Calgary Public Transit II

[suburbia]

Originally Posted by milomilo

I do wonder how much ridership this will generate considering only a small section of it is true BRT. The section between Mt Royal and downtown is still basically a normal bus, yet that's where improvement is needed the most.

It is more a BRT than the current BRTs. Installing the 301 up centre street increased ridership significantly, particularly because it doesn't stop at all the regular bus stops, rather, skips many. In this fashion is it significantly different from a regular bus route.

[MalcolmTucker]

Originally Posted by milomilo

I do wonder how much ridership this will generate considering only a small section of it is true BRT. The section between Mt Royal and downtown is still basically a normal bus, yet that's where improvement is needed the most.

I hope there is an intention to quickly look at making the whole thing BRT. Ditto the 17th Ave transitway, which needs a segregated route into downtown.

17th Ave Transit way was at one point to run on the SETWay. Now I'd guess it would terminate in Inglewood at a Green Line station. I believe it still has a new bridge over the river and Deerfoot though. I don't really see that that is much better than running towards the Max Bell LRT station (at a much lower cost).

[milomilo]

Originally Posted by suburbia

It is more a BRT than the current BRTs. Installing the 301 up centre street increased ridership significantly, particularly because it doesn't stop at all the regular bus stops, rather, skips many. In this fashion is it significantly different from a regular bus route.

I agree the SWBRT is definitely a vast improvement over the current 'BRT' which is nothing of the sort, and is great value for money. But it is still a step short of true BRT as it runs in mixed traffic for much of the route, including the busiest roads.

This helps show why rail always ends up being better than buses - compromises are too easy to make with bus transit, and the places where segregated ROWs are needed most are often the same places it's most expensive to put them in.

[milomilo]

Originally Posted by MalcolmTucker

17th Ave Transit way was at one point to run on the SETWay. Now I'd guess it would terminate in Inglewood at a Green Line station. I believe it still has a new bridge over the river and Deerfoot though. I don't really see that that is much better than running towards the Max Bell LRT station (at a much lower cost).

If this is true then it agrees with my last point - it's too easy to half-ass BRT. If it terminates at an LRT then it's barely worth doing as it adds no new capacity to downtown. Off peak it's not so bad, but at rush hour this bus load of people aren't going to fit onto an already full train at an inner city station.

[MalcolmTucker]

The Green Line in the SE won't be near capacity for a long time. The headways will be driven by the north leg, which will have higher service needs.

[milomilo]

Originally Posted by MalcolmTucker

The Green Line in the SE won't be near capacity for a long time. The headways will be driven by the north leg, which will have higher service needs.

True, I've wondered if it would be a good idea to split the SE line at Ramsay and build LRT down 17th Ave as well, that way you get twice the number of trains to the North, where they are needed the most.

[MalcolmTucker]

That wouldn't improve service at all but would increase cost, plus potentially have long term implications on operations on the SE Line.

That being all said, the SE RLT might remove enough buses entering downtown to make the 17th Ave SE buses effective without a transfer.

[milomilo]

Originally Posted by MalcolmTucker

That wouldn't improve service at all but would increase cost, plus potentially have long term implications on operations on the SE Line.

That being all said, the SE RLT might remove enough buses entering downtown to make the 17th Ave SE buses effective without a transfer.

Just fantasy of course, but I wouldn't be surprised if a hypothetical 17th Ave lrt and SELRT have less combined ridership than the NCLRT alone. If it turned out that 10tph on each or so isn't enough in the future then great, justification to separate those two lines.

I definitely disagree though that a direct train to downtown wouldn't be an improvement on a bus/train transfer.

[MalcolmTucker]

Originally Posted by milomilo

Just fantasy of course, but I wouldn't be surprised if a hypothetical 17th Ave lrt and SELRT have less combined ridership than the NCLRT alone. If it turned out that 10tph on each or so isn't enough in the future then great, justification to separate those two lines.

I definitely disagree though that a direct train to downtown wouldn't be an improvement on a bus/train transfer.

A worst case transfer would take as much time as an average wait in the split case, at least on inbound.

[Porfiry]

Originally Posted by rkarsk

How do you prove ridership for a brand new route?

You run a bus and count riders. If it's popular, then maybe you spend money to improve the experience.

[milomilo]

Originally Posted by MalcolmTucker

A worst case transfer would take as much time as an average wait in the split case, at least on inbound.

In theory maybe. But in practise unlikely, as fewer people would take that bus because it's a bus and involves a transfer, so the frequency would be lower on the bus portion, perpetuating the crappiness. And regardless of the wait time, it is still objectively worse as the journey involves a bus and a transfer.

But as I said that's just a fantasy idea. What is the plan for the 17th Ave SW BRT route in the interim before the Green Line is built?

[MalcolmTucker]

Well, we can make an LRT crappy by choice too!

[milomilo]

Originally Posted by MalcolmTucker

Well, we can make an LRT crappy by choice too!

True, but it seems that cities are more willing to run trains with few riders at higher frequencies than buses.

[RyLucky]

Originally Posted by MalcolmTucker

That wouldn't improve service at all but would increase cost, plus potentially have long term implications on operations on the SE Line.

That being all said, the SE RLT might remove enough buses entering downtown to make the 17th Ave SE buses effective without a transfer.

That would be a great bit of flexibility to design into the system now to keep our options open down the road.

Originally Posted by milomilo

Just fantasy of course, but I wouldn't be surprised if a hypothetical 17th Ave lrt and SELRT have less combined ridership than the NCLRT alone. If it turned out that 10tph on each or so isn't enough in the future then great, justification to separate those two lines.

I definitely disagree though that a direct train to downtown wouldn't be an improvement on a bus/train transfer.

Splitting the line will never be for the sake of increasing capacity because the bottleneck will always be downtown, not through Highfield.

As for which route will attract more ridership - I think it's part, but not all, of the question we have to ask when prioritizing. The obvious counterpoint here is that the SE has less ridership BECAUSE of how terrible transit is there. 17th Ave SE is better than Mackenzie Towne, but both have pretty awful access to Downtown via bus. It's a game they could never, ever win. It's going to cost billions just to bring transit in the SE to the level where it can compete with the rest of the city, let alone compete with private vehicle travel time. I'm glad it's happening, but I don't think we should look at it as a failure if it doesn't attract the same ridership as other areas. It will take time and $$$.

[sim]

Originally Posted by MalcolmTucker

That wouldn't improve service at all but would increase cost, plus potentially have long term implications on operations on the SE Line.

That being all said, the SE RLT might remove enough buses entering downtown to make the 17th Ave SE buses effective without a transfer.

Originally Posted by MalcolmTucker

A worst case transfer would take as much time as an average wait in the split case, at least on inbound.

I'm not so sure about your conclusions here... Least of which, regardless of the headway you've assumed for the stub service, you seem to have missed initial inbound waiting time.

Capital costs aside, there is a decent reason to believe that splitting (branching) the lines would indeed have positive service impacts.

At a principle level, you wouldn't feed what is intended to (more or less) be a trunk service (17) into another trunk service (SELRT).

[suburbia]

Originally Posted by 5seconds

That would prove the ridership for a half-measure bus route, but would say little about a transitway. I would hate to see a half-measure route be implemented, and then it be deemed a failure when people avoid it because it was subject to the same congestion and unreliability as is experienced on 14th street currently.

The value in the transitway is something that a half-measure route cannot really show, which is a disassociation from the congestion on 14th street. It is that selling feature that will drive ridership, IMO.

The 301, a half-measure at best, seems to have demonstrated a massive need for north-centre. If a line can't fill a BRT, which is perhaps half the capacity of LRT, then you don't deserve an LRT.

[Porfiry]

Originally Posted by 5seconds

That would prove the ridership for a half-measure bus route, but would say little about a transitway. I would hate to see a half-measure route be implemented, and then it be deemed a failure when people avoid it because it was subject to the same congestion and unreliability as is experienced on 14th street currently.

I'd hate to see the route overbuilt, only to have it abandoned or torn apart if ridership doesn't meet lofty expectations. In my mind it's far better to start modestly and earn any improvements.

[ByeByeBaby]

Originally Posted by Porfiry

You run a bus and count riders. If it's popular, then maybe you spend money to improve the experience.

That sounds good! I'm planning on building my first high-rise apartment building; I'm going to build a one-story cinder block shack, and see if someone moves in. If it's popular, then maybe I'll spend money to build more storeys. If it falls over, then maybe I'll spend money to improve the structure. I'd hate to see it overbuilt; it's far better to start modestly and earn the extra storeys.

[ClaytonA]

IIRC there's a theory behind the number of swimmers across impassable water bodies and the need for ferries as well...

[Socguy]

Originally Posted by Porfiry

I'd hate to see the route overbuilt, only to have it abandoned or torn apart if ridership doesn't meet lofty expectations. In my mind it's far better to start modestly and earn any improvements.

How do you start modestly? I'm no road engineer, but I'd wager 14th is at or near capacity during peak hours. It seems to me that adding a bunch of high frequency bendy buses to the mix could make 14th unusable without improvements anyway.