. I doubt much more than the S.E. LRT will be built in my lifetime. I don't think I will live to see the 8th Ave Subway, much less 7th Ave or the North Central LRT. Politics will dictate the S.E. LRT comes first and I think the 8th Ave subway should have come before the West LRT. I also believe we're about to enter an era of severe austerity and low commodity prices.

So what is the level of traffic that 7th will be allowed to see in the future before the ever-generous future administrations fund an expensive tunnel? Right now, the peak hour in the AM (measuring WB at City Hall) is 6:45-7:44, when 29 trains enter the downtown. You have said that up to a quarter of 7th Ave trains fall behind schedule, but this is a cascading thing - one bad train screws up three behind it. I suspect a reduction from 29 to 25 would radically reduce delays. Would 25 trains an hour be a reasonable schedule?

Or should we get crazy, let's cancel all the late trains. If 3/4 of the trains are on time even with trains ahead of them running late, surely if those trains all disappeared there would be no problem with delays. Rounding down, that's 21 trains an hour. Is going down to a 21 train per hour schedule a reasonable reduction in traffic, per whatever expertise you have? Do we have to go to 10 trains?

You claim that for vague reasons an administration not yet born will surely never allow some hidden arbitrary level of train traffic. What, in your opinion, is the level of traffic that will drive a future administration to say "instead of cramming one more train on there, we're spending a billion dollars on a tunnel" ? Some specific reasoning with numbers would be welcomed, although a Delphic proclamation would be fine.

[Policy Wonk]

I suspect once the four car trains are ready to go Calgary Transit will experiment extensively with trying balance capacity with increased headways.

But this is what is funny to me... it is somehow unthinkable that future Calgary will find the resources to build a 7th Ave Subway in the name of increasing capacity and restoring surface traffic, but it is just a given that an "administration not yet born" will pull out all the stops to build an impossibly expensive Centre Street LRT alignment instead of Nose Creek. All for the opportunity to fight the residents of established communities block by block over TOD and intensification instead of shooting a damn near straight line to ridership rich Northern suburbs.

If I had some sense of the time frame you guys were working with, I just might agree with you to that point. But the sweeping claims of long-term adequacy are baffling to me.

"Calgary" is projected to double in size over the next forty years and i'm at least assuming that you guys wish to see transit's modal share grow in that time. Yet in 2013 you're all-in on declaring 7th ave as a surface ROW forever adequate.

I still don't believe for a second that in the absence of the unending debate over Centre Street vs. Nose Creek anyone would seriously be arguing this.

Same time next year boys...

[ken0042]

What are the chances that CPR would ever want to give up/sell the land they have between 9th and 10 ave? That would make for a nice LRT ROW, complete with bridges already built.

I'm just thinking that if a 7th ave subway is in the 30-50 year plan, anything could be possible.