Calgary Public Transit II - Page 457

fusili · #**9121** Posted **Dec 11, 2014, 11:20 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by MalcolmTucker

One could always confirm whether it exists using a foip request. Does Transit Camp have $25 sitting around? Does someone remember when abouts the motion would have been? November 2007?

Something we can look into.

UofC.engineer · #**9122** Posted **Dec 12, 2014, 4:36 PM**

I came across this interesting report today, I apologize if this has been posted already. I looked back at the pages in August and couldn't find anything.

http://www.pembina.org/reports/fast-cities-report.pdf

Some good and bad news from Calgary. We have built the most rapid transit lines in the last ten years than of any other Canadian city(22km). We also have the most rapid transit lines per capita(53km/million people).

However we lag behind other Canadian cities in that only 21% of Calgarians live within 1km of a rapid transit station.

kora · #**9123** Posted **Dec 12, 2014, 4:42 PM**

Highlight from Edmonton budget:

Looks like funding is in place for Edmonton's SE Valley Line from downtown to Millwoods. Construction 2016-2020. $1.8 billion project which the Edmonton Journal is calling 'the largest municipal contract in Alberta history'

UofC.engineer · #**9124** Posted **Dec 12, 2014, 4:56 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by kora

Highlight from Edmonton budget:

Looks like funding is in place for Edmonton's SE Valley Line from downtown to Millwoods. Construction 2016-2020. $1.8 billion project which the Edmonton Journal is calling 'the largest municipal contract in Alberta history'

Wow! Funding an arena and now a 27km LRT. Where does Edmonton get the money to do this? How come Calgary can't get $1.8 billion?

MalcolmTucker · #**9125** Posted **Dec 12, 2014, 5:09 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by UofC.engineer

Wow! Funding an arena and now a 27km LRT. Where does Edmonton get the money to do this? How come Calgary can't get $1.8 billion?

All about grant stacking! The city stepped up to the plate big time with property tax funding.

Quote:

The province has agreed to contribute $250 million in Green Trip funding, $150 million in additional funding, and $200 million in a 10-year interest free loan. This joins the City's own contribution of $800 million, along with the federal government's contribution of $250 million from PPP Canada and an expected $150 million through the Building Canada Fund.

http://www.edmonton.ca/transportation/et...-west-lrt-mill-woods-to-lewis-farms.aspx

Quote:

– $127M Council previously approved for SE:
– LRT Reserve: $26.4M;
– Capital Budget Allocations: $50M [per year] beyond 2014 from various sources;
– Debt: $330M of new debt (private partner investment repayable to
the P3 partner over 25 yrs and 29 yrs).

http://sirepub.edmonton.ca/sirepub/cache/2/xo4mqxi5xtl4gdf03i4g2yk0/17761512122014100741570.PDF

So it is likely the provincial portion is larger than the name plate number, but that is up to future city councils to decide (the "Capital Budget Allocations")

Edit: Calgary is basically using the same formula to build a bunch of different stuff: The new transit garage (P3 Canada), Recreation Centres (property taxes/capital budget), SETWay (property taxes/capital budget).

fusili · #**9126** Posted **Dec 12, 2014, 5:34 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by UofC.engineer

I came across this interesting report today, I apologize if this has been posted already. I looked back at the pages in August and couldn't find anything.

http://www.pembina.org/reports/fast-cities-report.pdf

Some good and bad news from Calgary. We have built the most rapid transit lines in the last ten years than of any other Canadian city(22km). We also have the most rapid transit lines per capita(53km/million people).

However we lag behind other Canadian cities in that only 21% of Calgarians live within 1km of a rapid transit station.

While the report is nice to read, it suffers from a terrible misunderstanding of metrics. First, Kms of transit lines is not a good measure for how useful, efficient or good a transit system is. A dense city with less kms of rail lines would be punished by this metric, yet is more efficient. Nor is kms of transit under construction- punishes both slow growing cities and cities that invested in transit earlier.

Second, the report focuses almost entirely on input metrics- kms of transit lines, investment into transit, kms of new transit being funded, but almost none at all on outputs- ridership, average transit commute times- or outcomes- accessibility, utility of transit, etc.

Basically this is a bunch of bar graphs that don't really mean anything. But hey, if our bar is larger than Ottawa's, then we are better right?

UofC.engineer · #**9127** Posted **Dec 12, 2014, 6:20 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by MalcolmTucker

Edit: Calgary is basically using the same formula to build a bunch of different stuff: The new transit garage (P3 Canada), Recreation Centres (property taxes/capital budget), SETWay (property taxes/capital budget).

Excellent news, I hope we can get the green line transitway built by 2018. Do you know how much of the green TRIP funding is left? Or has it already been allotted?

I remember a few years back that the province withheld Green TRIP funding from Calgary but Edmonton used all of theirs to fund the NAIT LRT line. I believe the province then re-announced the Green TRIP funding and after that I don't know what happened. I'm sure you know more about this than I do.

MalcolmTucker · #**9128** Posted **Dec 12, 2014, 6:47 PM**

Withheld or not is just a matter of interpretation. You can only really withhold money if you've signed an agreement to give it. That the program took 3 years (original announcement summer 2008) to issue a single grant as the program design was worked on and the funding model from the government side was changed was unfortunate.

Quote:

Calgary’s newly opened West LRT is one of three Calgary mass transit projects to benefit from Alberta’s commitment of $473 million in funding from the Green Transit Incentives Program (GreenTRIP).

Agreements signed between the Alberta government and the City of Calgary mean the city may borrow $473 million with the full backing of the provincial government to finance three approved projects: $332 million for the West Light Rail Transit (LRT) line; $8 million for Southeast Transit Way (SETWAY) predesign; and $133 million for the purchase of at least 50 Light Rail Vehicles.

http://alberta.ca/release.cfm?xID=334158AFB5F1D-BBD5-9D53-FA3B7B14639C68A5

So basically the money went to those projects and displaced MSI/Super MSI (gas tax + MSI)/ property taxes in the capital pot. (The province gave the authority to the city to borrow with the expressed intent that the province will pay off the loan later).

Surrealplaces · #**9129** Posted **Dec 12, 2014, 7:02 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by UofC.engineer

Wow! Funding an arena and now a 27km LRT. Where does Edmonton get the money to do this? How come Calgary can't get $1.8 billion?

Don't forget Calgary has already built out most of their LRT network. The SELRT will come some day, but we just finished building the west line and doing extensions to the other three lines, there is only so much money to go around.

milomilo · #**9130** Posted **Dec 12, 2014, 7:42 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by UofC.engineer

I came across this interesting report today, I apologize if this has been posted already. I looked back at the pages in August and couldn't find anything.

http://www.pembina.org/reports/fast-cities-report.pdf

Some good and bad news from Calgary. We have built the most rapid transit lines in the last ten years than of any other Canadian city(22km). We also have the most rapid transit lines per capita(53km/million people).

However we lag behind other Canadian cities in that only 21% of Calgarians live within 1km of a rapid transit station.

I liked this graphic from Vancouver - is there anything similar for Calgary? Would be very interesting to see what the most under/overserved areas of the city are.

For me personally, transit is only useful if I can walk to a train station. If a bus is involved, or I have to park at the station, I'll drive the whole way. I'm sure I'm not the only one who thinks like that and I think it's very important we focus transit in higher density areas (hello NCLRT) and densify around stations.

Fuzz · #**9131** Posted **Dec 12, 2014, 8:10 PM**

You can generate one pretty easily. Go here:
http://www.freemaptools.com/radius-around-point.htm
scroll down to "Click Here to Show/Hide CSV Upload Panel"
and paste this:

The "1" is for radius of 1 km. You can play with that. This is a list of LRT station locations from the city website. You can get all transit stops as well.
https://data.calgary.ca/OpenData/Pages/DatasetListingAlphabetical.aspx

Oh, you may want to click the "map options" dropdown and turn off the 2 options there.

milomilo · #**9132** Posted **Dec 12, 2014, 8:26 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fuzz

You can generate one pretty easily. Go here:
http://www.freemaptools.com/radius-around-point.htm
scroll down to "Click Here to Show/Hide CSV Upload Panel"
and paste this:

The "1" is for radius of 1 km. You can play with that. This is a list of LRT station locations from the city website. You can get all transit stops as well.
https://data.calgary.ca/OpenData/Pages/DatasetListingAlphabetical.aspx

Oh, you may want to click the "map options" dropdown and turn off the 2 options there.

Sweet - thanks! Is it possible to obtain the census population points (or some other measure of population density), like the report has?

UofC.engineer · #**9133** Posted **Dec 12, 2014, 8:28 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by milomilo

For me personally, transit is only useful if I can walk to a train station. If a bus is involved, or I have to park at the station, I'll drive the whole way. I'm sure I'm not the only one who thinks like that and I think it's very important we focus transit in higher density areas (hello NCLRT) and densify around stations.

I couldn't agree more, there is something very attractive about walking to an LRT station. If/when the NC LRT is built I estimate the percentage of Calgarians that live within 1 km of an LRT station will rise to 40%.

Fuzz · #**9134** Posted **Dec 12, 2014, 8:56 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by milomilo

Sweet - thanks! Is it possible to obtain the census population points (or some other measure of population density), like the report has?

You could try this data
https://data.calgary.ca/OpenData/Pages/D...999-99999-00737-P%28CITYonlineDefault%29

Ferreth · #**9135** Posted **Dec 12, 2014, 10:18 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by UofC.engineer

I couldn't agree more, there is something very attractive about walking to an LRT station. If/when the NC LRT is built I estimate the percentage of Calgarians that live within 1 km of an LRT station will rise to 40%.

For the cost the NC LRT is going to be, it should be built along with re-zoning to allow 6 story apartments within a block of all stations, and 4 story apartments within 2 blocks. Political will to resist NIMBY's required for that. Would go a long way to increasing the % living close to LRT. That's also why it's important to make the decisions now about where this line is going to go - pre-zoning and encouraging density prior to the line going in will help it's utilization from day one, but we need to know where to zone now and where to start acquiring ROW.

Full Mountain · #**9136** Posted **Dec 13, 2014, 2:26 AM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ferreth

For the cost the NC LRT is going to be, it should be built along with re-zoning to allow 6 story apartments within a block of all stations, and 4 story apartments within 2 blocks. Political will to resist NIMBY's required for that. Would go a long way to increasing the % living close to LRT. That's also why it's important to make the decisions now about where this line is going to go - pre-zoning and encouraging density prior to the line going in will help it's utilization from day one, but we need to know where to zone now and where to start acquiring ROW.

Much of south of McKnight is already zoned similar to this, ~6 along Centre, south of 16th it's even higher AFAIK.

mersar · #**9137** Posted **Dec 14, 2014, 4:19 AM**

I've heard through sources in the world of data/communications contractors that CT has a tender opportunity out (or nearing going out) for the relocation of the non-maintenance facilities from Vic Park to Westbrook. So control and all that stuff. Timeline supposedly for it to be completed by next fall. This was originally supposed to have happened soon after the WLRT opened but got postponed.

DizzyEdge · #**9138** Posted **Dec 15, 2014, 6:18 AM**

People started posting wishlists in the Construction thread, and I kind of started to derail it with a Transit wishlist, so I thought I'd repost here:

My wish list would actually all be transit related.
1) night transit
2) more ~10 min frequency buses
3) more direct straight line routes.

I'd like to see the centre city designated a zone of some sort that has easy to understand routing and ~10 min headways.

By #3 I mean things like this:

If I live at 14th St and Hidden Valley drive, and I want to get to 14th St and Northmount Dr, this is the route:

That seems crazy.

UofC.engineer · #**9139** Posted **Dec 15, 2014, 3:58 PM**

An interesting report for the North-Central LRT:

http://agendaminutes.calgary.ca/sirepub/...0csoi3lw3fle/31010812152014084114572.PDF

The report shows detailed station locations north of 16th ave. Different options for tunnelled and at-grade are presented for travelling over the Bow.

With LRT running down the median of Centre Street I hope to god this doesn't turn into a cluster f**k like 36th street N.E.

fusili · #**9140** Posted **Dec 15, 2014, 4:04 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by DizzyEdge

3) more direct straight line routes.

I'd like to see the centre city designated a zone of some sort that has easy to understand routing and ~10 min headways.

By #3 I mean things like this:

If I live at 14th St and Hidden Valley drive, and I want to get to 14th St and Northmount Dr, this is the route:

That seems crazy.

I agree. What we have in Calgary is a fairly efficient, straight-forward and useful LRT system, complemented by about 4 or so bus routes of an only slightly less optimal utility (the 301, #3, #305, #302(ish) and the #306. The rest of the system, however, is run like transit from some sprawling Sun-Belt city where ridership is like 3%. Way too many milk-runs, circuitous routes and general inefficiencies to make transit useful by any means.

We need more crosstown routes that are direct, frequent and with limited stops. 16th avenue is a huge one, but so are routes like 52nd street east or in your case, 14th street west. I always thought a route from the Diefenbaker/Superstore/etc area down 4th street, then to Northmount, then 14th street, 33rd avenue and Richmond road terminating at Westhills would be a very useful route.

I disagree, however, that a route on 14th street north of John Laurie should be used. It is too far removed from anybody to be useful.

Check out the map here:
http://transitcamp.ca/2012/10/04/the-transitcamp-network-plan/