Quote:
Originally Posted by MalcolmTucker
To reduce fares you would have to find some other outside subsidy. Not sure the BRZs would go for it. It is different than the free fare zone which imposes close to no operational costs on the most efficient transit mode.
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I think we need to think about these routes in a different way, though. On a “normal” bus route Joe Citizen catches the bus in Beddington, for example, and stays on it for 30 or 45 minutes until it gets to downtown, and then he does the same thing in reverse after work, so let’s say he’s paying $3 for about a 30 - 45 minute ride. The downtown routes would function very differently, and I think we should try to make the fares reflect this. Here are few examples to illustrate my point:
Example 1.
Let’s say Suzie Q lives in the Beltline used to walk to work at the newly built 3 Eau Claire building. It’s a 2 km walk and she found it just too far to walk every day in work clothes. Luckily for Suzie the new inner city bus route (ICB) has a stop just a couple of blocks from her condo, and it drops her off just a couple of blocks from where she works. Suzie also likes to hop the ICB at lunch and zip down to the Core to do some shopping. She also takes it to the health centre on 12th when she has an appointment, and sometimes she uses it to go for lunch in Mission or on 17th. After work she hops an ICB from 3EC to Mission where she has a short walk to the Talisman Centre where she works out after work. After that she takes the ICB back to her beltline condo for supper. Later on in the evening Suzie sometimes hops an ICB to The Pint on west 17th to meet friends, and then catches another one back home at the end of the night. (Also note that while Suzie is heading to Eau Claire to for her work people who live in Eau Claire and work in the Beltline are taking the same bus going the other way, and likewise some people who live in Mission may well take it to work in the Beltline or downtown. There is residential, retail, and office space all along these routes and people will be going in different directions all the time for many different reasons.)
-In this admittedly somewhat extreme scenario Suzie takes 7 trips in one day, but none of them involve rides longer than maybe 5 or 10 minutes. She’s probably spends less time on the bus overall than Joe Citizen, but she takes 7 trips to his 2. This is a high use example and anyone who actually did this would probably buy a bus pass, but I think there would be a lot of people who would take these same kinds of trips but less frequently.
Example 2.
🞵🞵🞵🞵 and his girlfriend Jane live and work in the burbs, but 🞵🞵🞵🞵 likes to take his gal downtown for a night out. They like to have a bit of wine with their meal so 🞵🞵🞵🞵 doesn’t like to drive, and he doesn’t like the hassle of trying to find a place to park, and not being able to get around easily once he’s downtown. Luckily for 🞵🞵🞵🞵 the new ICB routes have solved his problem. After work 🞵🞵🞵🞵 and Jane catch the LRT to downtown where they transfer to an ICB which takes them to their favourite restaurant in Mission. After dinner they hop an ICB to Central Memorial where they take a digestive stroll and watch the fountains play for a while. Then they hop the ICBs to Eau Clarie to feed the geese, or perhaps to the Simmons building where they like to sit on the roof and enjoy and Phil and Sebastian’s coffee while they watch the sun going down, or the people milling about by the river below. Later on in the evening they sometimes catch an ICB back to the Republik on 17th to catch a show, and after that they catch an ICB back to 7th where they take the LRT back to the burbs.
- In this scenario they take a longish LRT ride to get to downtown, and then a series of short hops on the ICBs once they’re there. Something that might work well for this kind of use is a half day pass, or perhaps an evening pass, for something like $5, or perhaps a bit more. $5 may work better for an evening pass because it would be for a shorter time and in off peak usage hours when there is a lot of excess capacity.
Example 3.
Klaus and Heidi are tourists who are staying in a downtown hotel with their two children aged 7 and 9. They want to see downtown Calgary, but with two children they don’t want to do a large amount of walking. Luckily for them the new ICB routes can help them out. They pick up some pamphlets from the hotel which lead them on a self guided tour of downtown and the Beltline as seen from the ICB routes. From there they can make decisions on what they want to see, and where they might want to eat or just have coffee and a snack, or where they might want to shop. The options for places to get off the bus and visit include the Calgary Tower, Devonian Gardens, Olympic Plaza, River Walk, Mewata area including the skateboard park, various galleries including the new gallery at the old science centre site, Prince’s Island, the Peace Bridge, the Glenbow Museum, the National Music Centre, the Stampede grounds, and many more. The possible restaurants and coffee shops are too numerous to mention.
- The difference here is that tourists could use the ICBs to sight see and check out places they may want to visit before doing the short hops from place to place in the inner city. Some sort of special ICB pass for tourists might be possible, but it if the fare was only $1 then it might be just as easy to pay the four loonies and go.
If there was a different fare structure for these routes the some thought would have to be put into how to mesh that with the full fare rides. My first thought is that the ICBs would accept bus passes and transfers, but they wouldn’t give out transfers. You couldn’t pay a $1 fare and then transfer to a full fare bus, for example. But they would sell bus tickets for the standard $3, which the driver would then punch and which would then work essentially like a standard transfer. Maybe there could also be a different kind of single use ICB transfer – i.e. only good for ICBs and not valid for 90 minutes - which you could ask for with a $1 fare.
There are just some preliminary thoughts.
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