Calgary Area Regional Transit

[Rollerstud98]

I was thinking along where the old junkyard was. Just west of tower lane drive and south of railway ave. Would be a shame to lose it but could also put it at the location of the kiddie train park and have plenty of parking there next to midtown. If along towerlane drive there is a lot of land to build up some density in downtown Airdrie and would be right off the station. Walking distance even on the coldest days.

[YYCguys]

Originally Posted by Rollerstud98

I was thinking along where the old junkyard was. Just west of tower lane drive and south of railway ave. Would be a shame to lose it but could also put it at the location of the kiddie train park and have plenty of parking there next to midtown.

The old junkyard location is the location of a future commercial/office/residential complex. It went through planning approvals a year or two ago but there’s been no movement on it, so I’m not sure of its status.

The City recently granted an extension of the lease with the operators of the train park so I don’t see that going anywhere anytime soon.

While not in “downtown” Airdrie, the City has invested a lot of money in their “South Terminal” bus exchange (south of Airdrie Honda, east of the tracks). While not ideal at all, perhaps the City would consider that location for the train station.

[Rollerstud98]

While certainly to be much easier, like you say the south terminal is not ideal at all. I’ve always wanted the old towerlane apartments to be torn down. Having a central train station right across the street would be a huge boost for the area. Those apartments are a huge waste of space and could be so much more. I think that would be the best spot for the revitalization to start and grow out from there. Obviously would solely depend on having commuter rail in place and attracting a new demographic to live in airdrie. Airdrie really needs to attract much more non retail business to downtown. Not sure entirely how this can be accomplished though. Probably Propak and Fortis are the 2 largest employers in town with both having the offices on the periphery of the city. Having those 2 downtown instead of in the industrial parks would have been a good boost too.

[Jaspertf]

The long awaited Calgary Bow Valley Mass Transit Feasibility Study has been release, lots to be positive about with additional bus connections and routes, and future passenger rail.

[YYCguys]

Is the study available somewhere for the public to read? I searched on google and couldn’t find it.

[milomilo]

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/bow-valley-train-bus-service-regional-transit-1.5035726

It's an ereader type thing though not a pdf

Never mind, click the fullscreen button then original document for the pdf.

[Jaspertf]

Originally Posted by YYCguys

Is the study available somewhere for the public to read? I searched on google and couldn’t find it.

http://www.banff.ca/index.aspx?NID=1029

[milomilo]

Reading through it now, some interesting stuff, although nothing too unexpected so far either.

[milomilo]

Interesting things so far:

• They propose using downtown east as the fist choice, Sunalta second and Central as the least favourite choice. But until the Green Line is built, there is zero good transit at downtown east and it's a wasteland. Even with the Green Line, most people will have to make a transfer. If not central, Sunalta seems like the better choice for a number of reasons - there are far more people served by the Blue Line, the transfer from the Red Line is better and it's closer to the destination.
• No Lake Louise. Their reasoning is logical, but it still seems like a waste not to go there, I think they might overestimate the number of people who would bother transferring to a bus at Banff. But as long as the initial line is sound, then adding it later will be easy so no big worry.

[YYCguys]

Originally Posted by milomilo

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/bow-valley-train-bus-service-regional-transit-1.5035726

It's an ereader type thing though not a pdf

Never mind, click the fullscreen button then original document for the pdf.

Originally Posted by Jaspertf

http://www.banff.ca/index.aspx?NID=1029

Thank you!

[milomilo]

I posted something in the Canada section but my thoughts are the same here:

Originally Posted by milomilo

I totally agree, the report wasn't exactly a slam dunk for building rail out to the mountains. If the powers that be are given the choice between a low risk, much cheaper option with decent benefit, or an option 10 times the price with about 20% more benefit that's far more difficult with more risk, it's not hard to predict what decision they will make. Especially as our likely next leader Jason Kenney has about as much inspiration as a pack of toilet paper.

I also (in my completely uneducated view) think they have underestimated the cost to build rail out to the mountains, there is pretty tough terrain out there, they are going to have to do a lot of earthworks and it would not surprise me if they have to completely rebuild sections as the circa 1880 original alignment was pretty much just guys eyeballing the route and chucking down whatever local dirt and gravel they could find. While there is a section on regulations and dealing with CP, they again glossed over this. They pretty much said, 'if CP don't like this it will be virtually impossible', but didn't seem to think this was a big deal, despite CP having no interest and no incentive to help.

However, I do also think they downplayed the benefits of rail and how popular it could be, especially compared to a bus. I know there are many people, myself included, that would never bother to take a bus to the mountains (we would just drive), but would consider taking a train. And what of international tourists - visitors from Europe would just expect there to be a train, what kind of rinky dink city doesn't have any passenger rail? If we could actually run the line up to the airport, then YYC - Downtown Calgary -Banff rail becomes a pretty attractive proposition that we can use as a selling point and Calgary would no longer have to worry about extending its transit to YYC.

If the build cost numbers in the report are accurate, that's great. Although convention would have a contingency put on top to more than double the cost right off the bat. My opinion is even if it's 5 or 10 times the cost, the long term reward will be worth it, but I doubt Mr Kenney and his minions will have the same opinion.

[milomilo]

Malcolm, you posted this:

Originally Posted by MalcolmTucker

A study in the west line for Calgary regional rail is due very soon. The rest, not so much.

Past talk by CP has said $500 million for the west line to Cochrane, which I think was converting mostly single track to triple track. The reason it is so expensive is it is the CP mainline, mich supports 37 freight trains a day currently.

Do you believe that CP number to be accurate? Because to me $500M to triple track out to Cochrane sounds far more believable than $380M to double track all the way to Banff.

[suburbia]

Originally Posted by milomilo

the long term reward will be worth it

I'm sure corndogger will agree with Kenney and point out that the "long term reward" has not been assessed, and in all likelihood this would be a failed investment. If it is such a good long term reward, perhaps private business should be making the investment. If they don't, why not?

[MalcolmTucker]

Originally Posted by suburbia

I'm sure corndogger will agree with Kenney and point out that the "long term reward" has not been assessed, and in all likelihood this would be a failed investment. If it is such a good long term reward, perhaps private business should be making the investment. If they don't, why not?

Private fire departments don’t exist. Therefor fire departments should never exist. If it is such a good long term reward, perhaps private business should be making the investment.

[milomilo]

Yeah basically that. Does anyone think CP aren't happy with their profits today? Since it was obviously such a profitable endeavor, why didn't they build the pacific railway without (massive) government assistance?

[milomilo]

Originally Posted by MalcolmTucker

Private fire departments don’t exist. Therefor fire departments should never exist. If it is such a good long term reward, perhaps private business should be making the investment.

Private fire departments have been done, I'm not sure we should bring them back though, the conflict of interests can get murky!

The first ever Roman fire brigade was created by Crassus. He took advantage of the fact that Rome had no fire department, by creating his own brigade—500 men strong—which rushed to burning buildings at the first cry of alarm. Upon arriving at the scene, however, the fire fighters did nothing while Crassus offered to buy the burning building from the distressed property owner, at a cheap price. If the owner refused to sell the property, his men would simply let the structure burn to the ground. After buying many properties this way, he rebuilt them and leased it back to their original owners.

[MalcolmTucker]

Market failures, market failures everywhere.

[suburbia]

Originally Posted by MalcolmTucker

Private fire departments don’t exist. Therefor fire departments should never exist. If it is such a good long term reward, perhaps private business should be making the investment.

Fire departments, which service the jurisdictions that pay them, exist to deliver a required service. There are transportation companies, on the other hand, that transport people between different municipal and/or rural jurisdictions. As an example, I could purchase a ticket for a bus from Calgary to Edmonton on a service that is not municipally subsidized.

If people choose to live outside the city, they need to understand that they'll need to pay private transport business type costs to get to the city.

[milomilo]

We should probably toll all the roads too and funnel that money towards Calgary then, if all decisions in the province are to be decided through the lens of how they affect the City of Calgary's budget.

[MalcolmTucker]

Until 2012 Greyhound had a government mandated near monopoly in Alberta, and used profits from the main routes to subsidize the not profitable routes. The government ended the near monopoly then Greyhound collapsed because most of the routes were natural monopolies at best.