Calgary Public Transit II

[Full Mountain]

Originally Posted by sim

This is only a "plain and simple" fact under 2 assumptions:

1. The city/world is static.
2. That there is too small a portion of the population that would "want" to live near a transit station.

1 is essentially never the case, and 2 might have been true in the past, but I'd be willing to bet it no longer is.

That being said, the actual plain and simple fact is the exact opposite of what you just stated. It holds true whether you observe disaggregate general vehicle trip generation rates (in TOD hubs), look at aggregate transit trips per capita in cities where park n rides are less prevalent (or as big), and simply observe for yourself transit station in urban areas of such cities. I'll gladly post the graphic that shows the aggregate observation that I often do whenever this topic comes up, or link you to empirically observed trip generation rates. I'm not a big fan of facts that aren't facts.

A brief and more intuitive nigh obvious 'why?': Because parking space takes the space of where residents could actually be living, and instead of just serving commuter trips (as they generally do), they serve most or all trip purposes outbound and also increase the propensity for inbound (visitors, shopping, from other similar nodes). Network effects!

I agree with you in principle, but I'm misunderstanding why it prevents/ replaces (?) 2 bus trips? Are we still talking feeder bus and do you mean that a parking spot allows a transit rider to forgo the feeder bus portion segment of the trip? I think the latter (?)

If so, then I don't quite follow the $6 dollar subsidy - in lost revenue? The transit tour costs the rider that and transit collects the same revenue regardless. Did I misunderstand? Not to say that I don't think it's not silly to subsidize something that then requires a greater subsidization of something you are already subsidizing. It is, but this mechanism is the opportunity cost of not increasing ridership due to poor station area land-use, not because park n riders are not taking feeder buses.

Without having read all of Nenshi's plan, preliminarily I'd say it's no good. Why would the City spend even more to provide parking to largely perpetuate the system already in place. Unless, developers can be convinced/nudged to pay a large portion of these, I fail to see how only adding some density to station areas and subsequent increased ridership will offset the maintenance and operations costs that will be incurred even if developers can be convinced to contribute to most or all of the capital. Secondly, why would developers sign on to this if the city already seems to be having so much trouble getting private interest without the additional burden.

I'm a little bewildered with Nenshi's approach here, when normally it's much more economically sound.

Things can't be perpetually made better for everyone at zero cost. The corollary is not then that we are "forcing" people to do something, so much as it is understanding trade-offs are necessary in a world of constrained space, time and money. Parking happens to be the least efficient way of allocating at least two of those.

IIRC there was a drop in feeder bus ridership when the $3 fee was removed, why do people think when the fee comes back (it will, just a matter of time) everyone is going to drive?

If a lot cannot recover 50% of it's operating cost (as transit fares do) why does the lot exist? Or at very least it should be downsized to the point where it does hit 50% cost recovery.

Even given the above I strongly support a complete review of stop locations and routing of all routes, one example that gets me is why there is a stop on the centre street routes south of 4 Ave and one south of 5 Ave.

[MalcolmTucker]

Lots serve a function as low barrier to entry trials of using transit. Sort of like the illusion of parking on 8th downtown.

Of course, if new users can't get in the lots no matter what they are willing to pay because it fills up with early risers whose habits society has deemed worthy of a subsidy, and first movers for the monthly passes, the lots are no longer serving that function.

[Policy Wonk]

Originally Posted by sim

I'm a little bewildered with Nenshi's approach here, when normally it's much more economically sound.

It's called a compromise. It's what you try when incredulous appeals to authority and screaming at people that they're wrong and stupid doesn't get the desired result.

[AgentGibb]

Originally Posted by Full Mountain

I strongly support a complete review of stop locations and routing of all routes

I agree completely. This needs to happen. Before it does, however, I think CT needs to reassess the guidelines by which routes are designed otherwise we'll probably end up with essentially the same problems after the "review".

IMO, the single most important change needs to be a focus on directness of the routing. Many (most?) of the bus routes I've come across in Calgary are needlessly circuitous. This makes the trip time longer and makes the bus a less attractive option. I maintain that one of the key advantages the C-Train has is that the route is a (mostly) straight line, resulting in relatively quick trip times. This is probably also true of the Centre Street bus corridor. I suspect the fact that this corridor also has some of the highest bus ridership in the city may not be a coincidence. We need to do more like this.

A separate thought on Park and Rides -- we should probably be careful about where the redevelopment occurs. While it's true that an improved feeder bus network (see above) could make up for some reduction in parking, this will only help for C-Train users who actually have access to a feeder bus. I suspect that a not insignificant portion of the Park and Ride users at the outlying stations are from bedroom communities (Cochrane, Okotoks, even High River). If we make it sufficiently hard for these people to find a parking spot, they'll just end up driving downtown and be another car on Crowchild/Macleod/Deerfoot. I realize that nobody's talking about building highrises at Somerset, but I wouldn't be surprised if some out-of-town commuters go as far in as Anderson to find a spot. Strategic use of structured parking may be a good compromise in these cases.

[Full Mountain]

Originally Posted by AgentGibb

I agree completely. This needs to happen. Before it does, however, I think CT needs to reassess the guidelines by which routes are designed otherwise we'll probably end up with essentially the same problems after the "review".

IMO, the single most important change needs to be a focus on directness of the routing. Many (most?) of the bus routes I've come across in Calgary are needlessly circuitous. This makes the trip time longer and makes the bus a less attractive option. I maintain that one of the key advantages the C-Train has is that the route is a (mostly) straight line, resulting in relatively quick trip times. This is probably also true of the Centre Street bus corridor. I suspect the fact that this corridor also has some of the highest bus ridership in the city may not be a coincidence. We need to do more like this.

Good points, I agree the more direct the route the higher the usage for the most part.

Originally Posted by AgentGibb

A separate thought on Park and Rides -- we should probably be careful about where the redevelopment occurs. While it's true that an improved feeder bus network (see above) could make up for some reduction in parking, this will only help for C-Train users who actually have access to a feeder bus. I suspect that a not insignificant portion of the Park and Ride users at the outlying stations are from bedroom communities (Cochrane, Okotoks, even High River). If we make it sufficiently hard for these people to find a parking spot, they'll just end up driving downtown and be another car on Crowchild/Macleod/Deerfoot. I realize that nobody's talking about building highrises at Somerset, but I wouldn't be surprised if some out-of-town commuters go as far in as Anderson to find a spot. Strategic use of structured parking may be a good compromise in these cases.

I fully support having parking as long as there is at minimum a 50% cost recovery, running a parking lot isn't transit's prime directive nor should it be. You could easily charge ~$100 per month for a spot and still be less than the vast majority of parking downtown (250-400/month).

One could (and should) also work with the upcoming bus services from these communities to provide either laybys at the terminuses and fare compatibility or the ability to use dedicated transit infrastructure into downtown to mitigate these issues.

[Rusty van Reddick]

Originally Posted by Policy Wonk

It's what you try when incredulous appeals to authority and screaming at people that they're wrong and stupid doesn't get the desired result.

Look up "incredulous."

[suburbia]

Originally Posted by Full Mountain

You could easily charge ~$100 per month for a spot and still be less than the vast majority of parking downtown (250-400/month).

LOL! - but the spot you want to charge $100 for is NOT in downtown. That's like me suggesting that green fees on a course in the middle of downtown should be $50, because that is what it might be for some course in the middle of a farmers field.

[Policy Wonk]

Originally Posted by Rusty van Reddick

Look up "incredulous."

Okay...

(of a person or their manner) unwilling or unable to believe something.
"an incredulous gasp" - Google

An incredulous appeal to authority - "I have clearly shown you how much more I know than you, how can it be that you have not come to agree with me or at least shut up?"

[Full Mountain]

Originally Posted by suburbia

LOL! - but the spot you want to charge $100 for is NOT in downtown. That's like me suggesting that green fees on a course in the middle of downtown should be $50, because that is what it might be for some course in the middle of a farmers field.

$100 for parking and $100 for a bus pass still ends up less than a parking spot downtown (note that I suspect that vast majority of people who park n ride work downtown). That's called the upper limit of profitability not the price you charge. The price you charge is determined by the scarcity of the resource and if the price you can charge doesn't provide for cost recovery you remove the resource from the market (i.e. stop selling it). The point of the $100 dollars is that, that's likely the limit at which a majority of people will look for alternatives (feeder bus or parking DT).

[Cage]

Originally Posted by sim

I agree with you in principle, but I'm misunderstanding why it prevents/ replaces (?) 2 bus trips? Are we still talking feeder bus and do you mean that a parking spot allows a transit rider to forgo the feeder bus portion segment of the trip? I think the latter (?)

If so, then I don't quite follow the $6 dollar subsidy - in lost revenue? The transit tour costs the rider that and transit collects the same revenue regardless. Did I misunderstand? Not to say that I don't think it's not silly to subsidize something that then requires a greater subsidization of something you are already subsidizing. It is, but this mechanism is the opportunity cost of not increasing ridership due to poor station area land-use, not because park n riders are not taking feeder buses.


Without having read all of Nenshi's plan, preliminary I'd say it's no good. Why would the City spend even more to provide parking to largely perpetuate the system already in place. Unless, developers can be convinced/nudged to pay a large portion of these, I fail to see how only adding some density to station areas and subsequent increased ridership will offset the maintenance and operations costs that will be incurred even if developers can be convinced to contribute to most or all of the capital. Secondly, why would developers sign on to this if the city already seems to be having so much trouble getting private interest without the additional burden.

I'm a little bewildered with Nenshi's approach here, when normally it's much more economically sound.

The subsidy is derived under the commonly held assumption that LRT is self sustaining, this is especially true for LRT during peak periods. It is also known that Calgary Transit targets a 50-50 split between revenue fares and city subsidy of transit. A 3.15 fare means the project operating cost with full administrative and capital cost burden is 6.20. Saving two fares results in estimated subsidy savings of around $6.

The major problem with the subsidy argument is that it is highly unlikely the feeder routes with full buses and standing room only space availability are also contributing to the operating cost deficit. The major reason for the subsidy is that council has directed Transit to provide services for social connectivity reasons and not for pure economic considerations. For example, the 199 Crowfoot-Arbour Lake- Citadel is profitable during the morning and afternoon peak periods, but loses money during late evenings and weekends. However council has mandated the off peak service be provided for social reasons.

As for reasons why park and ride is a good idea, it mainly boils down to increase voter satisfaction with city services. Over 14,000 park and ride stalls means that there are probably 14,000 to 20,000 voters who use the services. Some use for daily commute and others for the occasional trip downtown or to sports game. Tell these people you are taking away park and ride and they will not vote for you.

For me, park and ride works great for my new job that is downtown. feeder bus network does not work for the following reasons:
- Three days a week I have to pick up my daughter after work. Feeder bus is logistically impossible as it would require taking the 299 to get to and from dayhome and Crowfoot Station, then 199 to get home.
- To account for the feeder bus scheduling conflicts (bus and train connections can result 10-15 minute extra dwell time at station) I have to leave work 20 minutes earlier than if I used park and ride.
- I live at the end of the 199 line. If the 199 was a circle route, then car vs feeder bus time would be about equal. However it is an extra 20 minutes on the feeder bus than if I took a car.

[Doug]

Originally Posted by MalcolmTucker

Of course, if new users can't get in the lots no matter what they are willing to pay because it fills up with early risers whose habits society has deemed worthy of a subsidy, and first movers for the monthly passes, the lots are no longer serving that function.

Early risers take load off peak transit demand so the subsidy has to be weighed against the marginal cost of adding more peak capacity. Free parking for early risers is very effective. Another might be to charge more for transit use during peak times.

[joe498]

I just can never understand the point of investing further in parking spaces.

It's land in proximity to public transit that could be leased long term for profitable revenue to a developer to build a residential/mixed use development.

It makes sense as a placeholder to maintain parking in areas where the land is not as expensive but for the inner city park and rides, it's a shame they remain as parking.

[DizzyEdge]

Originally Posted by AgentGibb

I agree completely. This needs to happen. Before it does, however, I think CT needs to reassess the guidelines by which routes are designed otherwise we'll probably end up with essentially the same problems after the "review".

IMO, the single most important change needs to be a focus on directness of the routing. Many (most?) of the bus routes I've come across in Calgary are needlessly circuitous. This makes the trip time longer and makes the bus a less attractive option. I maintain that one of the key advantages the C-Train has is that the route is a (mostly) straight line, resulting in relatively quick trip times. This is probably also true of the Centre Street bus corridor. I suspect the fact that this corridor also has some of the highest bus ridership in the city may not be a coincidence. We need to do more like this.

A separate thought on Park and Rides -- we should probably be careful about where the redevelopment occurs. While it's true that an improved feeder bus network (see above) could make up for some reduction in parking, this will only help for C-Train users who actually have access to a feeder bus. I suspect that a not insignificant portion of the Park and Ride users at the outlying stations are from bedroom communities (Cochrane, Okotoks, even High River). If we make it sufficiently hard for these people to find a parking spot, they'll just end up driving downtown and be another car on Crowchild/Macleod/Deerfoot. I realize that nobody's talking about building highrises at Somerset, but I wouldn't be surprised if some out-of-town commuters go as far in as Anderson to find a spot. Strategic use of structured parking may be a good compromise in these cases.

Originally Posted by Full Mountain

Good points, I agree the more direct the route the higher the usage for the most part.



I fully support having parking as long as there is at minimum a 50% cost recovery, running a parking lot isn't transit's prime directive nor should it be. You could easily charge ~$100 per month for a spot and still be less than the vast majority of parking downtown (250-400/month).

One could (and should) also work with the upcoming bus services from these communities to provide either laybys at the terminuses and fare compatibility or the ability to use dedicated transit infrastructure into downtown to mitigate these issues.

I second it.

If you live near 14th st and you want to go to another destination on 14th st, you should be able to take one bus and not have to transfer.

Outside of the innercity, I'm less militant about this, but def within it.

[sim]

Originally Posted by Policy Wonk

It's called a compromise. It's what you try when incredulous appeals to authority and screaming at people that they're wrong and stupid doesn't get the desired result.

Tell that to the car drivers.

[sim]

Originally Posted by Cage

The subsidy is derived under the commonly held assumption that LRT is self sustaining, this is especially true for LRT during peak periods. It is also known that Calgary Transit targets a 50-50 split between revenue fares and city subsidy of transit. A 3.15 fare means the project operating cost with full administrative and capital cost burden is 6.20. Saving two fares results in estimated subsidy savings of around $6.

The major problem with the subsidy argument is that it is highly unlikely the feeder routes with full buses and standing room only space availability are also contributing to the operating cost deficit. The major reason for the subsidy is that council has directed Transit to provide services for social connectivity reasons and not for pure economic considerations. For example, the 199 Crowfoot-Arbour Lake- Citadel is profitable during the morning and afternoon peak periods, but loses money during late evenings and weekends. However council has mandated the off peak service be provided for social reasons.

As for reasons why park and ride is a good idea, it mainly boils down to increase voter satisfaction with city services. Over 14,000 park and ride stalls means that there are probably 14,000 to 20,000 voters who use the services. Some use for daily commute and others for the occasional trip downtown or to sports game. Tell these people you are taking away park and ride and they will not vote for you.

Err, yes I realize how CT is funded. CT has historically (recent history anyway) been just above 50% but are trending downward. And this is just for operating, not capital.

I believe the original point was that if a feeder bus trip is forwent because a park n ride spot is provided and this is used instead, that there is lost revenue for CT directly (if I understood that point right). What I meant is that this is not the case because the user is paying the same fare regardless of using the feeder bus or not. So if parking didn't actually cost anything to provide (it does) and everyone could drive, or if everyone lived really close to the station CT could eschew feeder buses altogether and would fair much better. Hence, why Park n Ride is NOT actually good.

Which leads to the latter point, I find that the over-politicization, especially in transportation of late is rather disconcerting. Just because it's a good idea politically doesn't mean it's a good idea actually. I've always been of the belief that we elect officials, in part, because we entrust them with making the right decisions in a broader context, not solely to represent our usually selfish agendas regardless of how silly they might be and to make being elected or re-elected as the end itself.

I wonder what the voters in Seattle do and will think at the moment. The above approach most definitely ensures the likelihood of such boondoggles occurring more often. (I'm referring to their lovely tunnel project).

[Policy Wonk]

Originally Posted by sim

Tell that to the car drivers.

You mean the the people who own and operate Calgary's 1,005,000 odd vehicles? And the subset of them who contort their daily lives to patronize the LRT?

If Nenshi wants to get out in front of that and not cultivate yet another stupid and mostly theoretical policy for the public to stew about, that's just smart.

Publicly debating between the SELRT and NCLRT: Stupid
Detailed public discussion of a Plan Z street car NCLRT alternative most of city council might not live long enough to see built: Stupid
Proposing transit-oriented intensification in the least offensive way possible: Not Stupid. Merely socialization on the level found in most children beginning the sixth grade.

[fusili]

I believe the Anderson TOD plans included either an underground or a "screened" parkade. If the building doesn't look to much like a parkade, and has retail at grade (I'm telling you a dry cleaner at an LRT parkade would be a gold mine!), I think it is a good idea.

At Anderson, for example, a parkade close to Macleod/109th that has a decent connection into the station would be a good solution. That way the residential/commercial buildings can be located either to the north or south, and traffic is concentrated around the intersection and not into the site.

[sim]

Originally Posted by Policy Wonk

You mean the the people who own and operate Calgary's 1,005,000 odd vehicles? And the subset of them who contort their daily lives to patronize the LRT?

If Nenshi wants to get out in front of that and not cultivate yet another stupid and mostly theoretical policy for the public to stew about, that's just smart.

Publicly debating between the SELRT and NCLRT: Stupid
Detailed public discussion of a Plan Z street car NCLRT alternative most of city council might not live long enough to see built: Stupid
Proposing transit-oriented intensification in the least offensive way possible: Not Stupid. Merely socialization on the level found in most children beginning the sixth grade.

I'm not going to argue with you on this. I don't, for a second, believe Nenshi to be stupid (I can proudly say I was present at his first real support rally in a Quonset) but that doesn't mean he gets everything right, and to repeat, just because its good policy from an acceptance point of view does not, in and of itself, make it good policy. There is a reason society has progressed beyond stonings and a belief that the world is flat... well, for the most part, and there are experts for a reason. But anyway, why not continue to discount and download our problems onto the future? The status quo is working so well, might as well keep on keeping on.

I also didn't realize that almost every man, woman and child owns and operates a car in the City. Some talented youth, elderly and disabled we have, not to mention our generally homogenous and conforming population that all WANTS to drive. Even if you had interpreted the numbers correctly, your point is only relevant in that it makes mine for me: In order to change something, you have to.. well change something. I'm not sure how keeping near the same amount of station parking but at higher cost is going to achieve that..

If you're subtly trying to assert, yet again, how much more enlightened you are on every single subject, because you live in the real world or whatever moniker you want to attach to it, spare me. For the nth time, I get it. Thanks. It's not novel, not profound and not useful.

[Policy Wonk]

Originally Posted by sim

just because its good policy from an acceptance point of view does not, in and of itself, make it good policy.

That's where compromise comes in. If your choices are status quo, it stays surface parking for the next fifty years or new mixed-use developments that potentially satisfies all users, current and future. Which would you choose?

You want to "change something" - I get that, but if insisting on that results in cementing the status quo, what did you just accomplish?

If you "change something" and it only serves to confirm the incumbent residents worst fears, what did you just accomplish?

I don't have particularly strong feelings about Nenshi either way, but I think he would be well served by keeping his mouth shut more often than he does and I think breathing political life to SELRT/NCLRT issue is just about the stupidest thing I have seen a mayor in this country do since David Miller started his 🞵🞵🞵🞵🞵🞵🞵 contest with the Port Authority.

I don't think I'm more enlightened than you, just a whole lot more pragmatic.

[outoftheice]

Originally Posted by Policy Wonk

I don't have particularly strong feelings about Nenshi either way, but I think he would be well served by keeping his mouth shut more often than he does and I think breathing political life to SELRT/NCLRT issue is just about the stupidest thing I have seen a mayor in this country do since David Miller started his 🞵🞵🞵🞵🞵🞵🞵 contest with the Port Authority.

If you think that discussing the SELRT/NCLRT Green Line is the stupidest thing a mayor could do, I'm just curious as to what you feel we should be discussing?? Calgary will welcome 1,000,000 people over the next 30 years. We need to figure out some way to accommodate them without having the city grind to a halt in gridlock. If discussing how we should plan for rapid transit isn't the way to accommodate that growth then what is?