Calgary Area Regional Transit - Page 52

milomilo · #**1021** Posted **Jan 30, 2019, 5:11 AM**

Have you thought about the bridges, the single track one over the Bow in particular? There always seems to be a train parked on it, I imagine you'd have to build at least one more single track one, but it would also be more sensible to build the new one double track. How much would that be?

MalcolmTucker · #**1022** Posted **Jan 30, 2019, 7:57 AM**

Airdrie service would need new track, From at least inglewood into downtown. The mainline is seriously capacity constrained.

milomilo · #**1023** Posted **Jan 30, 2019, 2:28 PM**

It highlights the issue of having the tracks in private ownership. It would benefit CP to upgrade all the track through there including replacing that bridge, but if they can make do without it and save money they won't. CP holds the cards, if they sniff that someone else wants needs additional capacity, they definitely won't want to pay for the upgrade, so anyone wanting to use the line will have to pay all the cost of the upgrade.

MalcolmTucker · #**1024** Posted **Jan 30, 2019, 9:01 PM**

How is that different than a public track operator having to pay for more capacity if more capacity was needed? The outcome is the same-the public paying for track access.

milomilo · #**1025** Posted **Jan 30, 2019, 10:12 PM**

Well now the new operator has to pay 100% of the cost of the upgrade for some of the benefit, while CP pays 0% and gets most of the benefit, unless there is some way of forcing them to pay? If there was room to just build a new railway alongside completely isolated from CP's, that would be somewhat better, but not a very efficient allocation of resources even if it was possible.

If a public body owned all the tracks, the operators would just pay rent while the owner could decide how to effectively manage and upgrade the tracks system wide. Pie in the sky I know, but it is the normal way of doing things outside of NA.

Jaspertf · #**1026** Posted **Feb 2, 2019, 8:45 PM**

The only way to achieve an efficient and reliable commuter/regional rail service is to have double-track infrastructure, and grade-separated crossings. The benefit of using and upgrading the Canadian Pacific infrastructure is that the Right of Way already exists, so the only cost is the construction of the required infrastructure, bridges, tracks and stations. There is a massive benefit to Canadian Pacific, but there is also a lot of cooperation from Canadian Pacific required to operate a reliable commuter/regional rail service.
We have to work with what we have, it would be fantastic and easier if it was different, but it is what it is.

milomilo · #**1027** Posted **Feb 23, 2019, 3:59 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jaspertf

Calgary-Bow Valley Mass Transit Feasibility Study will hopefully be released by the end of February, it should be an interesting read.

Is this still due to happen, do you know?

Jaspertf · #**1028** Posted **Feb 23, 2019, 9:44 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by milomilo

Is this still due to happen, do you know?

Can you wait until Wednesday? We can't.

Little update:
We have met with a few municipalities, Airdrie was slightly disappointing but Okotoks and Cochrane was positive. Meeting with the Mayor of Banff and Mayor of Cochrane soon, and also a City of Calgary Councillor. We are moving forward slowly, if you want to help let us know.

YYCguys · #**1029** Posted **Feb 24, 2019, 1:00 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jaspertf

Can you wait until Wednesday? We can't.

Little update:
We have met with a few municipalities, Airdrie was slightly disappointing but Okotoks and Cochrane was positive. Meeting with the Mayor of Banff and Mayor of Cochrane soon, and also a City of Calgary Councillor. We are moving forward slowly, if you want to help let us know.

Why was the Airdrie meeting disappointing?

milomilo · #**1030** Posted **Feb 24, 2019, 7:23 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jaspertf

Can you wait until Wednesday? We can't.

Little update:
We have met with a few municipalities, Airdrie was slightly disappointing but Okotoks and Cochrane was positive. Meeting with the Mayor of Banff and Mayor of Cochrane soon, and also a City of Calgary Councillor. We are moving forward slowly, if you want to help let us know.

I look forward to Wednesday!

Jaspertf · #**1031** Posted **Feb 24, 2019, 11:02 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by YYCguys

Why was the Airdrie meeting disappointing?

Maybe it was the way we presented our idea and plan, but they were adamant on their buses and aiming to connect into Calgary's BRT network.
Our idea is to just replace the 901 & 902 routes with a train between a transit hub in Airdrie and the station in downtown Calgary.

milomilo · #**1032** Posted **Feb 24, 2019, 11:10 PM**

How are they expecting to link their buses to our 'BRT' network? None of our extremely limited BRT infrastructure would be useful to an Airdrie bus.

CrossedTheTracks · #**1033** Posted **Feb 24, 2019, 11:32 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by milomilo

How are they expecting to link their buses to our 'BRT' network? None of our extremely limited BRT infrastructure would be useful to an Airdrie bus.

Airdrie's 900 route terminates at Rundle station, so riders can hook into the 16th Ave BRT there. That's the only sense I can make out of that expectation. (Obviously, their downtown-terminating routes can be used to connect to Calgary's BRT's hitting the downtown, but, duh, so does a train service.)

milomilo · #**1034** Posted **Feb 25, 2019, 1:15 AM**

Yeah, seems pretty spurious. It is strange that they would have much of an attachment to their bus service.

YYCguys · #**1035** Posted **Feb 25, 2019, 1:20 AM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jaspertf

Maybe it was the way we presented our idea and plan, but they were adamant on their buses and aiming to connect into Calgary's BRT network.
Our idea is to just replace the 901 & 902 routes with a train between a transit hub in Airdrie and the station in downtown Calgary.

I live in Airdrie! I like your idea!

para transit fellow · #**1036** Posted **Feb 25, 2019, 2:07 AM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jaspertf

Maybe it was the way we presented our idea and plan, but they were adamant on their buses and aiming to connect into Calgary's BRT network.
Our idea is to just replace the 901 & 902 routes with a train between a transit hub in Airdrie and the station in downtown Calgary.

You may have felt push- back as those two routes generate surplus revenue that is used to offset the feeder routes running locally in Airdrie.

The CRP previously proposed to absorb the commuter routes into a regional transit service... Airdrie was similarly unresponsive to that idea.

milomilo · #**1037** Posted **Feb 25, 2019, 2:19 AM**

Interesting. Those routes are actually profitable!???

Rollerstud98 · #**1038** Posted **Feb 25, 2019, 3:50 AM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by YYCguys

I live in Airdrie! I like your idea!

Did you participate in the downtown open house or whatever it was? I was not there myself.

I wouldn’t be surprised if Ron Chapman is the lead idiot on refusing train service.

We currently have pretty ideal location for a central station downtown Airdrie. Parking would be an issue but have a bus service to train station. Would need a vastly improved bus service but would be cool to have a downtown train station. Trains would have to be faster than driving though to really make it work.

milomilo · #**1039** Posted **Feb 25, 2019, 4:15 AM**

As far as I can see, building rail to the Bow river should be pretty easy and, hence, cheap. But then you have to build a new double or triple track bridge, which will probably be quite expensive, complete uneducated guess of a hundred million or so. Then hopefully it takes just a little reconfiguring to get it from there to the downtown Calgary station. So a good few hundred million, plus the trains.

If Airdrie are serious about improving transit to Calgary, then that cost would have to be compared to the cost of building dedicated bus infrastructure in a different municipality (Calgary), which sounds like a political non starter as well as likely being just as expensive. Or they could just not bother doing anything, which is probably the most likely option.

I'm still not convinced though that just a Calgary - Airdrie line on its own would have the ridership to fill trains. Adding a suburban Calgary station around CHB or Beddington would help, but it still feels like it's not enough - I've never seen a commuter line with only two or three stops.

YYCguys · #**1040** Posted **Feb 25, 2019, 5:03 AM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rollerstud98

Did you participate in the downtown open house or whatever it was? I was not there myself....

...We currently have pretty ideal location for a central station downtown Airdrie. Parking would be an issue but have a bus service to train station. Would need a vastly improved bus service but would be cool to have a downtown train station. Trains would have to be faster than driving though to really make it work.

I did participate in the initial downtown plan visioning workshops last year, but not the most recent one, due to being on the inaugural Toronto to Calgary Westjet Dreamliner flight that same day!

What is the location that you have in mind for the Airdrie station?