CTrain Carries its One Billionth Customer

[miketoronto]

Congrats Calgary.
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http://www.calgarytransit.com/html/o...lionth_pr.html

For Immediate Release: February 18, 2009


CTrain Carries its One Billionth Customer

February 18, 2009 - After only 28 years of operation, Calgary’s CTrain today carried its one billionth passenger and counting.

Mayor Dave Bronconnier, members of City Council and Calgary Transit Director Fred Wong congratulated commuter Shelly Xiao during a ceremony at the 1 Street SW CTrain Station.

Ms. Xiao was randomly selected as Calgary Transit’s one billionth CTrain customer since the light rail transit system began operation May 25, 1981.

"One billion customers is an amazing performance and a reflection of the tremendous growth of our transit system," said Mayor Dave Bronconnier.

Ridership on the CTrain continues to grow and has doubled over the past 10 years. When the west leg of the LRT is completed, The City will have nearly doubled the size of the CTrain network in just over a decade.

2009 is Calgary Transit’s centennial year and the fact that the one billionth customer is recorded this year makes it particularly special.

"This is quite the milestone for our organization," Fred Wong said, noting the CTrain system is the most popular LRT system in North America, carrying over 280,000 people every week day.
"We are proudly looking forward to serving the community over the next 100 years."

Ms. Xiao received an assortment of gifts to commemorate the occasion, including monthly transit passes until the end of 2009 and a limited edition model SD 160 CTrain car.

[nname]

hmm.. Interesting that Vancouver's Skytrain is also set to receive its 1 billionth passenger by the first week of March.

[ssiguy]

^ and yet Translink serves more than twice the population and SkyTrain cost twice as much.

[mattropolis]

the Ctrain has been running since 1981 whereas SkyTrain only since 1986.

[vid]

Calgary has one downtown. Vancouver has 60. You do the math.

[miketoronto]

That is true. Vancouver's idea of a decentralized city does not help when it comes to creating transit ridership, and it is one of the reasons Vancouver is down the list on transit usage, compared to places like Calgary.

Calgary's C-Train is really a success story and is a model LRT that other cities wish their systems were like.

[Doug]

It will be interesting to see how the downturn in the local economy affects ridership. It could go either way:

1) Down. Fewer people working (especially downtown), reduced traffic congestion (only slightly), fewer people moving to the city, increased housing affordability increases disposable income.

2) Up. Downtown parking rates continue to rise as the City owned lots more or less set the price. Financial pinch forces more people to reconsider driving.

[sdimedru]

I thought Monterrey Mexico carried the most pax/day in NA?

Good to see ridership growing regardless of where it is....

[Doady]

Originally Posted by miketoronto

That is true. Vancouver's idea of a decentralized city does not help when it comes to creating transit ridership, and it is one of the reasons Vancouver is down the list on transit usage, compared to places like Calgary.

Calgary's C-Train is really a success story and is a model LRT that other cities wish their systems were like.

Vancouver has better transit ridership than Calgary.

[vid]

But IIRC, Vancouver's transit ridership is mostly on the buses. It isn't centralized enough for LRT to work the way it does in Calgary.

[Metro-One]

Not to mention Vancouver's skytrain numbers are going to skyrocket when the 19km Canada Line opens in August. Also the Evergreen Line will add a good chunk of riders as well when it opens in 4-5 years. The lower numbers now are because not all of Vancouver's suburban downtowns are connected, hence why the C-line connecting Richmond and the Evergreen Line connecting Coquitlam will cause massive jumps in ridership, not to mention what the M-line extension to UBC could add! 1 year from now skytrain ridership numbers will see a large jump, 5 years from now a massive increase and 10 years from now possibly a night and day difference, especially if the capacity of the expo line is increased to 25 000/30 000 pph, which is in the plans.

Also do not forget that Vancouver has higher walking and biking commuting than Calgary, we have a much larger bus system and an additional 10 000 riders use the commuter rail the West Coast Express.

[Doady]

The Skytrain and CTrain systems seem to be of similar size, and the ridership is similar also. Really, I don't see how one can say centralization (or lack thereof) accounts for the differences when there are not that many differences to begin with...

[racc]

Originally Posted by miketoronto

That is true. Vancouver's idea of a decentralized city does not help when it comes to creating transit ridership, and it is one of the reasons Vancouver is down the list on transit usage, compared to places like Calgary.

Calgary's C-Train is really a success story and is a model LRT that other cities wish their systems were like.

Not to taking anything away from cow town but transit ridership is higher here. 17% of commutes vs. 15%

SkyTrain numbers are also going to rocket when the new cars are in service as Calgary's climbed in the last couple of years after they got more cars.

[Jared]

Calgary has a much larger percent of its workforce located downtown, which allows for the hub-and-spoke system to work very well. Essentially, build a line from downtown in any direction, and a much greater percent of the people along that line will be going downtown than is the case in Vancouver. Vancouver's downtown is also hampered by the local geography, Greater Vancouver is essentially a rectangle, with the downtown in the top left corner.

mike, there's nothing fundamentally wrong with having multiple downtowns, in fact it allows you to relieve over crowding by having people travel in both directions, rather than everyone travel in the same direction (which would be doubly crowded in Vancouver due to downtown's location resulting in few lines servicing it). The real issue is that alot of the suburbs aren't developing their downtowns, they're letting all their office developments be sprawly office parks. This is starting to change though, and I think next office boom cycle you'll see a number of office towers built around suburban stations.

[Justin10000]

How is the transit in Calgary's Suburbs? Do use transit in the 'burbs'?
It's well, and nice that peopel use transit during peak hours, but how about after peak hours?

[Metro-One]

This is starting to change though, and I think next office boom cycle you'll see a number of office towers built around suburban stations.

There already are office towers built, under construction & proposed in many suburban centers around the skytrain stations, chiefly Metrotown, in Surrey and even Brentwood has a small office tower rising right now. In fact the largest office tower projects currently happening in Metro-Vancouver are in the suburbs! I believe Metro-Tower 3 in Metrotown, Burnaby is probably the current largest U/C with 25 floors only a stones throw away from the train station.

[SlickFranky]

Congratulations Calgary! WOOOO!

Psst...why's Vancouver being such a dick about this? Can't he just be happy for his buddy.

[J. Will]

I'm just trying to figure out if Justin1000's post was an attempt at humour. I'm guessing it was.

[frinkprof]

Originally Posted by Justin10000

How is the transit in Calgary's Suburbs? Do use transit in the 'burbs'?
It's well, and nice that peopel use transit during peak hours, but how about after peak hours?

Regardless of whether this is in jest or not...

Calgary is a unicity where the vast majority of the metro population (90%) lies within the city itself, and is therefore served by Calgary Transit. The exurbs' (Cochrane, Airdrie, Okotoks, and Chestermere are the closest and most notable, and High River and Strathmore further away) built area is separated by quite an expanse from Calgary's built area. Calgary's built area will eventually butt up against its neighbours though.

At any rate, currently this allows for decent service in peak times and not bad in off-hours either. Usually 30-40 minute frequency at worst offpeak on weekdays, and an hour at worst on Sundays and holidays for all but the newest, least populated suburbs within the city. These new areas usually get peak-service only, and ramping up to full service within a year or two. A lot of the bus system feeds into either the LRT, the growing number of BRT routes, or goes downtown. Of course once WLRT opens up and the SELRT hopefully soon after, most of the system will feed into rail transit.

As for the exurbs, private coachlines serve the communities for peaktime commuting to varying degrees currently, and a proper public regional transit system is on its way. First, buses from the exurbs will feed into the furthest-out LRT stations, then in a decade or less commuter rail will start running into the downtown.


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As for the thread topic, it's good to hear. Not sure why all the talk is about Vancouver, but to address that, I can't wait to see the Canada Line open up and of course all the other improvements. Here's to both cities having successful systems.

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I'll add this too.

Summary of major mass transit projects underway/in the works

Blue - extension to existing line, Red - new line, Green - overall system improvement



Funded/underway

NW Extension to Crowfoot - 1 station - 4 km of track - opens May or June 2009

NW Extension to Rocky Ridge/Tuscany - 1 station - 2 km of track - opens late 2011, starts construction in the spring

NE Extension to Saddleridge - 2 stations - 2.9 km of track - opens late 2010/early 2011 - construction underway

West LRT - 7 stations - 8.4 km of track, opens late 2012/early 2013, starts construction in the fall

4/5 car length platforms plus traction power upgrades - partially funded - should be done around 2013/2014 - current operating capacity is 3 LRVs


Unfunded, Expected completion in 5-10 years

SELRT Phase I - 6 or 7 stations plus 4 downtown plus storage and maintenance facility - should see funding soon, top transportation priority - Phase II will be 6 or 7 more stations, ~25 km of track altogether

Downtown Subway - 3 or 4 stations - study being conducted, difficult to get a timeline until it comes out, but increasing political will to do it


Longer term

North Central LRT - ~10 stations - partial alignment known - probably over a decade away - corridor currently served by BRT

Small Extensions - 3 more stations to south line - 4 more stations to NE line - 2 more stations to West line - may see some of these within a decade, most will be longer term

[Doady]

Yes, J.Will and finkprof are right, Calgary does not have any separate suburban municipalities, so therefore it it has not been affected by suburbanization at all. The entirety of the built-up metropolitan area is urban because it lies within the City of Calgary and there are no variations at all in the level of public transit service across the city.