I had some thoughts about Calgary's transit system in the context of the Canadian national transit forum, I thought I would put it here for discussion purposes.
Calgary's Good- Downtown land-use, parking policy and transit promotion has been incredibly successful in increasing ridership, exceeding 50% of commuters using transit to the core
- Calgary maintains one of the most extensive and far reaching LRT networks against comparable cities, making LRT expansion and access incredibly popular politically
- Recent improvements and TOD development have drawn significant attention to improving connections at existing LRT stations (Chinook Centre ped bridge, Brentwood TOD, Westbrook TOD, Bridgeland TOD)
Calgary's Bad- LRT service has yet to attract significant populations around suburban stations, resulting in more commuter-centric vs. people-centric ridership patterns & service
- Non-downtown institutions are often ignorant of transit connections being a design priority despite many relying on LRT for much of their access, resulting in awkward/inefficient connections to the nearest LRT station.
- Lack of focus on mainline Bus network has reduced overall system effectiveness and stymies efforts to create a "transit culture" apart from city-centre areas.
Long version:
I think one challenge is that Calgary has been both fantastic and inconsistent in how the LRT system is thought of. Biggest issue that was dropped (not unique to Calgary) IMO is the land-use decisions when transit planning and how other institutions and large activity centres think about transit. Some of this was in control of the City, while some is outside their domain.
From the start, the consistent focus on downtown Calgary as being the hub of all aspects of the transportation system have resulted in incredible job density in the core and increased demand for access creating a virtuous cycle of popular transit expansion focused on improving access the increasingly dense core. This is why Calgary has enormous LRT ridership and a very high-quality of LRT service (in frequency, capacity and public support) given comparable city sizes in North America. So successful in attracting commuting riders, many inner city neighbourhoods are converting to more walking / cycling focused because transit congestion is reducing the effectiveness of their stops. Sunnyside and the Beltline neighbourhoods are examples of this phenomenon.
While land-use decisions downtown and the city centre were always thought of through this paradigm, other areas were much less consistent. While some institutions are serviced - U of C, SAIT, Calgary Zoo, various large malls - their integration into the LRT system was varied and not nearly as well done.
This is exacerbated by the stakeholders at many Calgary institutions not prioritizing transit connections in their decisions to build or expand their locations. Provincial decisions that ignored access to LRT as a decision criteria for hospital, university and school construction were a major factor. This is why you have some major institutions that are painfully close to existing transit service, but are not organized or convenient to access it.
Good examples of poor connectivity despite very close access are Sunridge Mall and the PLC Hospital, both adjacent to a LRT station built in the 1980s, but requires a walk across a parking lot or arbitrarily around a building to access the facilities themselves. Transit riders were ignored in their designs, despite being well serviced by LRT. Recent expansions of both facilities once again ignored the LRT as a main source of people coming to the area. Both remain car-oriented designs despite heavy transit usage.
Even huge institutions like University of Calgary never really focused their design on acknowledging LRT as a key transportation choice for students and staff (despite having >50% choosing it). The LRT remains on the edge of campus, pathways connections to the station are unchanged since it opened in the 1980s and all major campus building projects and expansions have been occurring far away from the LRT station despite ample land available adjacent to the station. Rather than embrace and support LRT, U of C planning decisions have seemingly been oblivious to both the LRT relevance to the institution and the U of C's relevance to the city.
More obvious examples of large employment/activity centres and the distances from stations. All share a relatively close distance to rapid transit, while not designing or creating developments conducive to transit usage:
- Foothills Medical Centre (1.2 km from station)- largest hospital in Alberta and offers no easy access for non-auto visitors.
- Northland Mall (1.1 km from station) - 2nd Tier shopping centre, adjacent to LRT line, but station is 1.1km away.
- Market Mall (1.4km from station) - 2nd biggest mall in Calgary, no easy non-auto access to station.
- Telus Spark Science Centre (600m from station) - No sidewalks or path to station, forcing transit visitors to transverse parking lot to access. Particularly egregious because it was built in 2011 when we should know better.
In summary, Calgary has been very effective at the macro-level planning and the LRT system does serve the city well with generally good coverage. Effective stewardship and governance of the downtown core in all facets of planning have been primarily responsible for this.
However, this focus on downtown and the marco-level has resulted in ignorance with the micro-level design in transit and land use planning and options for non-commuter/non-downtown residents are not sufficient.
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