Calgary Public Transit II

[suburbia]

Originally Posted by Radley77

I think there should be more discussion on bike-transit integration, though am not sure the best way to achieve that.

There are some options including:
- cycling routes for interested, but concerned demographic connecting to and from all LRT\BRT stations
- secure cycling parking facilities at LRT\BRT stations accessible via CONNECT card & with CCTV surveillance (particularly at stations like Brentwood which are high ridership and close to university)
- bike racks at LRT\BRT stations (5% of station daily ridership); "Bike & Ride"
- bike hangers on LRT vehichles (4-8 per car for use during offpeak hours)
- extend hours bikes can be brought on LRT lines in contraflow direction
- awareness campaign of folding bikes on LRT and buses timed early in Spring
- change signage on LRT overpasses from "cyclists must dismount" to "cyclists yield to pedestrians"
- bike racks on front of buses (perhaps only appropriate near MRU)

As for bike racks on buses, most american cities (with the exception of New York) have bike racks on all buses. Calgary is really sucking right now for cycling facilities near major activity centres and this I think is till a bigger barrier than bike racks.

I think the focus should be surrounding more bike\LRT\BRT integration which includes improved cycling routes to LRT\BRT stations. Then at the stations one can deal with the problems of security and theft by having secure parking facilities as well as bike racks.

There is value in bike\transit integration as also building upon transit orientated development, less parking requirement compared to autos, reduced feeder bus stop frequency near LRT\BRT stations and optionality for active mode lifestyle.

Some of the above items don't have much capital $'s cost associated with it, but all of them require some technical manpower.

Perhaps an equitable fee for service should be charged. Someone mentioned $200K was used to convert one route and twenty bikes use it. That's too much premium for the extra service. It is similar to suburb houses costing extra to service and work being undertaken to make things more fair. If we're going to spend extra to make this happen, the beneficiaries need to take an extra burden. Similar to the view that users of the thousands of off-leash acres of prime land should have a see for use applied.

I know the above is going to be controvercial - that is the intent. Debate is good.

[DizzyEdge]

My thought would be that a) sometimes the service needs to exist to grow a demand and b) even so sometimes the demand just won't be there. Maybe spend the $200k on a pilot route, and if you do all the right things and the usage doesn't justify, move the buses onto the next pilot route? That said i'm not convinced on the bike rack need anyway.

How bout this: keep the ability to load your bike on the c-train, and add racks to the BRT routes. Chances are any of those will get close enough to your destination for you to just bike the rest of the way without needing to use a feeder bus. As I think others have mentioned, i'd rather the cash go to enhancing bike infrastructure like lanes and storage/places to lock up.

[suburbia]

Originally Posted by DizzyEdge

How bout this: keep the ability to load your bike on the c-train, and add racks to the BRT routes. Chances are any of those will get close enough to your destination for you to just bike the rest of the way without needing to use a feeder bus. As I think others have mentioned, i'd rather the cash go to enhancing bike infrastructure like lanes and storage/places to lock up.

That's a reasonable plan. Agreed that a bike should be able to act as a feeder route. Speaking of which, are there bike racks at most LRT / BRT stops / or terminus stations at a minimum? That could help, no?

[DizzyEdge]

Originally Posted by suburbia

That's a reasonable plan. Agreed that a bike should be able to act as a feeder route. Speaking of which, are there bike racks at most LRT / BRT stops / or terminus stations at a minimum? That could help, no?

Exactly. And I'm not sure about the rest. Put good racks at LRT stations and BRT stops, and then people can use their bikes as a) a feeder route to the 'station' where they leave it or b) a feeder route to the 'station' where they then bring the bike with them and use it as a feeder route from their last top to their final destination.

I await the cheque from CT.

[Radley77]

Originally Posted by DizzyEdge

Exactly. And I'm not sure about the rest. Put good racks at LRT stations and BRT stops, and then people can use their bikes as a) a feeder route to the 'station' where they leave it or b) a feeder route to the 'station' where they then bring the bike with them and use it as a feeder route from their last top to their final destination.

I await the cheque from CT.

For medium to short trips, bikes can be a bit of a substitute for using buses. Especially if a bus route has a low stop frequency and want to travel to an LRT with a high frequency of stops, it may make more sense to travel directly to the high frequency LRT station instead.

Also, some park and ride stations are brimming at full auto capacity, so providing cycling infrastructure could alleviate that parking bottleneck.

It'd be amazing if one could use the CONNECT card similar to the video shown below as away to access bike parking like BART:

• Video Link

The current process to even get secure bike storage in Calgary is very cumbersome, application form and ID are required, and one must visit the Calgary Transit Customer Service Centre between the hours of 10 AM and 5:30 PM, and have a security deposit.

[fusili]

Originally Posted by Radley77

The current process to even get secure bike storage in Calgary is very cumbersome, application form and ID are required, and one must visit the Calgary Transit Customer Service Centre between the hours of 10 AM and 5:30 PM, and have a security deposit.

So pretty much as inconvenient as possible. Wonder why uptake isn't so great.

[93JC]

Originally Posted by Policy Wonk

Didn't most if not all of U of C's bikes get stolen and hanged from trees?

Just stolen.

They were all junk anyway. Any old broken-down heap they found on campus had all its parts stripped and replaced with rickety wheels and a single-speed geartrain.

They all disappeared within a semester.

[frinkprof]

Doors Open

Calgary Transit will be giving open house tours of two of their transit facilities (Oliver Bowen LRV Maintenance Facility and the Victoria Park Transit Centre) during the last weekend of September.

http://www.calgarytransit.com/html/doors_open.htm

[SubwayRev]

As was mentioned earlier, I think it's impossible to say a program was successful or a failure, when bike racks are put on only one route.

Just as if Calgary didn't have any buses, then decided that they would do a test with what is now route 20. Without any connections, nobody is going to take it, and it would likely be deemed a failure.

I think for bike racks to be successful, they would need to go all in.

[Policy Wonk]

Originally Posted by 93JC

Just stolen.

They were all junk anyway. Any old broken-down heap they found on campus had all its parts stripped and replaced with rickety wheels and a single-speed geartrain.

They all disappeared within a semester.

A friend of mine just off 24th Ave still has one of those bikes stuck in her tree.

[sim]

Originally Posted by SubwayRev

As was mentioned earlier, I think it's impossible to say a program was successful or a failure, when bike racks are put on only one route.

Just as if Calgary didn't have any buses, then decided that they would do a test with what is now route 20. Without any connections, nobody is going to take it, and it would likely be deemed a failure.

I think for bike racks to be successful, they would need to go all in.

To be conclusive this is true, but I think it to be a pretty expensive experiment to prove wrong when there is no reason to expect otherwise [that it isn't wrong.] It is hard to conceptualize a trip demand that would benefit from having a bus bike rack on a bus route outside of the user's usual. A bike and concimitantly the rack it sits on on a bus, would predominantly be meant to cover the proverbial "first" and/or "last" mile. In essence, it provides a "connection" so to speak that isn't currently existing in the pt network, and extends that last little bit from what would be an acceptable walking range of 400 - 600 m, to perhaps 2 or more kilometers.

Therefore, it is hard to conceive of many trips that require a bus connection along the way where a bicycle rider would then transfer (with the bicycle), continue a considerable portion of the journey on that route to then have to get off to still neccesitate a final bike ride (over walking) that couldn't be made quicker by way of another single route - cycle combination (given that the pt system isn't complete crap) that would be faster. Perhaps large trips from one corner of the city to the other, but that then means that going through the center by way of a mass transit mode (the C-train) is faster anyway. I'm sure this trip type does exist, but it would be rather uncommon.

Another might be a recreational bicycle trip that aims to end spontaneously (or does so unexpectedly - as previously stated) on the basis that a mechanical mode (PT) can do the return journey. Without a bike rack, this is indeed not doable, but since most would be during off peak hours, it might be more feasible to employee a policy of allowing them right on the bus.

Essentially, the demand on one route should largely correspond to an aggregate demand, as there is little benefit to a user on that specific route of having racks on other routes as well.

This goes along with what I (poorly) stated earlier that compared to a bike share, a lot more resources would need to be input in order to provide a benefit to the same amount of people.

[MalcolmTucker]

Depends what one counts as 'a lot more resources'. I doubt it would be subtaintially more expensive than the other convenience features added over the past couple years as part of stimulus - A/C on all SD-160s, change in ticket machines, card payment, next train timers within stations.

[fusili]

Transit and the "War on Cars":

http://transitcamp.ca/2012/09/06/transit-and-the-war-on-cars/



Always like to hear your thoughts.

[sim]

Originally Posted by MalcolmTucker

Depends what one counts as 'a lot more resources'. I doubt it would be subtaintially more expensive than the other convenience features added over the past couple years as part of stimulus - A/C on all SD-160s, change in ticket machines, card payment, next train timers within stations.

I was talking about buses. By a lot more resources, I mean between bike racks on buses and bike shares, as I had mentioned in my previous post.

[TransitSupporter]

Was on the 201 today WB on 7th Ave arriving at the 7th (8th?) St Stn. This is where the announcement comes on saying "You're leaving the free fare zone ... blah blah blah". Normally I wouldn't pay much attention except she caught me by surprise by saying "... if you are travelling west, please change here for a 69th St train" ... Oops

[Radley77]

The Copenhagen average cycling speed is 16 kmphr. Normal bus routes in Calgary are 22 kmphr (+6 kmphr) compared to LRT at 35 kmphr (+19 kmphr). I think the larger differential speeds of LRT compared to bike coupled with much more frequent service intervals means that there is more value in integrating bikes with light rail versus bikes with buses.

Bikes could be accommodated as part of transit by having routes to all LRT stations, open bike racks, and easy to access secure racks, and 4 bike hangers per LRT vehichle for use during off peak periods (see below for photo of bike hanger on light rail).

[DizzyEdge]

good info on the average speeds. I'd still want to look at bike racks on BRT buses, just so that the mentality (and possibly infrastructure) of using bikes on that route pre-exists once the route turns over to LRT.

[MalcolmTucker]

Originally Posted by Radley77

The Copenhagen average cycling speed is 16 kmphr. Normal bus routes in Calgary are 22 kmphr (+6 kmphr) compared to LRT at 35 kmphr (+19 kmphr). I think the larger differential speeds of LRT compared to bike coupled with much more frequent service intervals means that there is more value in integrating bikes with light rail versus bikes with buses.

Bikes could be accommodated as part of transit by having routes to all LRT stations, open bike racks, and easy to access secure racks, and 4 bike hangers per LRT vehichle for use during off peak periods (see below for photo of bike hanger on light rail).

If Calgary's system operated under capacity like many systems do that provide substaintial on train bike amentities (Portland comes to mind) it would be awesome to remove some benches and add some bike mounts. I'm not sure you get much benefit having hangers for just off peak - there is enough room to just bring bikes on already off peak.

[DarkKeyo]

Originally Posted by TransitSupporter

Was on the 201 today WB on 7th Ave arriving at the 7th (8th?) St Stn. This is where the announcement comes on saying "You're leaving the free fare zone ... blah blah blah". Normally I wouldn't pay much attention except she caught me by surprise by saying "... if you are travelling west, please change here for a 69th St train" ... Oops

They've been doing that fairly consistently for about a week. Testing, maybe, but it must be confusing to some people. To add to the confusion, the old maps on the trains haven't been updated to include Saddletowne, even though several have 'closed' stickers on 10 St W, two weeks early.

[Radley77]

Originally Posted by MalcolmTucker

If Calgary's system operated under capacity like many systems do that provide substaintial on train bike amentities (Portland comes to mind) it would be awesome to remove some benches and add some bike mounts. I'm not sure you get much benefit having hangers for just off peak - there is enough room to just bring bikes on already off peak.

The biggest issue I have had is that the bike only fits diagonally directly in front of the door and bars off about 50% access to the doors. This requires that the bike be changed orientation depending on which door is opening (i.e.: [C\ ] or [ /C]) and it becomes a barrier, both for cyclists and other transit users.

I haven't taken the bike on the new LRT design, but have found this to be a barrier on the old LRT style cars...