Calgary Public Transit II

[DarkKeyo]

Originally Posted by Full Mountain

From what I've seen from the plans at an open house a couple of years ago it will take a fair bit if work to get sunnyside to 4 cars, there were a couple of options on the table at that point,

1. extend the station north, taking out the Commercial building on the west side of the tracks and condos behind it

2. extend it south taking the warehouse (CBE's I believe) out and rerouting 9a Street

The issue that they were facing was the curve of the rail in that location as the station has curves on both the south and north sides as well as grade issues with the climb up the hill to SAIT, as well as the switch that must fit between 2nd Ave and the station crossing

Simply extending the platform to the south wouldn't leave enough room for a proper ramp and crossing before the warehouse on the east side of the tracks and would then place the crossing south of 3rd ave and would cause issues with traffic on 9a Street (ie making anything other than pedestrian traffic impossible, an issue for the transit routes that use it)

With the SAIT station I believe there is some plan on the part of SAIT to rebuild that station when they renovate the Campus center and the ACAD building (when ACAD moves out)

The buildings aren't in the way at all. They're set back from the station. Also, the line is pretty straight at that whole section. Certainly straighter than the curve Dalhousie station is on. It won't interfere with 9A St either, because the station isn't being made winder, just longer.

The road and crossing is right at the north side, so it will have to be extended south. To the south, there is quite a distance between the end of the platform and the crossing. About half of that is ramp. Simply move the ramp south, onto what is currently sidewalk, and extend the platform where the ramp is now. Looking at Google Maps satellite view, the south crossing might need to be moved south a bit, but it looks like there's a bit of room for that too.

I've seen that plan to renovate the SAIT Campus Centre and station too, but with the Trades and Technologies centre under construction, I doubt either that or ACAD moving will happen before 2014.

[mersar]

Originally Posted by TallDrinkofWater

when are those gateway stations going to be completed by city hall? have they begun building them yet?

also what will be the most eastern stations that are open in january on the 7th ave ctrain line downtown?

much appreciated - I'll be needing this for work.

Next summer at the earliest for the new City Hall station to be complete. They've done demolition but I don't think they've started construction yet (but I haven't been by there in a while). So in January the most easterly station heading to the S or NE will be Centre Street, and most easterly coming into downtown from the S or NE will be Olympic Plaza

[freeweed]

Originally Posted by fusili

Me too. I am 6'4" and fitting on the train sucks. Airplanes are the worst, well after South American transit vans. Longitudinal seating is a blessing for me. Then I don't have to have awkward situations where my knees have to be placed between people's legs because there is not enough room, or squished up against the back of a seat.

Consider this the revenge of us normal sized guys who you tall bastards have made fun of our entire lives. I swear, transportation designers must all be about 5'7" or so, because I NEVER feel cramped in airplanes, trains, cars, etc.

On the new voice: WHY COULDN'T THEY HIRE A CALGARIAN INSTEAD OF SOME FANCY-PANTS FOREIGNER??? Seriously though, I kinda love the current voice and will be sad to see (hear) her go.

On the new cars: A/C is freaking awesome, even if we only get a few months where it's needed. The side seating was inevitable considering how long the City has dragged its feet on the 4-car expansions. Ah well, I'll always live at a terminal station anyway so getting a seat will never be a problem for me. But the attractiveness of transit is going to go down quite a bit in the average person's eyes. Standing on a moving vehicle for 25 minutes first thing in the morning isn't fun.

On the C-train in general: Wow. Just got back from yet another sojourn to a large US city (this time Seattle) and once again, realize just how much further ahead we are. They're talking 2023 before they have a system that in my opinion compares to what Calgary has right now. Shit, by then we will have 1 more line, probably 2, and maybe even 3! And they're 3-4x the size of Calgary. At least their residents are voting heavily in favour of transit recently. Calgarians still have to be dragged kicking and screaming onto the train far too often, and with a guy like McIver likely to be our next mayor, it's going to be hard to get new transit projects moving forward.

[DizzyEdge]

Originally Posted by freeweed

On the new voice: WHY COULDN'T THEY HIRE A CALGARIAN INSTEAD OF SOME FANCY-PANTS FOREIGNER??? Seriously though, I kinda love the current voice and will be sad to see (hear) her go.

haha as soon as I read the "American" I thought it was going to be a Rick Bell style xenophobic rant, glad to see it wasn't.

But the attractiveness of transit is going to go down quite a bit in the average person's eyes. Standing on a moving vehicle for 25 minutes first thing in the morning isn't fun.

Yep, if a 3 car train shows up and 2 of them have just side seating and one is one of the older cars, I know which one I'd be running to.

Calgarians still have to be dragged kicking and screaming onto the train far too often, and with a guy like McIver likely to be our next mayor, it's going to be hard to get new transit projects moving forward.

I think Ric will actually be somewhat LRT-friendly (perhaps transportation friendly in general), hard to say about much else though.

[srperrycgy]

From last Sunday.

Former City Hall platform:



Empty Space where the 3rd Street East platform was:



Images mine.

Speaking of Rick Bell, I was listening to QR the other day and he was being interviewed. He sounded reasonably intelligent. Too bad he has to dumb it down for his "readers".

[Full Mountain]

Originally Posted by DarkKeyo

The buildings aren't in the way at all. They're set back from the station. Also, the line is pretty straight at that whole section. Certainly straighter than the curve Dalhousie station is on. It won't interfere with 9A St either, because the station isn't being made winder, just longer.

The road and crossing is right at the north side, so it will have to be extended south. To the south, there is quite a distance between the end of the platform and the crossing. About half of that is ramp. Simply move the ramp south, onto what is currently sidewalk, and extend the platform where the ramp is now. Looking at Google Maps satellite view, the south crossing might need to be moved south a bit, but it looks like there's a bit of room for that too.

I've seen that plan to renovate the SAIT Campus Centre and station too, but with the Trades and Technologies centre under construction, I doubt either that or ACAD moving will happen before 2014.

I honestly don't think that you can fit another car length, the wheelchair ramp and a crossing before you get across 3 ave, which will then remove the roadway at least partially (because of the width of the platform) on 9A street causing significant issues with bus routing around the station area, keep in mind there are also switches to the south of the station that will need to be maintained (I'm not sure of the minimum space between a switch and a crossing or if there is one)

Re: SAIT I would be surprised as well as they just put a new roof on the station this past spring

[MasterG]

Originally Posted by DizzyEdge

Yep, if a 3 car train shows up and 2 of them have just side seating and one is one of the older cars, I know which one I'd be running to.

But isnt the number of seats dropped from 60 to 56 or something? its only a drop of a few seats per car. A drop that small won't be noticible, you probably would be standing in the current car configuration.

At least now there would be more room so you dont have to stand right under some guy's armpit whos holding onto the top handrail

[DizzyEdge]

Originally Posted by MasterG

But isnt the number of seats dropped from 60 to 56 or something? its only a drop of a few seats per car. A drop that small won't be noticible, you probably would be standing in the current car configuration.

At least now there would be more room so you dont have to stand right under some guy's armpit whos holding onto the top handrail

Ah ok, I thought it would be a much larger drop, you're right that small a drop isn't very noticeable.

[mersar]

Originally Posted by DizzyEdge

Ah ok, I thought it would be a much larger drop, you're right that small a drop isn't very noticeable.

Yeah, the drop is only about 8 seats at the most, and considering under 1/3 of the 'practical' capacity is actually seated currently it won't be too much of a difference. Doing some rough comparisons between the two, based on the Calgary Herald video there look to be 10 or 11 seats along each side where the seats have been changed, compared to 12 currently. The seats are more similar in style to whats on the most recent buses where its a bit more defined as to each seat rather then just the bench with one uniform covering

[freeweed]

Wow, if it's only a handful of seats then I'm all for this design. I guess I just assumed (like most people) that seating would be cut nearly in half.

[outoftheice]

Originally Posted by freeweed

Calgarians still have to be dragged kicking and screaming onto the train far too often, and with a guy like McIver likely to be our next mayor, it's going to be hard to get new transit projects moving forward.

I agree that it's been a bit of a struggle to get Calgarians to buy into mass transit lately. I'm not too sure why the sudden shift has happened. However as far as McIver goes, I think he might be the best candidate to move transit forward in Calgary (although I must say, I don't really like much else about his platform). As somebody who's represented SE Calgary for so long, he wants the SE LRT in the same way that Bronco wanted the West LRT. McIver pushed to have detailed plans for the SE LRT finalized so that if the funding became available, they would be able to proceed with immediate construction. He also has stated that he's not opposed to looking at public/private partnerships to accelerate construction of the SE LRT and that he sees this leg as a much bigger priority than the 8th Ave Subway. My guess is that McIver is elected the next mayor, we'll see construction starting on the SE LRT before the end of his first term (and just shortly after construction wraps up on the West LRT).... I don't think the same can be said for any of the other candidates.

[Rusty van Reddick]

Originally Posted by outoftheice

I agree that it's been a bit of a struggle to get Calgarians to buy into mass transit lately.

Why are you saying this? Calgarians "buy into" transit at a rate that beats every city in North America except for NYC, Montreal, Toronto, Ottawa and Vancouver.

[outoftheice]

You're right, Calgarians have embraced public transit and in a big way. I was refering to my perception that people seem to have lost their appetite for funding large scale transit projects... and even that might not be true. It's just an impression I've gotten reading through some of the recent news articles and the comments sections that follow them... lots of pro-roads, pro-suburbia type talk seems to be coming out in this campaign. I have yet to see a single candidate come out with a strong "here's my platform on transit and we're going to invest heavily in it" position, which makes me think that the candidates feel that a strong pro-transit policy isn't something that's going to help them win this election. To me, this is in stark contrast to when Bronco was first elected and the election essentially centred on transportation and people were screaming for LRT extensions and better transit.... perhaps just a sign at how successful Bronco was at expanding Calgary's transit network during his time as mayor?

[MalcolmTucker]

Well, all things considered we are investing heavily in transit. Better to take a medium paced measured approach so we don't get funding fatigue. Trying to find money to do SE LRT and 8th Ave tunnel in this decade or even by 2025 is pushing it, all things considered.

And that still leaves out the NCLRT, any commuter rail, and the ten minute network from Plan-It.

[fusili]

Originally Posted by Rusty van Reddick

Why are you saying this? Calgarians "buy into" transit at a rate that beats every city in North America except for NYC, Montreal, Toronto, Ottawa and Vancouver.

Agreed. Calgarians are massively pro-transit spending. If you campaign against transit spending in this city, you are going to have a terrible uphill battle to fight. Ever since the LRT began in this city, Calgarians have been very supportive of transit expansion. I have no idea where the notion that Calgarians are anti-transit came from. Yeah, some people write letters into the paper and comment online, but anytime there is an actual poll of Calgarians, a massive majority (usually in the high 80s), come out in strong support of more transit spending.

[outoftheice]

Originally Posted by Sir.Humphrey.Appleby

Well, all things considered we are investing heavily in transit. Better to take a medium paced measured approach so we don't get funding fatigue. Trying to find money to do SE LRT and 8th Ave tunnel in this decade or even by 2025 is pushing it, all things considered.

And that still leaves out the NCLRT, any commuter rail, and the ten minute network from Plan-It.

Just curious if your meaning was that you would advocate building one but not the other before 2025 or hold off on building both to avoid funding fatigue. If it is one, but not the other, which one do you consider the priority and why?

[MalcolmTucker]

Originally Posted by outoftheice

Just curious if your meaning was that you would advocate building one but not the other before 2025 or hold off on building both to avoid funding fatigue. If it is one, but not the other, which one do you consider the priority and why?

It all depends - how much extra capacity will the better station positions on 7th and 4 car trains actually buy?

If you go from the sheer economics side, once the south line reaches capacity the cost to add a marginal rider goes to maybe $1000 million ($500 for the tunnel, $250 for a new car house, $250 for LRVs) whereas the SE line goes to $1200 to Glenmore, $2200 to south hospital.

From that perspective I would go for the tunnel first.

From a political perspective I would do SE line first, since it would keep the problems on the south line to keep major pressures to keep spending. If you build the tunnel first, you could then find yourself in a situation where politics could freeze capital improvements as more SE people are bused to the south line, and the big stations designed for 5 car trains and 15,000 people movements per hour seem deserted and white elephant like.

When people talk about starting SE and tunnel soon, I think it is easy to forget it is real money and that it would be ~$3 billion after a huge investment in the period from 2000 - 2012.

[freeweed]

Originally Posted by Rusty van Reddick

Why are you saying this? Calgarians "buy into" transit at a rate that beats every city in North America except for NYC, Montreal, Toronto, Ottawa and Vancouver.

While the optimist side of me sees things this way, my internal pessimist does have to wonder how many people would ride the C-Train if downtown parking was $8/day instead of 3x that amount.

[fusili]

Originally Posted by freeweed

While the optimist side of me sees things this way, my internal pessimist does have to wonder how many people would ride the C-Train if downtown parking was $8/day instead of 3x that amount.

Moot point. Parking is expensive and will be for a long time. There isn't any space to build new surface parking lots downtown (and they are not permitted anyways) and the price of underground parking construction will keep prices high regardless of supply.

I know there is a lot being said about the City artificially inflating parking costs through restricting the amount that developers can build in the downtown (which is happening of course), but a huge reason why parking is expensive downtown is the sheer density of offices in Calgary's downtown. That is what people like Connelly fail to realize (not saying you don't), bringing down parking prices in the downtown is fighting against reality.

[alexle]

The summer service revisions have now been posted: http://www.calgarytransit.com/html/summer_service_revisions_2010.html

Obviously the major revisions is the Inner City bus service, which is more of removing and/or combining duplicate bus routes. This is provided more in detail here: http://www.calgarytransit.com/html/inner_city.html