Critiquing Calgary's Southwest Transitway

[WilcoRogers]

There's been an article (titled above) which was featured in Metro and on QR770 which takes a transit planning look at the Southwest BRT plan. Would love to hear what you think.

The article was written by Willem Klumpenhouwer on the editorial startup website Spur the New West on March 8, 2016. It can be found here:

http://www.spuryyc.org/critiquing-ca...st-transitway/

[ByeByeBaby]

Originally Posted by WilcoRogers

There's been an article (titled above) which was featured in Metro and on QR770 which takes a transit planning look at the Southwest BRT plan. Would love to hear what you think.

The article was written by Willem Klumpenhouwer on the editorial startup website Spur the New West on March 8, 2016. It can be found here:

http://www.spuryyc.org/critiquing-ca...st-transitway/

Weak sauce. Other than being concise, there's very little to recommend here.

Half of his criticisms are of the ridiculous kind - that we shouldn't have built the Glenmore reservoir where it is, or that MRU should be located somewhere else - on one hand, these are not wrong, but they aren't exactly actionable.

Most of the remainder of his criticisms arise because - as 5seconds points out - he ignores the Cost Effective criteria. Pointing out that the C-Train runs 5 minutes in the peak, so why should this run 10 minute headways is great, if you ignore that you're doubling the operating cost to bring the average wait down a couple of minutes. He's right that 20 minutes offpeak is a long headway to expect it to bring in a lot of ridership. (As far as I know, all the reports say 15-20 minutes offpeak, which is a little more palatable.) The same thing on the access to downtown - it's incredibly expensive (either politically or financially) to provide a dedicated ROW into the downtown, and while this is a fine route, I don't know that it's the one worth all that expense.

[ByeByeBaby]

Originally Posted by 5seconds

It was interesting that one of the criticisms was in having the transitway on the west side of 14th street, and the seeming priority given to activity centre (Hospital, Glenmore Landing etc.) users over local residents.

The planners talk about that in the Functional Plan, and it seems that part of the rational for doing it that way was specifically to keep the BRT closer to the activity centres and to avoid some of the utilities that are located along the east side of the 14th street corridor.

I don't recall seeing discussion about which group of users are more likely to use the stations along 14th street; local residents of Haysboro and Kelvin Grove or people going to Glenmore Landing/JCC or the Hospital, but that would be interesting to see.

It also seems to me that if the service is coming from the west (Glenmore) and heading west (Southland) that it makes sense for the transitway to remain on the west side in order to minimize crossovers/interactions with 14th street. Not sure how true that is from a practical standpoint, but it appears that way...?

I don't think the ridership potential from Haysboro and Kelvin Grove is particularly high. While the SWBRT will be the clear best transit service to downtown from the communities W of 14th St, in Haysboro and Kelvin Grove there's a very strong competitor in the #3, which runs 800m from 14th St - so most residents of those communities are in walking distance to both, probably more are closer to the 3 than to the SWBRT. The 3 is just as much a single-seat ride to downtown, and runs at higher frequency - 5 or so minutes peak / 10 minutes much of the offpeak. I can't remember travel times for the SWBRT, but the 3 can't be that much slower, since it's a lot more direct. Finally, the 3 stops closer to the middle of downtown, while the SWBRT stops at 6th St, which is a fair walk from a lot of the downtown.

[CrossedTheTracks]

Originally Posted by 5seconds

I don't recall seeing discussion about which group of users are more likely to use the stations along 14th street; local residents of Haysboro and Kelvin Grove or people going to Glenmore Landing/JCC or the Hospital, but that would be interesting to see.

Would be interesting indeed. This is just a hunch, but I suspect that the Hospital is the only serious ridership driver along 14 St. Heritage Park and Glenmore Landing just happen to be on the way.

Originally Posted by 5seconds

It also seems to me that if the service is coming from the west (Glenmore) and heading west (Southland) that it makes sense for the transitway to remain on the west side in order to minimize crossovers/interactions with 14th street. Not sure how true that is from a practical standpoint, but it appears that way...?

If it was placed on the east side, you'd have these additional problems:

• Northbound weaving interaction just north of 75 Ave on 14 St (weaving with Glenmore eastbound traffic)
• Traffic at Heritage would likely require a tunnel/overpass. Impact of transitway on west side is much smaller.
• Additional crossing of 14th St at Southland to get to the west side
• Distance to Hospital entrances becomes a significant barrier to the service being useful at all

On the flip-side, perhaps no intersection modifications at 14th and 90th would be required.

I'd be surprised if they didn't study "which side of the road" at some high level and dismiss it for failing cost considerations, ridership problems at Hospital station, or both.

[suburbia]

I'm a little disturbed by a thread having started specifically called "critiquiing <insert item here>". Why can't there just be a thread on the topic, instead of limiting items posted to only negative things?

[DizzyEdge]

Maybe "Evaluating Calgary's Southwest Transitway plan" would be more appropriate.

[Porfiry]

Originally Posted by suburbia

I'm a little disturbed by a thread having started specifically called "critiquiing <insert item here>". Why can't there just be a thread on the topic, instead of limiting items posted to only negative things?

You misunderstand the meaning of the word "critique".

[WilcoRogers]

Originally Posted by Porfiry

You misunderstand the meaning of the word "critique".

Indeed. A "Critique is a method of disciplined, systematic analysis" (Wikipedia). The disciplined and systematic parts can be argued, but negativity is not a part of the word.