Calgary Public Transit II

[MasterG]

Originally Posted by MalcolmTucker

If you look at the West LRT, more was spent on changes to assuage a much smaller number of people.

Totally agree. We shouldn't make it a precedent out of it if we realistically want to provide reasonable transit for the most amount of people possible.

[MalcolmTucker]

^ My point is the opposite, assuage a group for a little to get it done, to make the gut logical changes, appeal to truthiness. It is easy to forget that the opposition groups wanted a tunnel from downtown to almost Sarcee.

Better to have a line that costs a marginal amount more than everyone who lives north of the river thinking it will destroy the traffic patterns.

[MasterG]

Originally Posted by MalcolmTucker

^ My point is the opposite, assuage a group for a little to get it done, to make the gut logical changes, appeal to truthiness. It is easy to forget that the opposition groups wanted a tunnel from downtown to almost Sarcee.

Better to have a line that costs a marginal amount more than everyone who lives north of the river thinking it will destroy the traffic patterns.

I see your point of assuaging the NIMBYs to find a common ground - something that is required to get the project moving in the first place. The political rationale behind bloated projects can't be understated and compromises must be made, usually by adding cost to the project.

But at what point does a marginal amount more make it harder to deliver any serious transit to a wider range of people?

Many North American cities have compromised too much on the public space issues, doing everything they can to minimize road impacts. This isn't free.

Without secure funding that compensates for more expensive projects, the share of people without reasonable transit continues to grow as it takes forever to come up with the capital to pay for these projects. All the while the city keeps growing.

5B can get us the North LRT + SELRT, about 40km. It can also get us European style tram network with mostly dedicated lanes and the occasional grade separation along the entire Centre, SELRT corridor, Bowness, 17th Ave SW & SE & Elbow Drive. We are looking at a catchment of half the city rather than a few hundred thousand.

The problem for people would be that it requires to removal of auto-lanes to make this happen. I would argue that Centre makes sense, because it has such a high transit share anyways. Elbow Drive, 17th Ave and Bowness would be similar for much of the route.

I fear Calgary will enter the Toronto-style method of building transit projects. Subways, Subways and Subways. Everyone loves subways and they are faster, more reliable and higher capacity. But they cost an absolute fortune. Grade separation should only be looked at in the most extreme or challenging situations.

Perhaps if Toronto had changed it's tune to cheaper transit options years ago, they wouldn't be so far behind the curve now. Where the core has good transit but most areas have minimal.

I would love full grade separation. But in lieu of a Transit tax or significant dedicated transit funding model, I don't see anyway we could ever build that level of transit to all the areas that would want it at a faster or equal rate to how fast we grow.

I would rather have a lot of pretty good transit than a little of really good transit.

[Fuzz]

Given issues like frozen switches, trains hitting cars/people, and numerous other reasons the system grinds to a halt, basically once a week, wouldn't that alone be good argument for keeping it off of centre street (at least until 16th)? We need reliable transit as well. I think a separate bridge into a tunnel is the best way to go.

Also curious, does CT put salt/gravel down 7th? What would the effect be of an at grade system up centre that also needs lots of salt/gravel for road traffic, given the grade? Are we looking at a maintenance nightmare here?

[Halofire]

I think most people would agree that the cost of full grade separation isn't worth the cost. The 15% cost difference for the bridge option (10% on the whole project) is absolutely worth considering the sacrifices you would have to make in the areas south of 16th ave.

Maybe from a capacity analysis it would work fine given current use and projections.. but what if they're wrong? we don't know how traffic patterns will ultimately change with the LRT. From what I remember, there didn't seem to be much concern for the fact that the LRT will be functionally useless during rush hour for everyone south of Beddington Trail, or possibly McKnight as all cars will be full (Just like it is for the NW, SW lines). So buses like the 2, 3, 17 (or future variants of) could still need to cross centre street bridge... which would be terrible if there were only 2 lanes of traffic.

Additionally I really worry about the permanency of rail tracks. They are difficult to work around or change. By putting it underground from 20th ave to the bluff, you provide a huge opportunity to do something different and unique with the space above. Maybe some great patio spaces, functional sidewalks, add a tree canopy, better street parking, seasonal events, etc...

[fusili]

Originally Posted by milomilo

Maybe not quite as bad as 7th, but it won't be like 36th either - the tracks are far more separated from the roads on 36th than they would be on Centre. I don't car about the car traffic but If the crossings are spaced out a long way though, then that's hardly compatible with the vision of walkable streets and there still will be inevitable delays at signals.

I think this is a difference of opinion really, I just think the extra money would be worth it for a faster, more reliable system. If we are going to go on street, we might as well just build a busway which will provide 90% of the benefit for less cost.

We are putting in a bus lane to start. Only when we start facing capacity issues will it be upgraded to rail.

[milomilo]

Originally Posted by fusili

We are putting in a bus lane to start. Only when we start facing capacity issues will it be upgraded to rail.

It will be interesting to see what becomes of the busway on Centre St. I feel it is far easier for corners to be cut by politicians with bus transit ways than with LRT lines. I would be surprised if we even get anything more than bus lanes. The existing 'bus rapid transit' we have is nothing of of the sort.

[Halofire]

Originally Posted by fusili

We are putting in a bus lane to start. Only when we start facing capacity issues will it be upgraded to rail.

The reason I don' think that the study/recommendations has much value beyond getting a general feel and choosing between centre street, edmonton trail, nose creek. We will have better information once the BRT is running.

[93JC]

Originally Posted by MasterG

I fear Calgary will enter the Toronto-style method of building transit projects. Subways, Subways and Subways. Everyone loves subways and they are faster, more reliable and higher capacity. But they cost an absolute fortune. Grade separation should only be looked at in the most extreme or challenging situations.

Perhaps if Toronto had changed it's tune to cheaper transit options years ago, they wouldn't be so far behind the curve now. Where the core has good transit but most areas have minimal.

Toronto is much further ahead of the curve than Calgary is, precisely because they built subways.

I would have thought the fustercluck that 7th Ave has become would be more than enough evidence to bury any future LRT in the city centre. Subways are expensive now and they're only going to get more expensive as time goes on. We're at the point now that we need to bury at least one of the LRT lines downtown; how much would it have cost to do it in 1981? (to "do it right in the first place")

[MasterG]

Originally Posted by 93JC

Toronto is much further ahead of the curve than Calgary is, precisely because they built subways.

I would have thought the fustercluck that 7th Ave has become would be more than enough evidence to bury any future LRT in the city centre. Subways are expensive now and they're only going to get more expensive as time goes on. We're at the point now that we need to bury at least one of the LRT lines downtown; how much would it have cost to do it in 1981? (to "do it right in the first place")

Not arguing 7th Street is needed, but it surely is needed much more now that in 1981. If burying the line meant that there was no money available for one of the other legs considered at the time (NW or NE), would that change the ridership and capacity issues we face now? Without the other line, it might not have even been necessary to bury it in the first place.

Edmonton did exactly this. They spent the money up front and paid for it through lack of funding to expand to other areas of the city (until recently) and a subsequently lower usage level (while still impressive).

It's a chicken and egg thing. I think it is easier to sell the public on transit spending once you give everyone a pretty good system for cheaper rather than give a smaller amount of people a perfect system and most other areas nothing. Our usage levels and demands for C-Train access are so high specifically because we went for the former idea.

7th Avenue's business case looks a hell of a lot better with 300,000 daily riders than with 100,000 that would have been possible if they could only afford one line to support it.

Personally though:

• If we just funded transit better we could have it all. Allow cities to ask the public if they are willing to pay specific taxes to pay for specific projects. A motion like that to the SE or NCLRT would actually have a chance, even in Calgary. This capability is driving Vancouver's Skytrain expansion and offered them the capability to improve the level of service to truly exceptional levels.
  
  
• If one federal party did a real infrastructure program for Canada's biggest cities and offered $10 Billion / Year for 10 Years. No one in decades has had the enthusiasm for helping cities in any substantial way and all Canadian cities have a severe infrastructure/transit deficit because of it.

Don't get me wrong, I wholehearted agree with you, ideally we can plan for the future where subways would be needed and build them right the first time. I just don't see how we can pay for it given how little any government cares about solving the funding issue in any substantial way.

Given that I don't see an answer to the funding question anytime soon, the only way to get change is a lot of cheap but effective transit so that enough people demand upgrades that a government will actually listen and come through with more of the funding to build the system we deserve.

[outoftheice]

So a long day for the T&T Committee but we have a bit of progress on things. The committee voted to accept the alignment recommendation of Centre Street for the North Central LRT as well as allow Transit to update all of their maps and city documents etc... to reflect the new official alignment. The decision on what form factor the alignment south of 24th Ave N should take for future functional planning work was delayed until the February T&T meeting. Baby steps but Nose Creek is officially dead!

[93JC]

Originally Posted by MasterG

I think it is easier to sell the public on transit spending

[...]

Allow cities to ask the public if they are willing to pay specific taxes to pay for specific projects.

Asking people to pay more taxes is a surefire way to not sell the public on anything. What we need is a better method of allocating funding.


I agree with you in principle re. Edmonton's strategy vs. Calgary's, but "pretty good" is not good enough anymore. It needs to be excellent. And we can't completely fuck up automobile traffic in the process, it's unacceptable.

[Fuzz]

I'd argue it isn't even "pretty good". Buses are overcrowded and slow. LRT is a sardine can in rush hour. It routinely breaks. I've got no problem with the city plan to not build freeways into downtown and high parking rates to discourage car traffic. But the alternative to driving MUST be at least a step above tolerable if that is the plan.

In 10 years the existing lines(except maybe West LRT) are going to be bursting at the seams, even with 4 car trains. Downtown is already a gridlock of buses with no dedicated transit lanes. In 10 years if all goes well and the NCLRT actually gets underway in some form, 7th st will still need to be buried. Lots of money is needed. Priorities must be re-aligned and I think the province or the feds need to step up to the plate since hte city clearly can't find this rapid population growth.

[MasterG]

Originally Posted by 93JC

Asking people to pay more taxes is a surefire way to not sell the public on anything. What we need is a better method of allocating funding.


I agree with you in principle re. Edmonton's strategy vs. Calgary's, but "pretty good" is not good enough anymore. It needs to be excellent. And we can't completely fuck up automobile traffic in the process, it's unacceptable.

That is a misquote of what I said. But yes it is possible to get the public to agree to further taxation. The US has many examples as does Vancouver. But that is not what I said, I only said it was an option. Funding is an issue, not demand for transit.

Why is pretty good not good enough anymore? We are up against a 70% auto mode-share that doesn't shrink regardless of how well travelled our LRT system is. We need more transit, not perfect transit. Unfortunately, describing a design requirement of a transit project to not "fuck up" automobile traffic is not an effective evaluation criteria on deciding whether ground-level, elevated or buried LRT is warranted. Not fucking up car traffic is also a very expensive requirement, meaning we get a lot less bang for our buck when it comes to bringing transit to as many people as possible.

Asking to remove space from the car space on Centre Street for transit is not unreasonable. If we could divide space on centre street bridge by user, 2.5 / 4 lanes would be fully devoted to transit right now. Just being equitable, it would be much more if you factored in other externalities.

All I am saying is that there are many options, blindly professing grade-separation may not be the most efficient way to spend our limited resources given how far behind transit is in this city.

[MasterG]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

I'd argue it isn't even "pretty good". Buses are overcrowded and slow. LRT is a sardine can in rush hour. It routinely breaks. I've got no problem with the city plan to not build freeways into downtown and high parking rates to discourage car traffic. But the alternative to driving MUST be at least a step above tolerable if that is the plan.

In 10 years the existing lines(except maybe West LRT) are going to be bursting at the seams, even with 4 car trains. Downtown is already a gridlock of buses with no dedicated transit lanes. In 10 years if all goes well and the NCLRT actually gets underway in some form, 7th st will still need to be buried. Lots of money is needed. Priorities must be re-aligned and I think the province or the feds need to step up to the plate since hte city clearly can't find this rapid population growth.

Buses slow?: Give them a dedicated lane. Costs almost nothing (the road already exists).

LRT crowded?: Expand to 4 cars and plan for grade separation.

I get the feeling that both the city, Calgary Transit and the public don't get that all these problems are not new to Calgary. Every city has faced them. The ones that solved them gave right-of-way to transit. The quicker this can be done the better.

[Policy Wonk]

No problem is truly new to Calgary, but we do have some fairly unique challenges both geographically, politically and financially in addressing them.

Usually severe compromises in a proposal like this are in the service of expediency. This merely puts it in the realm of the theoretically possible.

Meanwhile, Uncle Sam just gave the MBTA a billion dollars for a light-rail project in suburban Middlesex County, Massachusetts.

[ItsALondonThing]

Will the SE and NC lines be built at the same time? How many stations are proposed on this line through downtown should the underground section go ahead? Also I'm struggling with how this line would interact with a future 8 Ave subway.

Could it be that the future eastern part of 8 Ave subway might share with the Green line before they separate underground to go north and west? It'd mean more trains passing through the eastern station(s) on 8 Ave subway but also that part of it could be built before the western phase, with 7 Ave street level being used by Blue and Red until that time?

Then of course what happens to 7 Ave once the 8 Ave subway is built?

[fusili]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

I'd argue it isn't even "pretty good". Buses are overcrowded and slow. LRT is a sardine can in rush hour. It routinely breaks. I've got no problem with the city plan to not build freeways into downtown and high parking rates to discourage car traffic. But the alternative to driving MUST be at least a step above tolerable if that is the plan.

In 10 years the existing lines(except maybe West LRT) are going to be bursting at the seams, even with 4 car trains. Downtown is already a gridlock of buses with no dedicated transit lanes. In 10 years if all goes well and the NCLRT actually gets underway in some form, 7th st will still need to be buried. Lots of money is needed. Priorities must be re-aligned and I think the province or the feds need to step up to the plate since hte city clearly can't find this rapid population growth.

5th highest transit ridership per capita in North America (top are NYC, Montreal, Toronto, Vancouver in that order). A light rail system that trounces every other on the continent and out-performs many US heavy rail systems (only NYC, Chicago, Boston, DC and San Fran beat the LRT- we beat Philly's subway!!). So many riders that we experience crowding issues that only places like NYC or Toronto experience (in North America that is). 500K plus transit trips per day (LRT and bus) for a city barely over 1.2M.

No, our transit system isn't pretty good, it is absolutely spectacular. By no means am I saying we can't or shouldn't improve, and I spend much of my free time advocating for such improvements, but to say transit in Calgary is only pretty good is just incorrect. What we should be saying is Calgary's transit system is a runaway success, and has demonstrated again and again that transit investments in this City yield considerable mobility, economic and social development results. We need more money for transit, not because it is doing poorly, but because it is successful beyond measure.

[fusili]

Originally Posted by MasterG

That is a misquote of what I said. But yes it is possible to get the public to agree to further taxation. The US has many examples as does Vancouver. But that is not what I said, I only said it was an option. Funding is an issue, not demand for transit.

Why is pretty good not good enough anymore? We are up against a 70% auto mode-share that doesn't shrink regardless of how well travelled our LRT system is. We need more transit, not perfect transit. Unfortunately, describing a design requirement of a transit project to not "fuck up" automobile traffic is not an effective evaluation criteria on deciding whether ground-level, elevated or buried LRT is warranted. Not fucking up car traffic is also a very expensive requirement, meaning we get a lot less bang for our buck when it comes to bringing transit to as many people as possible.

Asking to remove space from the car space on Centre Street for transit is not unreasonable. If we could divide space on centre street bridge by user, 2.5 / 4 lanes would be fully devoted to transit right now. Just being equitable, it would be much more if you factored in other externalities.

All I am saying is that there are many options, blindly professing grade-separation may not be the most efficient way to spend our limited resources given how far behind transit is in this city.

70% auto share is ridiculously low compared to similar cities, in fact, its low compared to almost any city in North America. Not even NYC has less than 50% auto share. And no, it isn't growing, the percentage of drivers in Calgary is shrinking and transit, cycling and walking are increasing.

[MasterG]

Originally Posted by fusili

70% auto share is ridiculously low compared to similar cities, in fact, its low compared to almost any city in North America. Not even NYC has less than 50% auto share. And no, it isn't growing, the percentage of drivers in Calgary is shrinking and transit, cycling and walking are increasing.

True, I was referring to city numbers as a whole, it's a great success story our inner city transit and active mode usage which has been climbing spectacularly.

My comment was one out stretching our transit dollars as far as possible so even more of that 70% could consider transit as an option, particularly around being strategic on when planning expensive grade-separation projects. We should ask if the extra cost is really that beneficial to transit, rather than just beneficial for auto traffic.

Some grade separation is absolutely necessary, just trying to point out that we need to consider how to give the most amount of people good transit, rather than some perfect transit in a world with limited funding support from the various levels of government.

Never would disagree with you on the merits of Calgary Transit, if there is ever a good argument to be made that transit investment pays huge dividends; its us.