Calgary's $8 BILLION Transit Plan - The RouteAhead

[MalcolmTucker]

^ Oh, I was making a counter case for building an LRT to MRU, not anything more than that. Yeah, those people wouldn't take the LRT, which weakens the case for LRT. If the 306 does poorly due to a bottleneck, different options to get it moving will need to be explored.

[RyLucky]

Originally Posted by fusili

Did someone mention awhile ago that there is a stub tunnel off the West LRT line just west of Westbrook station (around 37th street IIRC) that could be used to branch out for a MRU line?

So far as I know, there is no stub tunnel at 37th St.

Back in the 2000s when we were figuring out alignment for the West LRT, a number of options were considered. In fact, when it became apparent that a new line might be possible, the SELRT and NCLRT were seriously considered. The relative cost ruled those out until the future (i.e. now). Meanwhile, the committee continued to evaluate several West LRT alignment options, including one that turned south along Crowchild to MRU, and if I remember correctly, a couple other routes to MRU. The Crowchild alignment was by far the cheapest, derived the fastest travel times, and had the highest potential ridership, but it was still much more expensive, less expandable, and would only have marginally more present riders than the 17th Ave alignment. It was reasoned that one day a spur from Sunalta to MRU via Crowchild might be possible, but everybody kind of knew that any more SWLRT would have to wait until the SE and North were better served first. WLRT construction did not make any accommodations for such a spur line.

Fast-forward a decade, and RouteAhead (somewhere between ordinately to magically, especially compared to the superb transparency of the WLRT priority setting of a decade prior) determined that two separate BRT lines could be used to serve MRU: one connecting Downtown and Forest Lawn, and the other connecting to Westbrook (via 37th) and Heritage.

[MalcolmTucker]

^ If I remember that study right, it concluded less ridership and higher cost.

[ByeByeBaby]

Originally Posted by MalcolmTucker

Most of these USA projects are justified as 2000 people going each way removes a need to build an extra interstate lane along the route going each way. Changes the CBA a bit.

Even still, to remove 2000 peak hour vehicles how many riders do you need? A typical low end commuter rail system (e.g. the Northstar in Minneapolis) makes maybe 5 runs over a 3 hour AM peak period, so 40% of the runs are in the peak. As a back-of-the-envelope, let's say 2/3 of the people are on those peak runs. There is also reverse commuting in some systems, although that's going to be very low and it can probably be ignored. So that's 3000 AM peak riders to remove 2000 vehicles. But transit ridership is daily trips, so these 3000 people make a return trip as well, so you need ~6000 riders to remove a lane of traffic. And that's assuming that 0% of them would take a commuter bus service or carpool along the same corridor, which seems unlikely.

The ones I listed all have average weekday ridership in the 3000s or less; i.e. half a lane or less. Nashville and Portland are particularly bad, closer to 1000. Most commuter rail systems in metros up to around double Calgary's size have this kind of low ridership; the big exception is the FrontRunner in SLC, although it goes to Provo and Ogden (metros of 500K+ each) along the single congested I-15 corridor; you couldn't design a better urban layout for commuter rail service if you tried. Most commuter rail systems in metros more than double Calgary's size have fairly substantial ridership, although there are some turds in that group - the Northstar in Minneapolis is one, and ACE in the Bay Area has languished until fairly recently (note that other successful commuter rail systems like Caltrain operate in the same metro).

[outoftheice]

As an FYI - New Green Line LRT Discussion Thread:

http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/showthread.php?p=7113373#post7113373

[sim]

Originally Posted by MalcolmTucker

A private company, or the city/town could contract with CP to run a commuter car if they were willing to pay.

Perhaps, but do you believe this is actually feasible? In the eyes of either party, it would look only disadvantageous - CP, because they are CP and don't want anything else on their rails, and the private because they don't have full control over scheduling and access.

Is this not part of the reason why VIA has such reliability issues in the east - they don't own the track and are often forced onto side outs or to schedule disruptions to give way to freight? A consequence of the rail network not being publicly owned and therefore no vertical separation...

Additionally, I'm always a bit perplexed as to why it's believed that rail should be fully privately funded/undertaken, when this rarely exists among any other mode of transportation.

I'm curious as to your thoughts on this.

[MalcolmTucker]

The company would have to pay access fees commensurate with the lost revenue from freight, yes.

[RyLucky]

For anyone interested, here is some nostalgia:
Jan 2004 SELRT Functional Planning Study
Oct 2004 (just for fun) the HSR Pre-feasibility study
Dec 2005 CTrain Strategy
Feb 2006 Downtown LRT Feasibility
April 2006 "The First 25 Years"
May 2006 WLRT Alignment Update

There were a few others I could find at the moment, but I'll edit later if they turn up.

[CalgaryAlex]

Originally Posted by RyLucky

Oct 2004 (just for fun) the HSR Pre-feasibility study

Bah.

Let's just wait for a hyperloop

[ClaytonA]

Originally Posted by Wooster

Most of the significant ones in RouteAhead are funded and are going ahead.

[Edit: Yes Calgary's doing a great job on the 30-year RouteAhead plan with the first 10-year phase of projects.]




17 Ave SE transitway partially funded [wonder which part/how much?] plan: https://www.calgarytransit.com/sites/default/files/reports/17-av-se-study-executive-summary.pdf

West Campus has been pushed back.

8 Ave Subway pushed back since SELRT expected per studies to mitigate South crowding IIRC. This won't happen; just at the margin, and South LRT users won't notice any difference in crowding. Four car trains and traction upgrades will probably indicate that capacity constraints are currently holding back ridership, and four-car-trains can't happen soon enough.
[edit mis-remembered; RYLucky's links in the other thread outline that the SELRT was moved to it's own alignment 10 Ave from 7 Ave so additional capacity on 7 Ave was not required until 1.5mm population]

52 St SE BRT unfunded

Shaganappi HOV lanes are unfunded per media in January.

Airport Trail BRT will replace the line downtown to one between each of the LRT lines and the airport once Green Line is complete? (15,000+ employees is a lot of potential transit users)

305 SW BRT unfunded

South and NE LRT extensions unfunded


Edit: Rylucky's link: https://www.calgarytransit.com/about-us/facts-and-figures/reports-and-surveys https://www.calgarytransit.com/about-us/facts-and-figures/reports-and-surveys

[ClaytonA]

For a 30 year plan, that Green Line announcement assuming the rest of the funding comes through was a big ahead-of-schedule boost. Calgary's doing pretty good.

Is the land use matching the transit investments? How is the city tracking for development at the edges versus on its existing footprint? How are the station area plans going for the SELRT? Is zoning along 16th Ave N, 17 Ave SE, and the South-Crosstown route being changed for more density and mixed uses? Not all those new inner ring houses add density; some are just million dollar+ mansions that will be even harder to re-zone to greater density in the short and medium term.

Are the BRT's going to have different livery, larger covered stations with electronic next bus signs, and queue-jumper lanes with signal priority (i.e. significant infrastructure)? The angst over cycle tracks taking space and cost $x could indicate appreciable push-back from the SOV drivers. Calgary's also been getting massive road investment.

As part of investment, the city could have density/use targets correlated to triple-bottom-line - a little more granularity on reaching the MDP and ImagineCalgary. Politically challenging for investments, but communities should not have the option of taking/not taking new density and mixed use, just how to shape it. For example fewer, taller buildings as a node or a lower FAR spread out. There's plenty of areas further from skeletal transit for the Mcmansions.

Calgary should institute a gas tax to help pay for these and the road (i.e. transportation) investments. There hasn't been anyone complaining about the provincial PC government raising gas taxes this spring.

[ClaytonA]

Also with the cycling investments and the planned walkability investments Calgary is really doing positive things. Hopefully low commodity prices don't de-rail the direction its going.

[mersar]

Originally Posted by fusili

Did someone mention awhile ago that there is a stub tunnel off the West LRT line just west of Westbrook station (around 37th street IIRC) that could be used to branch out for a MRU line?

No, no stub. What there supposedly is is an easy to remove wall that was designed so that a stub line could be built in the future. Probably not much different than many multi-phased towers do in their parkades to allow connecting the parkades together in later phases.

[Socguy]

Originally Posted by ClaytonA

...
305 SW BRT unfunded...

This is disappointing

[ClaytonA]

Compare this to Toronto where they've made plans, ripped them up, and started over.
What about Vancouver - well unless things change it looks like it'll be another 3-4 years and interim cutbacks before any further transit investments.

[DizzyEdge]

Can someone explain why the 301 and 302 haven't been turned into a single route? I know the frequency of the 301 needs to be higher than the 302, but the SB leg could just short turn just past downtown.

[Wooster]

Originally Posted by ClaytonA

17 Ave SE transitway partially funded

West Campus has been pushed back.

8 Ave Subway pushed back since SELRT expected per studies to mitigate South crowding IIRC. This won't happen; just at the margin and South LRT users won't notice any difference. Four car trains and traction upgrades will probably indicate that capacity constraints are currently holding back ridership, and they can't happen soon enough.

52 St SE BRT unfunded

Shaganappi HOV lanes are unfunded per media in January.

Airport Trail BRT will replace the line downtown to one between each of the LRT lines and the airport once Green Line is complete? (15,000+ employees is a lot of potential transit users)

305 SW BRT unfunded

South and NE LRT extensions unfunded

RouteAhead is a 30 year plan. To clarify I was talking about the first 10 yr Transitway/BRT projects.

[sim]

Originally Posted by DizzyEdge

Can someone explain why the 301 and 302 haven't been turned into a single route? I know the frequency of the 301 needs to be higher than the 302, but the SB leg could just short turn just past downtown.

Well when not short turning, a longer line would be more prone to delay propagation and it can make run-cutting - assigning an operator to the vehicle, a bit harder/ more inflexible.

I'm not sure that short turning is something we'd want to do to our already mis-aptly named BRT system. Not that it can't be done for supposed high-quality services, but we've posed our version of BRT with enough challenges as far as distinguishing it from a regular bus route - and operating it as such.

[DizzyEdge]

My thoughts are just that all of these issues will apply to the LRT line which replaces it

[Bassic Lab]

Originally Posted by DizzyEdge

My thoughts are just that all of these issues will apply to the LRT line which replaces it

They won't matter nearly as much with trains. The big expense is labour. It is justifiable to run a train a quarter full but not to run three 60' busses when a community shuttle could handle the load.

A whole lot of short turning downtown would solve that problem but we wouldn't really have a bus line anymore. We'd have the same 301 we have now and a 302 extended to the north. I think labelling both routes with the same number would just add confusion.

If we did extend the 302 to the north, while trimming the number 0f 301s in operation by a corresponding amount, it would make scheduling more difficult but it could make sense. It could help build some NC-SE ridership in anticipation of the LRT. It would also allow the the 301 to be extended south to Chinook (say a loop of 58th Ave, 5 St, and Glenmore back to Elbow) to relieve the most congested portion of the 3 in the south.