Calgary Public Transit II

[DarkKeyo]

I agree with Sir Humphrey (post 1241) and Jeffwhit (post 1247). And good for you, Robert_in_Calgary, for pushing the development of transit

I would also like to know two things, Radley77:

1. Where in Nose Creek do you think there is ANY greenfield whatsover? It is all park, railway, and Deerfoot Trail with no road access. And, I would like to add, even if Centre St doesn't intensify one bit, it has more desnity than Nose Creek would EVER have.

And 2. Why are you even arguing for a train that goes nowhere and will not get any ridership? You know that they chose this WLRT alignment and not one to Mount Royal because of ridership and catchment area, so you know that that is their priority. A Centre St Subway's costs compared to Nose Creek will be justified by amount of ridership it would get in comparison. This is the same reasoning that says that the SELRT MUST go to at least Mckenzie Towne in order for ridership to justify cost. If we take too long in building SELRT, then it will need to go to Seton to justify the cost. We should run the LRT where there are people as much as possible, and not make them travel way out of their way to get to the LRT.

By all means, do a study. All the ones already done have the bias of doing things the cheap, ineffective, way, and therefore the results tend towards penny-pinching and not good planning. A study will only prove that Centre St is better. Since we don't want cheap and ineffective, the McIvers of the world should probably be kept far away from this. Planners only.

Please excuse the bad grammar, I might edit this when it isn't this late.

[Radley77]

Originally Posted by DarkKeyo

I agree with Sir Humphrey (post 1241) and Jeffwhit (post 1247). And good for you, Robert_in_Calgary, for pushing the development of transit

I would also like to know two things, Radley77:

1. Where in Nose Creek do you think there is ANY greenfield whatsover? It is all park, railway, and Deerfoot Trail with no road access. And, I would like to add, even if Centre St doesn't intensify one bit, it has more desnity than Nose Creek would EVER have.

And 2. Why are you even arguing for a train that goes nowhere and will not get any ridership? You know that they chose this WLRT alignment and not one to Mount Royal because of ridership and catchment area, so you know that that is their priority. A Centre St Subway's costs compared to Nose Creek will be justified by amount of ridership it would get in comparison. This is the same reasoning that says that the SELRT MUST go to at least Mckenzie Towne in order for ridership to justify cost. If we take too long in building SELRT, then it will need to go to Seton to justify the cost. We should run the LRT where there are people as much as possible, and not make them travel way out of their way to get to the LRT.

By all means, do a study. All the ones already done have the bias of doing things the cheap, ineffective, way, and therefore the results tend towards penny-pinching and not good planning. A study will only prove that Centre St is better. Since we don't want cheap and ineffective, the McIvers of the world should probably be kept far away from this. Planners only.

Please excuse the bad grammar, I might edit this when it isn't this late.

I am not a McIver fan. It's important that a wide team can wrap their head around this issue, as well as planners. Bottom line, a great plan needs to have great business sense and needs to account for costs as well as value. Think of is as focusing on low hanging fruit first.

As for question 1: Look at a map, couple of golf courses available along this route as well as the trailer park on 16 ave. Think of it, as a potential series of West Villages. The development potential for a West Village may be higher than Centre Street which is predominantly surrounded by single family homes. Again, Sunnyside population has dropped over the last decade. The majority of the growth (90ish%) is and continues to be greenfield development on the outskirts of the city. This is a fact. Cannot address urban sprawl without first addressing inner city sprawl, and looking at different transportation solutions.

As for question 2: Well what I'm saying is there needs to be a study. The overall direction of both city administration and reports I have read from transportation engineering cites a broad list of concerns with a Centre Street alignment. These reports haven't attached a cost or value to them, so these figures are required in making an informed decision.

I have pointed out some of the benefits to the Nose Creek route are better design for transit use including developable land and walkable complete communities, opportunity for park'n'ride to extend catchment, reduced operational costs compared to a tunnel, and greatly reduced capital costs compared to a tunnel. On the upside, there is a bigger catchment, but on the downside, the other route would be worse at helping address affordability issues in the city. One needs an economic feasibility study to fully capture the cost and value.

It's pointless to argue about this because we don't have a full economic feasibility study in front of us to compare options. I have wrote to the city administration requesting a report on a feasibility study...

[kw5150]

How about having the nose hill alignment somehow tied with the SELRT? Like a separate node. Then construct and Central LRT loop system that links the centre street area with the mount royal college area..That is where the bulk of the density is.

[Bassic Lab]

Originally Posted by kw5150

How about having the nose hill alignment somehow tied with the SELRT? Like a separate node. Then construct and Central LRT loop system that links the centre street area with the mount royal college area..That is where the bulk of the density is.

Getting the SELRT over to Nose Creek, in it's own ROW, would easily destroy most of the cost savings found in that alignment. If it piggybacked on the NE LRT ROW it would be even worse, restricting capacity on NE, W, SE, and N lines.

I am in favour of an eventual circle line in the city but it really cannot serve the Centre Street corridor. It would have one stop on Centre. Does the South line serve the Glenmore corridor? No, it serves the Macleod corridor.

[sim]

Basically what Fusili said.

Also, I don`t know if I`d look to Bridgeland as being that good of an example for Center St either. The Bridgeland stations sits to one side of the community and has both a physical and psychological barrier that cuts it off somewhat - that being Memorial. That station is what, somewhere between a 5 - 10 min walk from 1st Ave where Bridgeland is most dense.

Imagine instead that a line running underground under 1st Ave. That would be a more accurate comparison of what the a Center St alignment would acheive.

I do agree that eventually that area of the city (along Nose Creek) could be used to house more people but there are so many other areas that need, are more viable and better suited for intensification first. I mean that list is huge. Beltline, Mission, Sunnyside, East Village, West Village, Marda, Victoria Park, Inglewood, Bridgeland, and half of the areas surrounding current Ctrain stations.

I know I for one would want to live in every single one of those places I just mentioned before even thinking about living in that area. We could do a feasability study for sure, and it might full well point to a route up Nose Creek. I`d however put my money on it that we`ll have a couple of stations where about 100 people a day get on and off to then walk their dog or something for the next 50 years. White elephant for sure, and even the ordinary citizen will be left wondering what the city was thinking when they see a station sitting in a field.

My thoughts.

[kw5150]

Originally Posted by kw5150

How about having the nose hill alignment somehow tied with the SELRT? Like a separate node. Then construct and Central LRT loop system that links the centre street area with the mount royal college area..That is where the bulk of the density is.

Originally Posted by Bassic Lab

Getting the SELRT over to Nose Creek, in it's own ROW, would easily destroy most of the cost savings found in that alignment. If it piggybacked on the NE LRT ROW it would be even worse, restricting capacity on NE, W, SE, and N lines.

I am in favour of an eventual circle line in the city but it really cannot serve the Centre Street corridor. It would have one stop on Centre. Does the South line serve the Glenmore corridor? No, it serves the Macleod corridor.

Thank you. Just wondering. There is a situation in Vancouver like that around commercial drive that forms a second main transit node. Commercial drive has evolved quite a bit as a reasult.

[MalcolmTucker]

Originally Posted by Radley77

I am not a McIver fan. It's important that a wide team can wrap their head around this issue, as well as planners. Bottom line, a great plan needs to have great business sense and needs to account for costs as well as value. Think of is as focusing on low hanging fruit first.

As for question 1: Look at a map, couple of golf courses available along this route as well as the trailer park on 16 ave. Think of it, as a potential series of West Villages. The development potential for a West Village may be higher than Centre Street which is predominantly surrounded by single family homes. Again, Sunnyside population has dropped over the last decade. The majority of the growth (90ish%) is and continues to be greenfield development on the outskirts of the city. This is a fact. Cannot address urban sprawl without first addressing inner city sprawl, and looking at different transportation solutions.

As for question 2: Well what I'm saying is there needs to be a study. The overall direction of both city administration and reports I have read from transportation engineering cites a broad list of concerns with a Centre Street alignment. These reports haven't attached a cost or value to them, so these figures are required in making an informed decision.

I have pointed out some of the benefits to the Nose Creek route are better design for transit use including developable land and walkable complete communities, opportunity for park'n'ride to extend catchment, reduced operational costs compared to a tunnel, and greatly reduced capital costs compared to a tunnel. On the upside, there is a bigger catchment, but on the downside, the other route would be worse at helping address affordability issues in the city. One needs an economic feasibility study to fully capture the cost and value.

It's pointless to argue about this because we don't have a full economic feasibility study in front of us to compare options. I have wrote to the city administration requesting a report on a feasibility study...

I'm not sure you'd want to use the East or West Village as examples of great development to follow. East Village has a $200 million+ subsidy, and last I read West Village might crack $500 million in the subsidy department.

As for operational costs - look at the entire picture. Nose Creek you need N-S buses in the Central Corridor, Centre St you don't. In 2006 there were approximately 28,600 boardings in the corridor that weren't express buses from suburbs or cross town buses. Each bus boarding has a subsidy of approximately $2.75, whereas each LRT boarding makes a profit of around $2. (assuming all trips unlinked). You have to have insane costs to make the marginal cost of maintenance be above the $35 million you save every year (calculation uses only weekday numbers assuming 260 weekdays) by replacing all the north south buses with LRT.

Now the savings would likely be less than $35 million in the real world, but every bus rider you convert to a pedestrian (commute only)--> LRT saves Calgary Transit $9.50 a day or $2,470 a year. This is real savings, not some future in theory savings from TOD users. As a business, would you avoid your customers in one area, to more cheaply serve customers in another - ignore a profit Centre? Busing those same customers to Nose Creek to take the LRT does not save this money (a customer touching a bus at all requires a subsidy).

[Radley77]

Originally Posted by Sir.Humphrey.Appleby

I'm not sure you'd want to use the East or West Village as examples of great development to follow. East Village has a $200 million+ subsidy, and last I read West Village might crack $500 million in the subsidy department.

As for operational costs - look at the entire picture. Nose Creek you need N-S buses in the Central Corridor, Centre St you don't. In 2006 there were approximately 28,600 boardings in the corridor that weren't express buses from suburbs or cross town buses. Each bus boarding has a subsidy of approximately $2.75, whereas each LRT boarding makes a profit of around $2. (assuming all trips unlinked). You have to have insane costs to make the marginal cost of maintenance be above the $35 million you save every year (calculation uses only weekday numbers assuming 260 weekdays) by replacing all the north south buses with LRT.

Now the savings would likely be less than $35 million in the real world, but every bus rider you convert to a pedestrian (commute only)--> LRT saves Calgary Transit $9.50 a day or $2,470 a year. This is real savings, not some future in theory savings from TOD users. As a business, would you avoid your customers in one area, to more cheaply serve customers in another - ignore a profit Centre? Busing those same customers to Nose Creek to take the LRT does not save this money (a customer touching a bus at all requires a subsidy).

Well if one is only looking at saving $35 million annually, then the most one could justify spending on this kind of capital project is about $875 million which isn't enough to get the project done.

I think a study needs to be done on this as soon as possible. There needs to be the right long term plan in place that is a quantifiable approach that looks at the net present value of a variety of options.

[MalcolmTucker]

^Yeah well the way you make sure they don't cheap out on construction is force them to maintain it for 30 years or more for a fixed cost, also you do the same with operating it so they don't build the cheapest but most expensive to run system.

It is interesting that in the end we could put out a tender for what we think is LRT and get an automated light metro. The market at work.

[Riise]

Originally Posted by Sir.Humphrey.Appleby

^Yeah well the way you make sure they don't cheap out on construction is force them to maintain it for 30 years or more for a fixed cost, also you do the same with operating it so they don't build the cheapest but most expensive to run system.

Okay. What I was trying to get at was I know even the most fool-proof scheme will get screwed up eventually by someone. As such, I'm interested in finding the areas of the Canada Line process where idiots can mess things up in order to avoid these idiots from doing so. I really like the idea so I want to be able to protect it from incorrect implementations if I'm ever in that position.

[MalcolmTucker]

Originally Posted by Riise

Okay. What I was trying to get at was I know even the most fool-proof scheme will get screwed up eventually by someone. As such, I'm interested in finding the areas of the Canada Line process where idiots can mess things up in order to avoid these idiots from doing so. I really like the idea so I want to be able to protect it from incorrect implementations if I'm ever in that position.

A good case study from the line, goes through the tendering process. http://www.partnershipsbc.ca/files/documents/CanadaLinecasestudy_000.pdf

Biggest fub-ub seemed to be on the communications with the public piece, since the exact details of the line weren't concrete it was difficult to engage the public, which led to impressions that a large section would be bored tunnel which ended up being cut and cover.

[CTrainDude]

Three car Series 8 train heading downtown now (11:56, and it's inbound at Heritage). Anyone interested should go take a look. They sure look slick.

[Riise]

Originally Posted by Sir.Humphrey.Appleby

A good case study from the line, goes through the tendering process. http://www.partnershipsbc.ca/files/documents/CanadaLinecasestudy_000.pdf

Cheers, I'll definitely have a read.

[jeffwhit]

I'm not sure how this is going to be better than google maps, but it's something:

http://www.calgarytransitschedule.com/

if they enabled some sort of e-ticket functionality into the app, it would be amazing. In a POP system, it would only require co operation from CT.

[Ramsayfarian]

Originally Posted by jeffwhit

I'm not sure how this is going to be better than google maps, but it's something:

http://www.calgarytransitschedule.com/

if they enabled some sort of e-ticket functionality into the app, it would be amazing. In a POP system, it would only require co operation from CT.

Sounds like a fancy interface to their teleride system. e-ticket tie-in would be cool and not that hard to do.

[jeffwhit]

Originally Posted by Ramsayfarian

Sounds like a fancy interface to their teleride system. e-ticket tie-in would be cool and not that hard to do.

Yeah, I'm hoping there's some killer functionality not yet revealed. People ho have phones that can run this app already have a more useful transit helper with google maps.

[mooky]

MonctonGoldenFlames>

In the end its about density. Should we forget about the 30,000 people that already use the 301N and 3 up Center Street? If you look at that as a starting point versus 0 (pre-TOD taking 10-20-30 years to flush out) up Nose Creek until 32nd ave and then industrial from 32 to 64th avenue, and then residential, I think the argument leans heavily on Center Street LRT servicing now and into the future more potential customers. Center can still be turned eastward so it doesn't preclude a run to the airport, or a people mover to connect to the LRT system.

[MonctonGoldenFlames]

Originally Posted by mooky

MonctonGoldenFlames>

In the end its about density. Should we forget about the 30,000 people that already use the 301N and 3 up Center Street? If you look at that as a starting point versus 0 (pre-TOD taking 10-20-30 years to flush out) up Nose Creek until 32nd ave and then industrial from 32 to 64th avenue, and then residential, I think the argument leans heavily on Center Street LRT servicing now and into the future more potential customers. Center can still be turned eastward so it doesn't preclude a run to the airport, or a people mover to connect to the LRT system.

i'm not saying we should ignore the 30,000 or so people who use the 301 or 3, but we should also not ignore the thousands of people who travel the deerfoot to reach downtown.

i think it really comes down to what the purpose of the lrt should be. a suburban commuter or inner city development tool, maybe even both. we should do our due diligence and fairly assess all route options, not just focus on centre street, just because there is more residential there.

[DarkKeyo]

Originally Posted by MonctonGoldenFlames

i'm not saying we should ignore the 30,000 or so people who use the 301 or 3, but we should also not ignore the thousands of people who travel the deerfoot to reach downtown.

We aren't ignoring the Deeerfoot commuters, as Centre St is as close to Deerfoot and areas it draws its traffic from as the South LRT is and SE LRT will be.

Nice to see Whitehorn looking new. It would be very nice to see all the 1985, as well as the 1981 stations receive this treatment in the next few years...

4th St is moving along, Westbound City Hall has platform and canopy well set up, and Eastbound City Hall is finally having the platform base poured.

And the new SD160's are being tested frequently (info from CPTDB).

[jeffwhit]

Originally Posted by mooky

MonctonGoldenFlames>

In the end its about density. Should we forget about the 30,000 people that already use the 301N and 3 up Center Street? If you look at that as a starting point versus 0 (pre-TOD taking 10-20-30 years to flush out) up Nose Creek until 32nd ave and then industrial from 32 to 64th avenue, and then residential, I think the argument leans heavily on Center Street LRT servicing now and into the future more potential customers. Center can still be turned eastward so it doesn't preclude a run to the airport, or a people mover to connect to the LRT system.

To put it into persepective, 30000 daily boardings on the C Street bus routes compares favourably to many NA city's entire light rail system:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light_rail_in_North_America

Almost the same as Minneapolis's light rail system.

Without a single additional living unit being built along the corridor, the ridership already exists to justify the alignment.