Calgary Public Transit II

[CTrainDude]

Originally Posted by PPAR

There is also one more station planned on the West Leg.

I suspect the south extension would be before the west, as it's needed to build the new LRV garage.

[milomilo]

Originally Posted by Full Mountain

Seems like an amount similar to the $100B over 20 years that the feds are planning on spending the on the military could go a fair ways towards transit.

$100,000,000,000/35,000,000 = $2,857 per capita

$2,857 / 20 years = $142 per capita per year

$142 x 1,200,000 = $170,400,000/year for the City of Calgary (Total $3.4B over 20 years)

Seems like things would move nicely with a commitment like that, no?

Just because Calgary needs more transit funding doesn't mean the military doesn't need it. Canada already spends one of the lowest amounts out of the major economies.

[Full Mountain]

Originally Posted by MalcolmTucker

Vast majority is per capita, with $4 billion reserved for 'projects of a national significance' and a floor so small provinces can actually do a project.

Interesting...is this the general infrastructure fund or a transit specific fund?

[Full Mountain]

Originally Posted by milomilo

Just because Calgary needs more transit funding doesn't mean the military doesn't need it. Canada already spends one of the lowest amounts out of the major economies.

I agree, I'm saying if we can come up with that for the military we can come up with another $100B for transit. And yes I would support an increase in taxes to pay for it.

[milomilo]

Originally Posted by Full Mountain

I agree, I'm saying if we can come up with that for the military we can come up with another $100B for transit. And yes I would support an increase in taxes to pay for it.

OK, cool.

I wouldn't normally say this, but I think now would be a good time to borrow money for investment in Alberta's infrastructure. If the projections turn out to be accurate, we are going to be raking in tax revenues from the oil sands in the coming decades.

[CTrainDude]

Originally Posted by MichaelS

And a couple more on the south line as well I think.

damn. Beaten by CtrainDude.

Not by much! Probably by seconds

[MalcolmTucker]

Originally Posted by Full Mountain

Interesting...is this the general infrastructure fund or a transit specific fund?

General infrastructure. But it could be used fully for transit if we wanted. Not that it really matters what it is spent on, since provincial grants do not require federal dollars in the grant stack. Federal dollars just free provincial dollars to be spent somewhere else.

[Fuzz]

Originally Posted by milomilo

Just because Calgary needs more transit funding doesn't mean the military doesn't need it. Canada already spends one of the lowest amounts out of the major economies.

Ya, but we sure are good at promising to spend!

[joe498]

Let me get this straight, Calgary is applying for the building Canada fund which basically requires a 100m+ project that is if national significance, transporting people around counts for this meaning the LRT qualifies.

Calgary has applied for Green line funding but is now wanting to use the funding to extend Airport trail to the Ring Road???

This is absolutely crazy, what a waste of money, let alone federal money. And to think that the Green line won't be finished until 2030+. Perhaps Calgary transit is a little bit behind in the times because Tesla just announced a manned mission to Mars in 2026 and just released its electric car patents to the public. LRT's are already quite old technology and will be completely irrelevant by 2030. The people planning for this city and province are out of their minds.

[MichaelS]

Originally Posted by joe498

Let me get this straight, Calgary is applying for the building Canada fund which basically requires a 100m+ project that is if national significance, transporting people around counts for this meaning the LRT qualifies.

Calgary has applied for Green line funding but is now wanting to use the funding to extend Airport trail to the Ring Road???

This is absolutely crazy, what a waste of money, let alone federal money. And to think that the Green line won't be finished until 2030+. Perhaps Calgary transit is a little bit behind in the times because Tesla just announced a manned mission to Mars in 2026 and just released its electric car patents to the public. LRT's are already quite old technology and will be completely irrelevant by 2030. The people planning for this city and province are out of their minds.

What will replace LRTs?

[fusili]

Originally Posted by joe498

Let me get this straight, Calgary is applying for the building Canada fund which basically requires a 100m+ project that is if national significance, transporting people around counts for this meaning the LRT qualifies.

Calgary has applied for Green line funding but is now wanting to use the funding to extend Airport trail to the Ring Road???

This is absolutely crazy, what a waste of money, let alone federal money. And to think that the Green line won't be finished until 2030+. Perhaps Calgary transit is a little bit behind in the times because Tesla just announced a manned mission to Mars in 2026 and just released its electric car patents to the public. LRT's are already quite old technology and will be completely irrelevant by 2030. The people planning for this city and province are out of their minds.

You gotta chill a bit. I don't see what you think will replace LRT, other than more efficient LRT vehicles. Try getting 20K electric cars on a single lane per hour.

[joe498]

Originally Posted by MichaelS

What will replace LRTs?

Even right now, Canada doesn't have a single high speed rail system and companies such as Tesla are proposing a hyper loop making HSR irrelevant.

Originally Posted by fusili

You gotta chill a bit. I don't see what you think will replace LRT, other than more efficient LRT vehicles. Try getting 20K electric cars on a single lane per hour.

In all honesty, I don't even support the electric vehicle trend. But the fact is, people are buying them. I would much rather convince people to use public transit. As of right now, our transit is a pretty hard sell to most vehicle drivers.

[MalcolmTucker]

The Building Canada Plan has two funds, the Gas Tax Fund and the New Building Canada Fund. The New Building Canada Fund has two components, the National Infrastructure Component and the Provincial Territorial Infrastructure Component.

All of the different parts have different rules, but the national infrastructure part is the only fund that has the $100 million level.

And as I have said, it is merely an accounting issue which project is funded by what as the entire pot doesn't change.

Oh, and no applications to the funds under the plan have been submitted in Alberta as the funding agreement between the federal and provincial government has not been completed. The main sticking point last go round was the province wanted existing government grants to count towards the grant stack, as Alberta funds projects very differently than all other provinces, which do project by project for the most part.

[MalcolmTucker]

Originally Posted by joe498

Even right now, Canada doesn't have a single high speed rail system and companies such as Tesla are proposing a hyper loop making HSR irrelevant.

There are massive engineering problems with such a system, not the least of which is thermal expansion.

[freeweed]

Originally Posted by joe498

As of right now, our transit is a pretty hard sell to most vehicle drivers.

300,000+ weekday LRT riders disagree with you.

[joe498]

Originally Posted by MalcolmTucker

There are massive engineering problems with such a system, not the least of which is thermal expansion.

Yes it is expensive:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maglev

And yet Alberta has been bragging about "low taxes" for years and giving out Ralph Bucks. Imagine what we could of funded if our egos didn't get in the way.

Because of our lack of planning early on we are now so far behind in project funding that no matter what project is proposed, the people will come far faster than we can construct. Kathleen Wynne and company will only cause more Ontarian's to come to our province.

Originally Posted by freeweed

300,000+ weekday LRT riders disagree with you.

I am one of them. It gets hot and squishy, our cars are packed and it will only get worse. By 2028, Alberta is expected to grow by another 1.5m people.

Consider the amount of revenue lost due to freeloaders on our LRT's. The fact that we don't even have a turnstile is laughable. Fixing this alone increases revenue and creates space on the trains.

[Full Mountain]

Originally Posted by joe498

Yes it is expensive:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maglev

And yet Alberta has been bragging about "low taxes" for years and giving out Ralph Bucks. Imagine what we could of funded if our egos didn't get in the way.

Because of our lack of planning early on we are now so far behind in project funding that no matter what project is proposed, the people will come far faster than we can construct. Kathleen Wynne and company will only cause more Ontarian's to come to our province.



I am one of them. It gets hot and squishy, our cars are packed and it will only get worse. By 2028, Alberta is expected to grow by another 1.5m people.

Consider the amount of revenue lost due to freeloaders on our LRT's. The fact that we don't even have a turnstile is laughable. Fixing this alone increases revenue and creates space on the trains.

You mean less than 1%? I suspect we have less fare jumpers than systems with turnstiles. Oh and it costs more to have turnstiles than to have the current enforcement. CT has studied this and came to the conclusion that there would be no net benefit to having turnstiles.

[MichaelS]

Originally Posted by joe498

This is absolutely crazy, what a waste of money, let alone federal money. And to think that the Green line won't be finished until 2030+. Perhaps Calgary transit is a little bit behind in the times because Tesla just announced a manned mission to Mars in 2026 and just released its electric car patents to the public. LRT's are already quite old technology and will be completely irrelevant by 2030. The people planning for this city and province are out of their minds.

You're kind of all over the map here this morning....

Originally Posted by joe498

Even right now, Canada doesn't have a single high speed rail system and companies such as Tesla are proposing a hyper loop making HSR irrelevant.

Isn't it a good thing then that we didn't spend billions of dollars on a system that will quickly become out dated?

Originally Posted by joe498

Because of our lack of planning early on we are now so far behind in project funding that no matter what project is proposed, the people will come far faster than we can construct.

Again, based on your first quote, you state that the LRT will be obsolete by 2030. Would you have preferred we poured billions of dollars into it, only to have it become obsolete? Maybe the people planning this city are more aware of things than you think?

[joe498]

Originally Posted by MichaelS

You're kind of all over the map here this morning....



Isn't it a good thing then that we didn't spend billions of dollars on a system that will quickly become out dated?



Again, based on your first quote, you state that the LRT will be obsolete by 2030. Would you have preferred we poured billions of dollars into it, only to have it become obsolete? Maybe the people planning this city are more aware of things than you think?

If we are ever intending to build a green line LRT, the time is ASAP and 15 years is not anywhere near fast enough. Because even if an LRT is relevant still in 2030, if it is built to service Calgary in 2040 and beyond, we will have 2.3m people by then which again puts us far in the hole as far as infrastructure goes.

The suburbs are growing rapidly and they don't pay a cent to our infrastructure. We are crazy to not have a gas tax or toll roads.

[fusili]

Put it this way. There are 34 inbound vehicle lanes that enter our downtown (includes the lane reversals on Centre Street, Louise Bridge and 4th avenue). That works out to a maximum capacity of 136 000 vehicles over a 2 hour period (say 4:0 to 6:00). That is a vehicle every two seconds on every lane for the entire two hours. This is assuming free-flow traffic on all those lanes. So with lights, pedestrian crossings, delayed left turns, dumb drivers, lane changes, etc, I would imagine the actual capacity is closer to 60% of that, so 82Kish. (again, this is probably a massive over estimate)

An LRT, on the other hand carries ~200 passengers per car (actually more), and runs 3 car consists. Calgary Transit runs 38 trains per hour on 7th avenue (22 on the N/S line and 16 on the NE/W line- someone correct me if I am wrong- CTrainDude?) . With 3 car trains, that works out to ~46K people using just 4 inbound lanes. If we go to four car trains, that increases to 61K people. If we add a SE/NC line, let's say with 4 cars to start and 20 cars per hour, that is another 32K people. If we add the Stephan avenue subway, separating the lines and increasing frequency (let's say 7th goes down to 30 trains and hour, and the same for Stephan avenue) we now have 128K people coming in on the LRT, using only 6 inbound lanes.

With regards to our downtown, because it is isolated due to a river and a railway, there is no other option but to increase transit in a massive, massive way. Electric cars, self-driving cars, etc won't do a bit to help. If we want our downtown to continue to be the dominant office force it is today, we are going to have to invest massively in transit. There is no other option.