Calgary Public Transit II

[RyLucky]

Originally Posted by Full Mountain

Once the smart card system in implemented something like this becomes a simple effort.

I would argue that if you have to offer free parking to fill a lot, the lot is too large for the location. After a year of full paid parking, if any lots cannot achieve 90% being free, they should be reduced in size so as to achieve 90% with a minimal charge ($1-2/day).

ECON 101

If you can fit 150 parking spots in an acre, and if it fills 5 days/week for 3 dollars/day, the revenue per acre is something like $112 000, and the valuation of that acre is around $2.25M. That's nothing for land in prime urban locations. Any developer that can promise development where FAR>8 should be sold that lot for $2.25M/acre, because an FAR of 8 will generate more rides than 150/day (average 107/day over 7 days).

However, if there is enough demand that CT can fill lots 5 days a week with $12 pricing, then the valuation/acre is somewhere around $9M, and CT may as well hang onto the land until retail/residential/office demand is high enough that a developer will pay that price. Meanwhile, CT can rack in a few hunny-thou for every acre of parking.

Currently CT has somewhere around 15 000 stalls on about 100 acres of land city-wide. At $3/work day, that's ~$11.25M revenue annually on land they should/could sell for $225M(!) to the right developers. Every time they sell land to developers that will generate more trips on CT (i.e. TOD), they are generating customers that will add to revenue, replacing those who once used park&ride, so you can have your cake and eat it too.

[MalcolmTucker]

Originally Posted by freeweed

While I don't have any hard numbers on this, I find this extremely difficult to believe in a city like Calgary. I suppose it depends on your definition of "senior", but... most seniors I know are living off CPP/OAS and maybe a few hundred a month from an RRSP. Not exactly bringing in the 6 figure incomes at 70. In my experience the wealthiest demographic here are the 30-55 year olds working in the O&G towers downtown. BY FAR. Those people could easily afford a transit fare of $3.50 - which, incidentally, gets us our $10m. A whopping 50 cent increase, 1 dollar a day. Not even the price of a shitty cup of coffee these days.

One difference for seniors is the major drop in cost of living once mortgages are paid off, kids out of the house, etc. But even discounting that ...

The median income of a family with a +65 in the household in Calgary is $68,620 (single +65, $27,780). OAS already transfers $825,680,000 to seniors in Calgary every year from other taxpayers. Canada wide the net worth of median Canadians under 65 is $191,900, and over 65 is $460,700. Statscan doesn't have net worth breakdowns based on age at the provincial level.

Here is the big one:
Alberta (2011), Low income cut-offs after tax, Percentage of persons in low income, All individuals: 7%, Seniors 1.2%

[freeweed]

Originally Posted by Full Mountain

I would agree with this, is there a specific ratio that you think should be achieved? Or are you thinking 100% tax funded?

Ideally? Yes. I would love to see public transit be literally "free" for all users. Do I think it's realistic? Probably not. I don't really know of anywhere that does it on a large scale, even places that are way more transit-dependent than we are. I suppose there's reasons why not.

But a man can dream...

[freeweed]

Originally Posted by MalcolmTucker

One difference for seniors is the major drop in cost of living once mortgages are paid off, kids out of the house, etc. But even discounting that ...

Mortgages typically get paid off well before becoming a senior. Especially in Calgary - most people I know over 50 don't have a mortgage, yet they work 10-15 years past that. Hell in this city it's common to be mortgage-free in your 40s.

The median income of a family with a +65 in the household in Calgary is $68,620 (single +65, $27,780).

That seems lower than the medium income of non-seniors in this city, but I could be mistaken.

Canada wide the net worth of median Canadians under 65 is $191,900, and over 65 is $460,700.

Well yes, that makes sense - given that "net worth" is economically meaningless to under 65s (for the most part), and it's entirely where people draw their income from when they're over 65 (beyond CPP etc). I'd certainly hope my net worth is going to be significantly higher once I retire, otherwise my standard of living will collapse entirely.

Here is the big one:
Alberta (2011), Low income cut-offs after tax, Percentage of persons in low income, All individuals: 7%, Seniors 1.2%

Absolutely. On the level of poverty and such, seniors do OK. Mostly because we have appropriate programs in place to keep them from starving. The general consensus is that people under 65 are more capable of providing for themselves, so if they aren't, it's to some degree their own responsibility. Whether that's true and whether I agree with that I won't get into - but the fact is, seniors are basically at the mercy of society's good graces, which is why we typically provide them with all sorts of discounts and assistance. There's very little that a 65+ person contributes economically to society (on average) and especially when they get a little older than that.

But I do agree with your overall sentiment - seniors today are a lot better off than they were in prior decades. At least a lot of them anyway. Which is why income-based discounts are more appropriate. Which is also why I'd like things like transit to be much more taxpayer-funded - we already build that sort of discounting into much of our public taxation (and should do more along those lines). If you're making a high income in retirement, and have a high net worth (rich house) - you pay more taxes on both. So you're paying into things like transit more than someone with a low income and low net worth (close to zero property taxes, likely).

[Cage]

I took the transit fare survey.

My conclusions were to do the following:
- End the seniors subsidy with regular seniors monthly pass rising to $70 (the maximum allowed by the slider - my preference would be to fully end the seniors discount).
- Discounted low income seniors pass coming in at $45 same as the low income monthly pass.
- Moving on the parking situation did not seem to change things to a great deal.
- The slider approach seemed overly simplified, for example it did not take into account any loss of ridership if the seniors rates were to rise very dramatically.

[freeweed]

Originally Posted by Cage

- The slider approach seemed overly simplified, for example it did not take into account any loss of ridership if the seniors rates were to rise very dramatically.

I could be wrong but I doubt we'd see much. Seniors are about as much of a "captive market" as you can get when it comes to public transit.

The largest group of discretionary users is most likely working-age adults who choose transit over driving to the CBD every day, followed by people who use it for events like Stampede, the Flames, etc, followed by just general day-to-day use. I mean obviously part of it is the sheer volumes of people in these groups, but I'm thinking in terms of who can say "fuck this, I'll just drive now". Seniors and low income people are usually the last who can make that decision. Which is part of why we keep things cheaper for them, so as to not take advantage of their situation.

[Doug]

Does the study capture the true potential rider ship out of the SE? That area has by far the highest rates of population and job growth in the city and arguably the worst traffic congestion. Current transit service is so poor it likely cannot gauge potential rider ship. How much incremental rider ship could improved Center Street service acquire? I also question the redevelopment potential along Center. It has no large tracts of land. The best case would be infill that might at arrest population declines. Aggressive infill in places like Altadore haven't resulted in substantial population increases. Quarry Park alone likely has more redevelopment potential than the entire NC route. I wouldn't be surprised if CP eventually relocates the Alyth yards as well, but redevelopment there would be speculative.

Another .5M sq ft of office space quietly broke ground in QP:
[url]http://www.remingtoncorp.com/leasingLocation.php?view=37[url]

QP has at least another 2M sq ft of office potential. The current RV storage along the east side of 24th provised even more commercial redevelopment potential as does the South Hill mobile home park.

[Doug]

Originally Posted by freeweed

While I don't have any hard numbers on this, I find this extremely difficult to believe in a city like Calgary. I suppose it depends on your definition of "senior", but... most seniors I know are living off CPP/OAS and maybe a few hundred a month from an RRSP. Not exactly bringing in the 6 figure incomes at 70. In my experience the wealthiest demographic here are the 30-55 year olds working in the O&G towers downtown. BY FAR. Those people could easily afford a transit fare of $3.50 - which, incidentally, gets us our $10m. A whopping 50 cent increase, 1 dollar a day. Not even the price of a shitty cup of coffee these days.

Raise parking at PnR to $200, and watch people return to driving downtown. Total transit cost would approach $300 and you can find parking for almost that cheap ($360 on 9th Ave). Transit needs to remain the "money saving" option or we're just going to have people screaming for more parking and roads into the core again.

I do agree with the thought that the bedroom communities should pay far more. I don't know if the problem exists outside of Crowfoot (maybe Okotoks using the S line), but Cochrane at least is a huge leech on our transit system. I have no idea how you'd enforce this stuff though. I guess plate lookups vs address, if the Province would play ball.

My overall opinion is the same as someone else here though - tax funding (I'm also more than a bit of a socialist when it comes to transit). Transit should remain affordable and equitable for ALL - not simply certain demographics we want to help/punish based on our agreement/disagreement with their lifestyle choices. $10m/year is what, a $20 property tax increase in a city with the lowest property taxes in the country? Roads are funded this way, I think transit should be too. I don't get a discount on my gasoline because I'm a senior, or in high school (speaking of wealthy demographics), or because I live downtown, or because I take a less efficient route to work.

Transit prices could rise substantially and still be far less expensive than driving. Rush hour commuters could easily absorb a 2/3 increase (ex. single trip increase from $3 to $5). The best way to target out of towners would be a $10 per month surcharge on all vehicles registered in the Calgary region. The last funding piece would be a province wide 10c/litre in fuel taxes. Combined with some opex restraint (ex. 3 year city hiring and wage freeze followed by wage increases no more than inflation), the City should be able to fund all transportation initiatives without any new debt.

[simster3]

I would really like to see a decrease in weekend and evening rates. I live 10 min walk from Westbrook and find a lot of the time the $6 each for the wife and I to take the train to and from downtown is not worth it. If it went down to 1.50 or 2 it would be much more worth it to take the train downtown to go for a walk, or even do more of my shopping at the mall downtown instead of going to Chinook.

[fusili]

Originally Posted by simster3

I would really like to see a decrease in weekend and evening rates. I live 10 min walk from Westbrook and find a lot of the time the $6 each for the wife and I to take the train to and from downtown is not worth it. If it went down to 1.50 or 2 it would be much more worth it to take the train downtown to go for a walk, or even do more of my shopping at the mall downtown instead of going to Chinook.

I like the idea of peak vs non-peak tickets. Calgary transit ridership for downtown is in a large part supported by very expensive parking during the weekday, but this drops drastically on weeknights and weekends. To encourage more non-work trips on Calgary transit, I think reduced non-peak fares would be a good idea. On the opposite side of that debate is the complexity it creates in the fare system. Are pre-sold tickets only sold at the full rate, or do you have options for both? If so, do you have to have the correct ticket at the correct time? What about monthly passes?

[Full Mountain]

Originally Posted by Doug

Does the study capture the true potential rider ship out of the SE? That area has by far the highest rates of population and job growth in the city and arguably the worst traffic congestion. Current transit service is so poor it likely cannot gauge potential rider ship. How much incremental rider ship could improved Center Street service acquire? I also question the redevelopment potential along Center. It has no large tracts of land. The best case would be infill that might at arrest population declines. Aggressive infill in places like Altadore haven't resulted in substantial population increases. Quarry Park alone likely has more redevelopment potential than the entire NC route. I wouldn't be surprised if CP eventually relocates the Alyth yards as well, but redevelopment there would be speculative.

Another .5M sq ft of office space quietly broke ground in QP:
[url]http://www.remingtoncorp.com/leasingLocation.php?view=37[url]

QP has at least another 2M sq ft of office potential. The current RV storage along the east side of 24th provised even more commercial redevelopment potential as does the South Hill mobile home park.

And yet a significant portion of those folks will still drive even though there is transit on their door step. Aurora business park is going to be similar size to QP and is directly beside the NC LRT. Additionally Centre is near or at capacity with transit, such that there are likely people that would use transit but don't due to the capacity issue.

Densification of the catchment area of the NC LRT will likely result in increasing the populations 2-3x without a major change in built form (moving from SFH on 50' lots to SFH (detached and semidetached) on 25' lots). Densification through the addition of 3-4 storey builds (as is happening in Tuxedo Park) could increase that to 4-5x+. Additionally the communities at the north end of the line have plans for a dramatic number of people (over 100k IIRC).

[Full Mountain]

Originally Posted by fusili

I like the idea of peak vs non-peak tickets. Calgary transit ridership for downtown is in a large part supported by very expensive parking during the weekday, but this drops drastically on weeknights and weekends. To encourage more non-work trips on Calgary transit, I think reduced non-peak fares would be a good idea. On the opposite side of that debate is the complexity it creates in the fare system. Are pre-sold tickets only sold at the full rate, or do you have options for both? If so, do you have to have the correct ticket at the correct time? What about monthly passes?

I like the idea too, but I agree it does add complexity. Something that I think has been mentioned is a sort of single system, where by using the electronic cards you would pay for the first $x of fares in a month, where x equals the value of a monthly pass for your demographic and then you would have no further cost that month. So then you wouldn't have to purchase the pass in advance (though you could if you wanted, advance purchases could get a discount to encourage it) if you didn't think you would need it that month.

Alternatively evening & weekend fares could be a 2 for 1 operation, though that still precludes the use of paper based tickets/passes. One ticket would get two people on or get a voucher back from the driver/machine if only one person is getting on.

[AgentGibb]

Originally Posted by Doug

Transit prices could rise substantially and still be far less expensive than driving.

Unfortunately it's not all about cost. People make a tradeoff when they choose to take public transit over driving -- they trade convenience off for lower cost. If you change the equation such that the cost of transit is nearly as expensive as driving, more people will choose to drive (why would I pay effectively the same for something less convenient?) Obviously the tipping point will vary by person and situation, but saying transit is "far less expensive" than driving is only true if you ignore the "time and convenience" side of the equation.

Unfortunately, public transit is very unlikely to compete on convenience, so is sort of needs to compete on price.

[Full Mountain]

Originally Posted by AgentGibb

Unfortunately it's not all about cost. People make a tradeoff when they choose to take public transit over driving -- they trade convenience off for lower cost. If you change the equation such that the cost of transit is nearly as expensive as driving, more people will choose to drive (why would I pay effectively the same for something less convenient?) Obviously the tipping point will vary by person and situation, but saying transit is "far less expensive" than driving is only true if you ignore the "time and convenience" side of the equation.

Unfortunately, public transit is very unlikely to compete on convenience, so is sort of needs to compete on price.

And most people don't realize how much they spend on their vehicles...

[Cage]

Originally Posted by freeweed

Raise parking at PnR to $200, and watch people return to driving downtown. Total transit cost would approach $300 and you can find parking for almost that cheap ($360 on 9th Ave). Transit needs to remain the "money saving" option or we're just going to have people screaming for more parking and roads into the core again.

I will one up you, raise PnR fees to $200 and the existing council will get the punt at next election. Removal of the $3 PnR fee was a major reason why Nenshi got the Mayor's chair in 2010. IIRC he was one of the few that proposed getting rid of the fee.

One other thing to consider is that PnR lots help to keep the suburbs onto the transit. No PnR (or PnR with very high monthly fees) would push suburban councillors (1,2,3,4, 12, 13, 14) away from Transit. At this point the Mayor's chair is also in jeopardy simply because of the suburban vote would dry up.

Originally Posted by freeweed

I do agree with the thought that the bedroom communities should pay far more. I don't know if the problem exists outside of Crowfoot (maybe Okotoks using the S line), but Cochrane at least is a huge leech on our transit system. I have no idea how you'd enforce this stuff though. I guess plate lookups vs address, if the Province would play ball.

I am inclined to agree with you Freeweed, however. Does the province ever put money into the LRT? I think the answer is yes for capital but no for operating. Therefore one could argue the Cochrane portion of the LRT is funded by the province.

Another argument is the province has funded the ring road for free and way over spent on transportation infrastructure to give Calgarians a great solution. If Calgary charges Cochrane the province could retaliate and charge Calgary for their portion of the ring road.

But in the end, charging different rates for inside or outside of Calgary is very expensive to administer. For this reason I cannot agree with charging bedroom communities.

If in the future the situation of bedroom community use of Calgary Transit becomes an issue, then Province of Alberta should take a page form BC and take over running the Metropolitan Transit system (much like Translink).

Originally Posted by freeweed

My overall opinion is the same as someone else here though - tax funding (I'm also more than a bit of a socialist when it comes to transit). Transit should remain affordable and equitable for ALL - not simply certain demographics we want to help/punish based on our agreement/disagreement with their lifestyle choices. $10m/year is what, a $20 property tax increase in a city with the lowest property taxes in the country? Roads are funded this way, I think transit should be too. I don't get a discount on my gasoline because I'm a senior, or in high school (speaking of wealthy demographics), or because I live downtown, or because I take a less efficient route to work.

I regard the funding of transit from tax dollars as a Robin Hood attempt at getting non users to pay for Transit. I also believe that funding transit through property taxes leads to high levels of inefficiency.

Some like to equate roads with transit, however I feel there is a big difference. Unless the person is incarcerated, they do utilize the road infrastructure, be it to walk, bike, drive, taxi, transit, etc. However this is not true for all people WRT transit, for some transit will either be non-existent or so costly to provide that it is very inefficient societal choice. IMHO a common fallacy of the urbanist crowd is that they pay too much for property taxes because they do not own a car and therefore do not get enjoyment out of the road network.

Time to get real, the creative wild solution to the above is:
- Redesign the network so the bus feeder system is per community basis.
- Drop all "unprofitable" (e.g. inefficient due to low ridership) routes. Example of unprofitable would be any route that does not contribute 10 or more passengers to the network per round trip.
- Allow communities to retain their existing Transit service through Community Lot Levy. A majority vote by the residential community would save the transit service and pass along the subsidy to the user group.

Example in my community of Citadel. The 199 is unprofitable after 7pm on weekdays and all weekends. Cut the service and offer the Citadel Community Association the option to retain/restore service if a $20 per household lot levy was included in the Property Tax assessment. Majority vote for the lot levy and the service is restored/retained.

[Blader]

I'm a senior and have been purchasing senior passes for the last three years as a rite-of-passage. The 1st year it was an economic wash. The 2nd and 3rd year I wasted money but still purchased the pass knowing that it would have been cheaper to purchase tickets at the regular price. Why, because irrationally, I love rite-of-passage and transit.

That said, seniors with means drive. I live in Martindale and shop locally. When I use transit to go downtown the only thing I purchase is a meal.

Those seniors with limited means and who must continue to work to supplement their income use transit of necessity and in some cases also by choice.

Increasing senior fares may hurt those in poverty. I've never seen a sophisticated revenue breakdown that shows revenue gains by changing the existing system. Of course there is always a means test. At that point is it just nickels and dimes, while forcing poor seniors to jump through hoops, many of whom have poor coping skills?

[simster3]

Originally Posted by fusili

I like the idea of peak vs non-peak tickets. Calgary transit ridership for downtown is in a large part supported by very expensive parking during the weekday, but this drops drastically on weeknights and weekends. To encourage more non-work trips on Calgary transit, I think reduced non-peak fares would be a good idea. On the opposite side of that debate is the complexity it creates in the fare system. Are pre-sold tickets only sold at the full rate, or do you have options for both? If so, do you have to have the correct ticket at the correct time? What about monthly passes?

I was thinking about the ticket packs too. I think they should only offer the one pack and leave it up to the user to decide if it is worth their time/effort to carry change if they want to save the extra money. The tickets are convenient and if you feel like you want to save the money, you make sure to have the change. And monthly passes shouldn't change either. I think if you have a monthly you are basing your decision to use transit on other factors in afterhour situations.

[Cage]

Here is another wild and crazy idea.

Make the Flames games day ticket equal to free ride on Transit for the afternoon to evening (e.g. exclude the morning rush). Attach cost of Roundtrip transit ticket onto each Flames ticket. This approach brings in $4.7 million per annum based in the following calculation:

19,289 seats * $6 [$3+$3] * 41 home games = $4,745,094 per annum.

[freeweed]

Originally Posted by Cage

Here is another wild and crazy idea.

Make the Flames games day ticket equal to free ride on Transit for the afternoon to evening (e.g. exclude the morning rush). Attach cost of Roundtrip transit ticket onto each Flames ticket. This approach brings in $4.7 million per annum based in the following calculation:

19,289 seats * $6 [$3+$3] * 41 home games = $4,745,094 per annum.

You don't think that the general public should have to fund transit that they don't use, but you think that all Flames fans should?

This is waaaay too targeted an approach. This sort of thing works on University students because they generally vote in favour of it (because most of them use it). I can't see it ever being popular, except amongst non-hockey fans.

Although... broaden this out to include concerts and folk fest and all the other festivals and such. Add an "entertainment tax" to all tickets, and funnel all of that money into public transit. THAT is something worth exploring. Although we probably already have an entertainment tax, most cities do.

[freeweed]

Originally Posted by Cage

Example in my community of Citadel. The 199 is unprofitable after 7pm on weekdays and all weekends. Cut the service and offer the Citadel Community Association the option to retain/restore service if a $20 per household lot levy was included in the Property Tax assessment. Majority vote for the lot levy and the service is restored/retained.

Great idea in theory, horrible idea in practice. I've actually experienced this firsthand - I lived in a city that went from decent (if underutilized) transit service to far-flung suburbs, that transitioned to "well they're not profitable routes so let's cut service to basically nil and let the citizens pay for it if they want it". Holy crap, night classes became a serious bitch.

You know what happens? Nobody would ever agree to a lot levy in large enough numbers, and you get entire generations of kids who never, EVER take transit anywhere, because it basically doesn't exist to them. Those kids grow up driving from age 16 on (and being driven before that). Yeah, that happens to some degree no matter what, but it becomes absolute when transit isn't in place. The long term effects are to turn us into Americans, in the sense of just how many of them have never even considered public transit.

Providing transit to the edge cases of society is how we grow the service. Doing otherwise just makes more voters who think Rick Bell is a genius.