Calgary International Airport II

[yyc_engineer]

Originally Posted by Bigtime

The A332 represents 21 more seats per week in Economy (business class same size as the 787-8).

Not complaining about HU 332 for a couple months. Gives some variety for the spotters. Will also be a nice compliment to Swiss 330

YYC will be saturated with Dreamliners by the time IFP opens anyways

[Bigtime]

Ah yes, I forgot about Edelweiss. Oh and apparently we are getting two Korean charter flights in again this summer. A332 as well.

[CTrainDude]

Originally Posted by RyLucky

I think they should build the NCLRT such that a spur to the Airport at Beddington is possible. That way we could potentially one day have a direct connection from YYC to Eau Claire, Stephen Ave, Vic Park, Stampede Park, and everywhere else the Green line goes. I would route it right from Harvest Hills and Beddington to the area beside pick-up D at YYC, right through airport land.

I'm guessing that any potential spur line from NCLRT to YYC wil be at 96th Avenue, rather than Beddington - then it's a straight shot across at Airport Trail.

[suburbia]

Originally Posted by RyLucky

I think they should build the NCLRT such that a spur to the Airport at Beddington is possible. That way we could potentially one day have a direct connection from YYC to Eau Claire, Stephen Ave, Vic Park, Stampede Park, and everywhere else the Green line goes. I would route it right from Harvest Hills and Beddington to the area beside pick-up D at YYC, right through airport land.

Originally Posted by CTrainDude

I'm guessing that any potential spur line from NCLRT to YYC wil be at 96th Avenue, rather than Beddington - then it's a straight shot across at Airport Trail.

Suspect it was just an error by RL. Makes no sense other than at 96/airport trail. Of course, navigating how the train would turn at 96th is not straight forward.

[RyLucky]

Originally Posted by CTrainDude

I'm guessing that any potential spur line from NCLRT to YYC wil be at 96th Avenue, rather than Beddington - then it's a straight shot across at Airport Trail.

I was indeed talking about Beddington, but it's all hypothetical. We'd probably need a study of the possible alignments in that area to know the relative costs, trip times, etc, but a hypothetical spur route as I proposed (from Beddington directly to the YYC terminal seems ideal.

map

If we were going to spend $200M to connect YYC to the Green Line, the station has to be IN THE TERMINAL. At least, that is my opinion/assumption.

Here are the options:

Option 1: 96th Ave Spur. Proceed 800 m north on Harvest Hills Blvd, turn 90° onto 96th ave, proceed 4 km east on 96th ave, turn south, proceed for 500 m to YYC terminal. This route has the advantage of an easier topography, assuming there is already space for a train at existing crossings, but the overall route is ~1.3 km longer and requires ~0.5 km more track than option 2.
Distance to Beddington&HHBlvd: ~5.3 km
Time to Beddington&HHBlvd: 10-12 min
Track (in addition to proposed Green Line Infrastructure): 4.5 km
Cost (in addition to proposed Green Line Infrastructure): $150-300 M

Option 2: Beddington Trail Spur. Spur east immediately north of Beddington trail, cut between Nose Creek Parkway and the future Aurora Business Park, cross Deerfoot close to Aero Drive and proceed at grade directly to YYC terminal (parallel to and about 500 m south of 96th Ave). This route might be a more challenging topography, but the overall route is 1.3 km shorter and requires 0.5 km less track than option 1.
Distance to Beddington&HHBlvd: ~4 km
Time to Beddington&HHBlvd: 7-9 min
Track (in addition to proposed Green Line Infrastructure): 4 km
Cost (in addition to proposed Green Line Infrastructure): $150-300 M

Option 3: NELRT Spur through 96th Ave Tunnel. This could be done together with option 1 or 2 at some point, or in place of option 1 or 2. Travel time to downtown would be 15-25 minutes longer on this route, but it might eventually serve different travel patterns and connect the NC corridor to the NE.

Either option 1 or 2 could potentially have an Aurora stop as well if there were demand.

[Nick]

With the option 2 there would be implications affecting the ILS approaches on Rwy's 17L and 11. You can't cut too close to airport property at grade without affecting the approaches to those runways.

[MalcolmTucker]

Once the spaghetti roads are built as part of stimulus for the terminal and the interchanges are done for airport trail, the bus will be so fast for the foreseeable future to the NE Line and Greenline that airport rail becomes solely a status issue, not an access issue.

[CTrainDude]

I also think that it's presumptuous to assume that YYC actually wants LRT on their land at all. A lot of the functional planning documentation from the City mentions the possibility of LRT/Streetcar staying along Airport Trail and connecting to the YYC "People Mover". IF the LRT airport link ever gets built, 96th Avenue/Airport Trail is really the furthest south that the access may be able to go. Because the City owns the land for the Aurora business park immediately south of 96th Avenue, it could potentially be easy to secure ROW along this entire route.

Ideally for me (even though I don't think the link is actually justified at all), there's a third track at both the 96th Avenue station on NCLRT and at the 88th Avenue station in the NE, so the airport could be accessed from either side, and acts as a partial cross town connection.

[yyc_engineer]

Nearly every great city in the world has a fixed rail link from their airport. And it's not just the obvious big cities (and not just in Europe/Asia) lots of smaller ones too (eg. Portland OR, Phoenix AZ)

{I will debate you separately on whether Phoenix qualifies as a "great city"}

I'm not saying having a rail link to your airport equals "great city" status but if Cowtown ever wants to move past this identity crisis (Big Town On The Prairie) and really become a world city it needs to grow a pair, man up and build a rail link to its airport.

There are many new opportunities that are created by fixed rail to your airport. eg. I know many WestJetter's who fly to YVR on standby for day trips and take the Skytain into downtown because it is convenient and relatively inexpensive. These people would not pay $50 per way for cab rides. Granted, Calgary downtown is not Granville Island, but people/tourists would do the same here. I have taken the LRT to PDX as a student and, while it takes longer than a cab, saving nearly 80% and getting a scenic tour of the region makes it well worth it. This is just one example, and I may be an exception to the rule, but I can personally think of literally dozens of times I would have taken light rail to YYC over the years.

That said, it is a very complicated issue, as it would have an impact to parking at the airport. I read a very interesting paper on what happened to parking revenues at YVR post Skytrain opening (if I find it I will share the link). It would be naive to think that there wouldn't be some short term negative implications (depending how you look at it of course), but long term it would be good for everybody Tourists, Business, the Airport and Calgary as a whole.

With the way North American (and especially Canadian) society is moving (increased interest and desire to improve accessibility and public transit) it is inevitable. The question I have is how much political desire there is for it to actually happen soon (by soon I mean in my lifetime).

I have about 30 years left in my career, hopefully I get a chance to contribute to this project in some way, shape or form.

Or maybe I will just move to Victoria and buy a boat..

[Cage]

I hope LRT never comes to YYC. At least not until the airport gets to 40-50 million pax per year.

Union-Pearson Express is a flop, and the recent fare changes will not stem the red ink from flowing. Actually the opposite will happen, a few more riders but much harder time for the fare box to cover operating expenses.

YVR line is somewhat successful from the passenger perspective, but the airport paid for 1/4 of the cost of the entire Canada line. the airport's contribution to Canada line could have paid for expanded terminal facilities, and redevelopment of concourses A and B, and the much need north-south taxiway, and still left a few dollars in the bank account.

JFK Air Train connection to Jamaica station was very expensive, it's often less expensive to take taxi if there are three travelers.

Newark Air Train connection works from cost and convenience perspective, however the Air Train continuously requires massive expenditures for maintenance, makes the line unprofitable to the point where PANYNJ wants to replace the line or remove it entirely.

On the plus side it appears the Denver airport commuter rail line is not paid for by the airport, rather civic expenses an P3 are used to pay for the rail line. The rail line has yet to open so traffic figures cannot be analyzed. I hope everything works out for Denver, but at least with a full fledged P3 the taxpayer and airport are not taking all the risk.

SFO BART line appears to one of the few sucesses in North American airport rail connections.

[yyc_engineer]

Originally Posted by Cage

I hope LRT never comes to YYC. At least not until the airport gets to 40-50 million pax per year.

SFO BART line appears to one of the few sucesses in North American airport rail connections.

I'm not sure how one quantifies "success" in the context of an airport rail link? If you mean profitable, that will almost never happen as public transit generally does not make money, at least not in North America.

I don't have a huge understanding of the subject but I don't think UP at YYZ or the NY/NJ examples are really relevant to the Calgary context. A better comparison would be with similar sized systems, cities and airports (Portland, Minneapolis, Denver, etc.)

To be honest, this is like the Airport Tunnel, it doesn't really make sense when you break it down into the dollars and cents but when looked at globally it looks more attractive. When we built the first leg of the LRT that was viewed by many as a waste of money and unnecessary and it has proven to be one of the most "successful" light rail systems (ridership/km and ridership/cost to build) in North America, and given the context, in the world.

I have debated this topic with many people over the years and both sides have convincing arguments. Status Quo is always easy, but what I would say is that Calgary needs to decide what kind of company it wants to be in. If it wants to be like the cities in this list https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airport_rail_link (eg. Vienna, Brisbane, Olso) it needs to have fixed rail to the airport. If it wants to stay in the list with Edmonton, Knoxville and Winnipeg then it's easy, we are already there.

(Ps. No offense meant to Edmonton, I spent the first 2 years of my life there and love that town. Just using it to prove a point)

[CrossedTheTracks]

I'd rather we focus on high-frequency, quality, easy to-find-and-use bus service than fantasize about spending $100 million+ on rail.

I've used airport-rail links in Paris, Atlanta, Newark, and San Francisco. I'm glad they're there, they certainly saved me money compared to the alternatives, but none of them left me with fond memories of the experience.

By contrast, the Kipling-Airport bus express in Toronto is fast, frequent, and cheap. Admittedly I'm biased towards it because my destination in Toronto is in the west end and not downtown, but it just works.

I'd also rather that we focus our transit capital dollars on things that individuals will use dozens of times every month, rather than dozens of times over the years.

[VIce]

As far as value for money, I think an express bus to downtown will serve Calgary well for a while yet. Trading higher frequencies for emptier buses is a much better trade than millions for a rail link. Although that said, Route 300 might benefit from a better parking spot, significant signage within the terminal, and so forth.

[MasterG]

Transit to the airport is a good idea, however it's a mistake to assume quickest to downtown is the way to go. Transit investment to airports are only rewarded when they are acknowledged for their role as an employment hub first, not as a way to take flights.

Many cities fall in this trap (Toronto most recently). It's largely because of a collective bias of how people think of airports. Everyone thinks of them through the eyes of a occasional traveller saying, "Wouldn't it be nice to use a train to get to the airport when I go on vacation or a trip once or twice a year? It would be super convenient!"

But travellers are a notoriously difficult group to serve with transit for many reasons:

• Dispersed origins / destinations throughout the city: People come from all over the city to the airport, making a downtown transfer potentially time-consuming. This makes it difficult for a train to compete with other options on speed. Remember there is a travel time to get to downtown and the wait times / service hours of the rest of the network are also influencers here to how effective a downtown link would be.
  
• Business travellers are not typically cost-sensitive: Business travellers often have costs expensed so tend to not be price-sensitive (i.e. will take whatever option is faster, regardless of price which is often a rental car or taxi). Therefore unless transit is really good/fast, hard to attract a large number.
  
• Luggage is a barrier - real or perceived - to taking transit
  
• Larger groups can find transit less convenient / cost effective: more costly, complicated with children / large amounts of bags.

None of these are deal-breakers to transit, and many of these challenges can be minimized with a good system. But we can quickly erode a potential pool of 15 million passengers / year (~40,000 per day) to something much less than that. If we want to charge an outrageous premium like Toronto did, that's how you take an already small pool of potential passengers and evaporate it to nothing.

How you can get airport rapid-transit to work:
Airport transit only works when it serves employees first or when there are so many passengers they can justify a level of service that makes up for transit's inherent drawbacks to many travellers. Or both.

A full-time worker will take 2 trips / day x 5 days / week x 50 weeks / year = 500 potential trips. A single employee working at Tim Hortons at the airport full-time is likely worth 100x the rider-ship of an average traveller. Service workers have lower-incomes are more price-sensitive and more likely to use a transit service.

But there are problems here too:

• Many jobs are 24 hour or early start, meaning transit has to run much earlier than normal. The rest of the network is not running and can't support easily
  
• Where airport workers live and where airport travellers live are not in the same place, nor are they in an efficient line that can be served with a LRT-style transit. Meaning, you might be able to serve one type of airport visitor adequately but not the other. In Calgary's case, this means that there might not be a good business case for a downtown transit line, but rather a NE / SE one
  
• Airports are enormous and employment is dispersed within them making transit unlikely to work for everyone, even among typical transit users.

Personally I would love great rail transit to the airport. But given the limited resources available it is hard to justify ahead of any number of projects. Continual bus improvements might be enough for a long while.

If we are really concerned about being "world-class" or a great traveller's experience, let's take the $300-500 million additional cost and invest it in creating a beautiful, coherent downtown strategy of pedestrian boulevards, parks, landmarks, museums and cultural institutions all within walking distance of an airport bus stop.

[MalcolmTucker]

Airport rail is like the subway to the beach to use Human Transit's analysis. People can imagine themselves using it so they think it makes sense. A significant modal share to airports is friends and family drop off. This will not change. Business travellers staying outside of the core will likely have rental cars or be relying on whatever livery type service exists in the future.

I know for the most part capital cannot be translated to operations in Alberta, but even for 1/3rd of the capital cost you can pay for pretty pkck ass bus service that is better than rail (more frequent) for 30 years.

Portland's LRT stop at the airport has dismal ridership, as does St. Louis. Vancouver's modal share is low as well for now, when you take away employees using it to get from their parking lot. Denver doesn't need much pax traffic to justify the investment as their system is designed to stave off expansion to their freeway network not generate huge ridership - 2,000 car loads at peak hours is another full lane, and 200 cars off the road at peak hour can stop a two lane highway from tipping over from busy, to congested, to failure mode (damn u-shaped curves for traffic capacity!).

UP is a problem of sales to the public more than anything. It doesn't make money because a lot of dual use infrastructure was added to the project budget. It has frequency higher than the airport BART most if not all of the time. It is there as a relief valve to allow Toronto to continue securing conventions and businesses that require travel as congestion is pretty bad (and the number of hours per day that roads from downtown to the airport are in congestion mode are increasing) and Toronto refuses to implement demand management to speed up trips.

Should both lines that will cross 96th have substiantial stations to ease transfers and provision for a future dedicated transportation corridor of somekind? Yes. Do we need to build that dedicated transit mode that now or before highspeed rail or way more passengers? No. What I would guess would be the cheapest system to build? Gondolas. 10 km with two turns and four terminals (you could link the two airport terminals for through travel at a very low marginal cost). No need to build bridges over Deerfoot, Nose Creek, or Metis, and they can be run pretty close to the ground if you fence the ROW. 8-10 minutes to either LRT station with no waiting time more than equals faster modes with lower frequencies ( a spur to the NE line would run at best half the frequency of the current line, probably more like 1/3 or 1/4 the current frequency is more in line with minimum service standards considering demand won't need any more).

[RyLucky]

Here's the plan (what I think our plan should be):

1)build the green line with the capability of oneday spurring a line from either Beddington or 96th ave

2) Wait patiently for decades until Transport Canada is sympathetic and sees value in an LRT connection into the airport. Meanwhile, let passenger counts and citizen frustration with airport access rise.

3) Only build if we negotiate an ideal ROW that works for everyone and minimizes cost downtown. Build in an assumption for years that an LRT WILL come. Eventually, everyone will see the light.

[Bigtime]

Originally Posted by yyc_engineer

That said, it is a very complicated issue, as it would have an impact to parking at the airport. I read a very interesting paper on what happened to parking revenues at YVR post Skytrain opening (if I find it I will share the link). It would be naive to think that there wouldn't be some short term negative implications (depending how you look at it of course), but long term it would be good for everybody Tourists, Business, the Airport and Calgary as a whole.

With the way North American (and especially Canadian) society is moving (increased interest and desire to improve accessibility and public transit) it is inevitable. The question I have is how much political desire there is for it to actually happen soon (by soon I mean in my lifetime).

I have about 30 years left in my career, hopefully I get a chance to contribute to this project in some way, shape or form.

Or maybe I will just move to Victoria and buy a boat..

You know what they say about Victoria? Full of newlyweds and nearly deads.

Originally Posted by VIce

As far as value for money, I think an express bus to downtown will serve Calgary well for a while yet. Trading higher frequencies for emptier buses is a much better trade than millions for a rail link. Although that said, Route 300 might benefit from a better parking spot, significant signage within the terminal, and so forth.

The Airport Authority has been terrible about actually making the 300 a visible option for folks getting off a plane at YYC. Local author Chris Turner documented this in a series of tweets a year or two ago. Barely visible signage, no mention of it throughout the terminal (only adjacent to the exit door to access it).

Can't help but think they want you parking there, or taking a cab or sedan service to where you are going.

Somewhat related to this, there is a new shuttle service offering pickups and dropoffs at YYC for only $15/passenger (kids under 12 ride free) anywhere in Calgary. I believe they are operating under the new bylaw city council just approved a few weeks back. Cab fare from my place to the airport is usually about $40 before tip, we have an upcoming trip and the total for the four of us (bags no extra charge) was $31.50.

www.shuttlemeyyc.com

[RyLucky]

Originally Posted by Cage

I hope LRT never comes to YYC. At least not until the airport gets to 40-50 million pax per year.

Union-Pearson Express is a flop, and the recent fare changes will not stem the red ink from flowing. Actually the opposite will happen, a few more riders but much harder time for the fare box to cover operating expenses.

YVR line is somewhat successful from the passenger perspective, but the airport paid for 1/4 of the cost of the entire Canada line. the airport's contribution to Canada line could have paid for expanded terminal facilities, and redevelopment of concourses A and B, and the much need north-south taxiway, and still left a few dollars in the bank account.

JFK Air Train connection to Jamaica station was very expensive, it's often less expensive to take taxi if there are three travelers.

Newark Air Train connection works from cost and convenience perspective, however the Air Train continuously requires massive expenditures for maintenance, makes the line unprofitable to the point where PANYNJ wants to replace the line or remove it entirely.

On the plus side it appears the Denver airport commuter rail line is not paid for by the airport, rather civic expenses an P3 are used to pay for the rail line. The rail line has yet to open so traffic figures cannot be analyzed. I hope everything works out for Denver, but at least with a full fledged P3 the taxpayer and airport are not taking all the risk.

SFO BART line appears to one of the few sucesses in North American airport rail connections.

By the time it actually happens, we will have many more passengers than today. I'm not sure why anyone would hope to never have airport-rapid transit access.

Every comparison you've listed is a vastly different context than ours. And, let's not talk about who pays for it until we at least see what it might look like IF it were to occur. The only thing that we would benefit from in 2016 is to have an idea of how access MIGHT be realized via the Green Line.

UPX is a total flop, I'll agree, but I could have given you 50 reasons why it would fail before it even started. $30 one-way service per person without integration to TTC is a starting point. They deliberately made it more expensive and less convenient than sharing a cab from downtown. This week Toronto's council is discussing lowering the fare and the future of this idiotic line.

Canada Line is certainly successful, and if you don't like how it was paid for, there's no reason YYC's plan would be anything similar. It's also important to note that a spur to YYC will not require 4 km of elevated ROW over the tidal delta of the Fraser River. The reason Canada Line is a success, however, is because it is not merely a connection to the airport, but the terminal of a line that supports thousands of commuters.

Don't forget that YYC is one of Calgary's largest employers, and currently employee parking is expensive and difficult to access. I've heard employees sometimes have to park their cars up to 25 minutes before their shifts start to be on time.

As for the runway approach, this is hardly an issue that can't be dealt with.

[Riise]

Originally Posted by yyc_engineer

Nearly every great city in the world has a fixed rail link from their airport. And it's not just the obvious big cities (and not just in Europe/Asia) lots of smaller ones too (eg. Portland OR, Phoenix AZ)

{I will debate you separately on whether Phoenix qualifies as a "great city"}

I'm not saying having a rail link to your airport equals "great city" status but if Cowtown ever wants to move past this identity crisis (Big Town On The Prairie) and really become a world city it needs to grow a pair, man up and build a rail link to its airport.

Do you know what great cities do? They do what their great city needs rather than what other great cities have done. Calgary needs a great deal of things more than it needs airport rail and focusing on what we need will be greatly beneficial.

[McMurph]

Originally Posted by Riise

Do you know what great cities do? They do what their great city needs rather than what other great cities have done. Calgary needs a great deal of things more than it needs airport rail and focusing on what we need will be greatly beneficial.

I'm as much a sucker for trains as anybody, but I completely agree with this. Calgary can easily get great BRT service to the airport if the stakeholders want it. An underground HST station in the terminal sure would be sexy, but sometimes the best solution calls for a bus.