Calgary Public Transit II

[suburbia]

Don't know which thread is best for this story, but it certainly is an important consideration to public transit. Of 26 major cities in North America, Calgary has the 16th worst traffic delays. Way better than Vancouver, Montreal and Toronto, but also better than Ottawa. Of the large Canadian cities, only Edmonton was better than us.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/nati...s1&utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

[lineman]

Originally Posted by suburbia

How many kilometers of track is the proposed SE-LRT?

27km, I think. For reference, WLRT is 8km.

[mellbell416]

You know, I am all for a SE LRT - the problem is how you get the lever to extract money from the government. If you can't prove that the ridership will be high enough to justify the $2.7B cost, it is just going to be marooned forever behind other projects that can demonstrate that benefit.

[Highroller]

Originally Posted by Koolfire

It may make sense even today to move 109,116 and 142 over to Edmonton Trail. I would be curious to see if there would improvements in speed if the routes were Harvest Hills -> Beddington Trail -> Beddington Blvd -> 4th St NE/Edmonton Trail. There's significantly less traffic on this route due to the vehicle trap on 4th north of Mcknight but it's 2 km longer route (about 22% longer).

Other options would be moving 2 and 17 onto Edmonton Trail and routing 62 and 64 onto 14th either all the way downtown or onto 10th at Northmount.

With the upcoming Center Street bus priority lanes, I am looking forward to a 5-15 minute time savings during the pm rush (#301). Other than the downtown gridlock, it should be relatively smooth sailing. Now, we need to double up the #301 in the early morning as it is already standing room only at North Pointe.

[suburbia]

Originally Posted by Highroller

With the upcoming Center Street bus priority lanes, I am looking forward to a 5-15 minute time savings during the pm rush (#301). Other than the downtown gridlock, it should be relatively smooth sailing. Now, we need to double up the #301 in the early morning as it is already standing room only at North Pointe.

Perhaps the priority lane will allow more #301 buses. Is amazing that with double length buses every five minutes they are still standing room only right from the first stop! One thing is clear. The NC constituency is all about public transit. A NC-LRT won't just be a trophy piece

[Highroller]

Originally Posted by suburbia

Perhaps the priority lane will allow more #301 buses. Is amazing that with double length buses every five minutes they are still standing room only right from the first stop! One thing is clear. The NC constituency is all about public transit. A NC-LRT won't just be a trophy piece

Anyone know what happens to the #301 route once West LRT starts? Is it redundant to the West (I only ride north portion)?

[fusili]

Originally Posted by suburbia

Don't know which thread is best for this story, but it certainly is an important consideration to public transit. Of 26 major cities in North America, Calgary has the 16th worst traffic delays. Way better than Vancouver, Montreal and Toronto, but also better than Ottawa. Of the large Canadian cities, only Edmonton was better than us.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/nati...s1&utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

That report is based on some pretty poor methodology. When you measure congestion as a ratio of free flow travel times to peak travel times, you end up distorting the picture, and actually rewarding long commutes. Kind of silly if you ask me.

[suburbia]

Originally Posted by fusili

That report is based on some pretty poor methodology. When you measure congestion as a ratio of free flow travel times to peak travel times, you end up distorting the picture, and actually rewarding long commutes. Kind of silly if you ask me.

As they used the same methodology in a consistent fashion for all cities, the subtleties matter little. It is a relative measure.

That being said, within a city where one does need to be more granular, I agree that the 5 block commutes that take 25 minutes are way worse.

[Rise_of_the_West]

Originally Posted by Highroller

Anyone know what happens to the #301 route once West LRT starts? Is it redundant to the West (I only ride north portion)?

The west portion of the route will no longer exist. I believe it will only serve the north portion of the existing route once the WLRT opens.

[fusili]

Originally Posted by suburbia

As they used the same methodology in a consistent fashion for all cities, the subtleties matter little. It is a relative measure.

That being said, within a city where one does need to be more granular, I agree that the 5 block commutes that take 25 minutes are way worse.

Wanna know the best way to improve that metric? Increase travel distance. The subtleties matter a lot. This is a report that rewards long travel distances at the expense of short ones.

[RyLucky]

Originally Posted by fusili

That report is based on some pretty poor methodology. When you measure congestion as a ratio of free flow travel times to peak travel times, you end up distorting the picture, and actually rewarding long commutes. Kind of silly if you ask me.

What's better, a 25 minute drive that moves you 1 km or a 25 minute drive that moves you 10 km?

Both are a waste of 25 minutes, but at least other modes like walking might be possible for the shorter one.

Although the study is driver-centric, I think the point of the study is valid: congestion is lost productivity. Beyond quality of life issues, there is more to consider. Every second that goods and services are stuck in traffic increases the prices of those goods.

[fusili]

Originally Posted by RyLucky

What's better, a 25 minute drive that moves you 1 km or a 25 minute drive that moves you 10 km?

Both are a waste of 25 minutes, but at least other modes like walking might be possible for the shorter one.

Although the study is driver-centric, I think the point of the study is valid: congestion is lost productivity. Beyond quality of life issues, there is more to consider. Every second that goods and services are stuck in traffic increases the prices of those goods.

Neither, they are equal trips. You are confusing distance with access. This idea that somehow driving farther is better is absurd. You are confusing the means with the ends.

The study is horribly flawed. It assumes that first, the baseline should be conditions of absolutely no traffic, which is ludicrous. Second, it measures congestion as a ratio of free-flow compared to the peak rather than just measuring total travel time.

Read this critique of the methodology to see where I am coming from: Measuring Urban Transportation Performance

[sim]

Originally Posted by fusili

Wanna know the best way to improve that metric? Increase travel distance. The subtleties matter a lot. This is a report that rewards long travel distances at the expense of short ones.

Thank you.

Vancouver should be lauded for this statistic anyway, not berated. But why would a company whose business it is to sell products to car drivers make mention that a policy of wanting congestion might actually be beneficial on a more systematic and long term scale? Well firstly, they probably don't understand that, and secondly, it may eventually hurt their bottom line to admit to it even if they did.

At the risk of merely ripping off the work of someone else to further elucidate this, have a look instead at a book called Transport for Suburbia by Paul Mees - the only major Canadian city where average journey to work times have gone down over the years (across all modes.) We haven't even looked at non-commute trips yet.

So yeah, the subtleties inherent here are actually rather substantive.

[fusili]

Here's an example. Take Detroit and San Francisco. The report we are discussing estimates that Detroit has an average 52 hours of commuting due to "congestion" while San Francisco has 55, so only slightly longer. However, people in Detroit spend and average of 231 hours commuting each year, while people in San Francisco only spend 186. According to the report, since Detroit has longer commutes, the impact of congestion is less, and it scores higher on the congestion metric (1.15 compared to 1.31- larger numbers are worse).

Or take Nashville and New York. Nashville has 37 additional hours due to congestion, compared to 44 in New York. Nashville's ratio is 1.17, one of the best in the country, while New York/Newark has one of the worst at 1.45 (i.e. a commute takes 45% longer due to congestion). But here is the thing, the average commute time in New York is 163 hours per year, and in Nashville it is 284. So somehow, increasing your commute time by 75% makes your performance on congestion better. That makes no sense.

Using the metric in the report, both Nashville and Detroit score very high on what is called the Time Travel Index (TTI), which measures congestion as a ratio between free flow travel times and congestion travel times. But in both, the overall travel times are ridiculously high for a city their size. Both lose similar amounts of time to "traffic" as New York and San Francisco, respectively, but once out of traffic, people in Nashville and Detroit drive much longer to get home. By the metrics used in the report, this somehow means that there is less cost of congestion for Nashville and Detroit, which is simply absurd.

[ByeByeBaby]

Originally Posted by suburbia

As they used the same methodology in a consistent fashion for all cities, the subtleties matter little. It is a relative measure.

I'm looking forward to your support to my new congestion report where I use the number of letters in the name of the city as the measure of traffic congestion. I can apply this in a very consistent fashion as a relative measure. Ottawa comes out #1 for major Canadian cities along with Regina and London; Calgary and Toronto are tied for #2 along with Halifax, while Vancouver and Saskatoon have the worst congestion. Former leader Hull (now Gatineau) has dropped to the middle of the pack.

Bad methodology consistently applied, is still bad methodology.

[suburbia]

Originally Posted by ByeByeBaby

I'm looking forward to your support to my new congestion report where I use the number of letters in the name of the city as the measure of traffic congestion. I can apply this in a very consistent fashion as a relative measure. Ottawa comes out #1 for major Canadian cities along with Regina and London; Calgary and Toronto are tied for #2 along with Halifax, while Vancouver and Saskatoon have the worst congestion. Former leader Hull (now Gatineau) has dropped to the middle of the pack.

Bad methodology consistently applied, is still bad methodology.

Bad touchstone as there is a disjoint between number of letters and anything related to traffic.

Anyway, I think we're off topic discussing methodologies, as we're moving further and further away from the thread topic. The original post regarding this report was admittedly tangential to start with. Most of the subsequent posts are further away from "public transit".

[fusili]

Originally Posted by suburbia

Bad touchstone as there is a disjoint between number of letters and anything related to traffic.

Anyway, I think we're off topic discussing methodologies, as we're moving further and further away from the thread topic. The original post regarding this report was admittedly tangential to start with. Most of the subsequent posts are further away from "public transit".

2nd point about the report, it doesn't account for decreases in "congestion" or travel times due to transit. Say a transit system is used by 25% of the population (approximately what is is in YVR), decreasing their travel time by 50%. However, because some vehicle lanes were removed, 1/3 of the driving population (25% of the total population) has had their travel times increase by 25%. The net benefit is clear. However, this report would say that the city is getting worse, because of the increased costs of congestion.

[suburbia]

Originally Posted by fusili

2nd point about the report, it doesn't account for decreases in "congestion" or travel times due to transit. Say a transit system is used by 25% of the population (approximately what is is in YVR), decreasing their travel time by 50%. However, because some vehicle lanes were removed, 1/3 of the driving population (25% of the total population) has had their travel times increase by 25%. The net benefit is clear. However, this report would say that the city is getting worse, because of the increased costs of congestion.

There is a lot of things the report doesn't go into, but that doesn't make what it does get into wrong. Sure it is a slightly 'narrow' report (by a GPS company using GPS data), but fact of the matter is, rush hours in Vancouver are deadly. People on the one hand can't afford the density of the core, and on the other hand can't easily get back and forth from their homes. There are transit options, so if anything, the congestion report reinforces the need to move to more public transit.

I wonder if one outcome of all the data we now know of is that there is a max size for an efficient city, and beyond that, it is less efficient? In Calgary we're always talking about more and more density, but at what point do you say we've maximized efficiency and maybe a third larger city in Alberta is warranted?

I admit I'm again off topic, but this last point I felt was an interesting and possibly important one, so posted anyway.

[fusili]

Originally Posted by suburbia

There is a lot of things the report doesn't go into, but that doesn't make what it does get into wrong. Sure it is a slightly 'narrow' report (by a GPS company using GPS data), but fact of the matter is, rush hours in Vancouver are deadly. People on the one hand can't afford the density of the core, and on the other hand can't easily get back and forth from their homes. There are transit options, so if anything, the congestion report reinforces the need to move to more public transit.

I wonder if one outcome of all the data we now know of is that there is a max size for an efficient city, and beyond that, it is less efficient? In Calgary we're always talking about more and more density, but at what point do you say we've maximized efficiency and maybe a third larger city in Alberta is warranted?

I admit I'm again off topic, but this last point I felt was an interesting and possibly important one, so posted anyway.

What it goes into is completely wrong. I am not arguing that we shouldn't address "congestion" and commute times. What I am saying is that the report rewards poor behavior and punishes good behavior. If a city were to add density, thus reducing average commute times overall, it would be reported as "worse congestion" despite the fact that adding people on the outskirts will have the same or worse effect on traffic. Simply because the new residents would be driving longer (because they live on the outskirts), the "congestion" score would go up.

The report is useless because is is perverse. When you decrease travel times, your congestion metric goes up. How does that make any sense?

[suburbia]

Originally Posted by fusili

If a city were to add density, thus reducing average commute times overall, it would be reported as "worse congestion" despite the fact that adding people on the outskirts will have the same or worse effect on traffic. Simply because the new residents would be driving longer (because they live on the outskirts), the "congestion" score would go up.

The report should be read for what it is. It shares data and shares how the data was collected. It is not sharing anything that is "wrong". People are simply getting defensive and responding to what others may conclude. No need to do that - people are smart.

Irrespective, your latter comment about adding even more density resulting in even worse grid-lock is precisely why I recently asked the question, is there a max size for a city to be ultra-efficient, after which it is diminishing returns? What is that size? Would you want to be in a city of 50m people (not that far off for the world)? Within this frame of thinking, absolutely adding more density should be viewed as bad (Kawloon walled city anyone?).

Originally Posted by fusili

The report is useless because is is perverse. When you decrease travel times, your congestion metric goes up. How does that make any sense?

It is not perverse, rather, it is a differential equation. There most certainly is an inflection point after which the negative impact of a further increase of congestion via density is greater than its positive impacts.