Calgary Public Transit II

[RyLucky]

The NCLRT line probably won't reduce service hours, but the routes will be redistributed to better serve new communities, as they will be for the WLRT. Essentially, better service will be provided for the same operational cost. Operational cost will never decrease so long as we grow, but costs per capita might gradually decrease. There is also a phenomenon where improving transit anywhere improves transit everywhere; and the more stations effectively connected to the system, the more each station is used. This is somebody's law... I forget who...

The real economic value is found in increased efficiency of the city. People spend less of their time (or less of their money) getting around, which allows more time with family, at work, or at leisure. Efficient roads and public transit allows us to better utilize land that other wise would have little economic value, and rapid transit is the most efficient way to move people. Higher land values, more city revenue, better health, more disposable income, stronger economy, Blah blah blah, etc. If you are reading this site, you are probably already converted and there is no point telling you about these benefits. Get out and vote for the party you think best supports an urban economy.

On another note, I think there is a case for maintaining a service track between 201 and 202, but 203 (SE/NC) is not worth connecting to 201 or 202.

[Policy Wonk]

Originally Posted by You Need A Thneed

Personally, I don't ever think 7th Ave will ever be over capacity for just the NE-West line - once the 8th Ave Subway is built.

Again, going to 4 car trains, plus adding the 201 train allotment downtown to the 202 TRIPLES the current capacity of the NE line (which should always have more riders than the WLRT). There will be growth, perhaps even up a doubling, but it will take many decades for ridership to triple. The whole system might be due for an upgrade at that point. Certainly there will be no need for a 7th Ave subway before the NC line is built, and if it somehow does happen, then other MAJOR unforeseen factors would have occurred.

The connection is the existing tunnel exit east of City Hall, where the 202 joins 7th Ave. That will stay after the 8th Ave tunnel is built. Why build a new connection when you already have one?

After more than a year of this you continue to belligerently ignore the point, once an 8th Street subway opens the resulting traffic on 7th with be dramatically reduced to a tempo where peak operations aren't a daily disaster. This will provide for a slightly higher frequency for the 202 but CT's rail controllers will chain themselves to the tracks before 7th Ave at grade returns to anywhere near its present day traffic.

At the present tempo a full 25% of west-bound 202's are operating more than a minute behind schedule during the morning rush, the peak headways of the combined 201 and 202 are a little more than two minutes. Can you not appreciate how this is a entirely intolerable situation out of anything other than necessity?

[Policy Wonk]

Originally Posted by Bassic Lab

Well my basic point was that Nose Creek doesn't make any kind of sense for twenty years while the chances of 7 Ave being able to NW-S and W-NE lines for the next twenty years are essentially slim to none. That said, if you want to compare it to the Bloor-Danforth line, then I don't think that would be terrible outcome. It gets half a million daily riders and I'll reply to Kipling with Islington and High Park Stations. Still Bloor-Danforth really isn't the best comparison to Centre Street. It passes a mile north of the CBD, something more akin to 16 Ave than a route that actually travels through downtown proper with no need for a transfer. Of course we are also a fifth the size of Toronto, so no comparison is exactly appropriate.

Given that Nose Creek won't make sense for twenty years, we will have a lot of time to gauge the appetite for intensification in North Central Calgary. A lot can happen in twenty years. If intense development occurs around Centre Street@16 Ave and the 16 Ave BRT is a major success, then it could make a lot of sense to extend the SE LRT up to 16 Ave. If that were to happen it would essentially be a given that the route from the Harvest Hills Boulevard ROW to the core should join it there. Either way, we'll have a much better idea of our needs before we start laying any track.

Well, if you say it won't make sense for twenty years - I have never deviated from saying any North Central LRT is decades away.

The point I make with Bloor is that it is being argued that the existence of a Centre Street subway will spur incredible intensification. Build it any they will come, Bloor West shows there is no guarantee of that, even in a city that has been in a multi-family building boom for twenty years straight.

And since when does Bloor street not pass through downtown Toronto?

[Policy Wonk]

Originally Posted by andasen

I just don't see the nose creek alignment having the buildable/redevelopable area around several potential station locations south of Beddinton..

Funny,

I think that is the best part. A treeless golf course and a sea of 1970's warehousing and garages for buses.



Google Earth

[DarkKeyo]

Originally Posted by Policy Wonk

Funny,

I think that is the best part. A treeless golf course and a sea of 1970's warehousing and garages for buses.

I just want to point out that it *was* developed as a treeless golf course and 1970's warehousing, as opposed to anything else. I'm assuming there's a reason

[You Need A Thneed]

Originally Posted by Policy Wonk

After more than a year of this you continue to belligerently ignore the point, once an 8th Street subway opens the resulting traffic on 7th with be dramatically reduced to a tempo where peak operations aren't a daily disaster. This will provide for a slightly higher frequency for the 202 but CT's rail controllers will chain themselves to the tracks before 7th Ave at grade returns to anywhere near its present day traffic.

At the present tempo a full 25% of west-bound 202's are operating more than a minute behind schedule during the morning rush, the peak headways of the combined 201 and 202 are a little more than two minutes. Can you not appreciate how this is a entirely intolerable situation out of anything other than necessity?

I'm glad you agree with me. Traffic on 7th ave will never have to return to being as busy as it is today, which is why 7th ave wont require being grade separated in the next 50 years.

[Policy Wonk]

If you want to believe that the 202 can satisfactorily meet peek demand operating at comfortable headways compatible with surface traffic for the next fifty years, that belief probably represents the most benign of your delusions. I don't think I will live to see a North Central LRT - but I would bet I will live to see both 7th and 8th ave fully grade separated.

[Policy Wonk]

Originally Posted by DarkKeyo

I just want to point out that it *was* developed as a treeless golf course and 1970's warehousing, as opposed to anything else. I'm assuming there's a reason

The original warehousing was mostly built because of the proximity of the railroad, you can still see the old spurs and sidings. Most of them were built over when the current structures were erected.

[fusili]

Originally Posted by Policy Wonk

Funny,

I think that is the best part. A treeless golf course and a sea of 1970's warehousing and garages for buses.

Google Earth

Originally Posted by DarkKeyo

I just want to point out that it *was* developed as a treeless golf course and 1970's warehousing, as opposed to anything else. I'm assuming there's a reason

Originally Posted by Policy Wonk

The original warehousing was mostly built because of the proximity of the railroad, you can still see the old spurs and sidings. Most of them were built over when the current structures were erected.

This is why the area is not good for redevelopment. Railway spurs usually mean creosote and other contamination. Plus, areas of the Nose Creek valley used to be a landfill (I think around 8th avenue)- which, AFAIK, mean that residential development cannot happen within several hundred metres. Belvedere (east of Forest Lawn) is dealing with exactly this. And the landfill there wasn't even really used all that much. But still AHS is adamant no residential goes near the place.

Industrial may seem like a good place for redevelopment as well. However, a recent report assessing the Industrial land availability and zoning in Calgary (Cushfield and Wakeman, I believe), which was done as part of a planning evaluation of whether to redevelopment older industrial districts (Manchester, Greenview etc) came to the conclusion that no encroachment should be allowed at all. Industrial land is far too scare, especially inner-city industrial areas (Greenview), which are highly valued.

I am not arguing for massive redevelopment along centre street. Lots of townhouses and 4-8 storey buidings along centre (which are already being built), sure, but not massive redevelopment. The population can more than double with just this. No need for 20 storey towers.

[Policy Wonk]

Originally Posted by fusili

This is why the area is not good for redevelopment. Railway spurs usually mean creosote and other contamination. Plus, areas of the Nose Creek valley used to be a landfill (I think around 8th avenue)- which, AFAIK, mean that residential development cannot happen within several hundred metres. Belvedere (east of Forest Lawn) is dealing with exactly this. And the landfill there wasn't even really used all that much. But still AHS is adamant no residential goes near the place.

Industrial may seem like a good place for redevelopment as well. However, a recent report assessing the Industrial land availability and zoning in Calgary (Cushfield and Wakeman, I believe), which was done as part of a planning evaluation of whether to redevelopment older industrial districts (Manchester, Greenview etc) came to the conclusion that no encroachment should be allowed at all. Industrial land is far too scare, especially inner-city industrial areas (Greenview), which are highly valued.

I am not arguing for massive redevelopment along centre street. Lots of townhouses and 4-8 storey buidings along centre (which are already being built), sure, but not massive redevelopment. The population can more than double with just this. No need for 20 storey towers.

There is a difference between a siding that was built to serve a petro-chemical plant and a siding built to serve a distribution centre for cigarettes. Dry goods warehousing is not a particularly problematic historical land-use for the purposes of redevelopment.

As far as the Nose Creek landfill goes, the furthest northern fringe of the former landfill is almost a kilometre from the Fox Hollow site. The setback is 300m.

The development in this area is a relic of the pre-intermodal era when certain activities had to be conducted in very close proximity to the railroad. And eventually most industrial land users of any consequence city-wide will end up in Rockyview.

And I still don't think the development you suggest is sufficient to justify a Centre Street alignment over another less costly one.

[RyLucky]

PW, I'm starting to think you and I will never agree on NCLRT alignment.

If Greenview could redevelop (which I don't doubt it can) so that the employment density was much higher, then yes, that's a good argument for improved transit through Nose Creek. In my vision, I think it could be an important stop on a commuter rail line to Airdrie, or in the distant future for some kind of northcity-crosstown route. For the reasons I've already stated, I'm still not convinced a nose-creek alignment LRT is worth it.

[ByeByeBaby]

Originally Posted by Policy Wonk

After more than a year of this you continue to belligerently ignore the point, once an 8th Street subway opens the resulting traffic on 7th with be dramatically reduced to a tempo where peak operations aren't a daily disaster. This will provide for a slightly higher frequency for the 202 but CT's rail controllers will chain themselves to the tracks before 7th Ave at grade returns to anywhere near its present day traffic.

At the present tempo a full 25% of west-bound 202's are operating more than a minute behind schedule during the morning rush, the peak headways of the combined 201 and 202 are a little more than two minutes. Can you not appreciate how this is a entirely intolerable situation out of anything other than necessity?

From 5 to 6 PM, there are 16 SB 201s and 11 EB 202s leaving City Hall station, so 26 trains. Let's assume that 25% of the 202s are late (3 trains, rounding up), and presumably 25% of the 201s are as well (4 trains). Usually, when the system is near to its' limits, a small reduction in volume provides a lot of relief; it's the inability to handle even a little bit of disruption (like an idiot holding the doors) that can propagate through the system. But let's not talk about a small reduction in volume; let's cancel all of the late trains. If the other 75% can remain on time with 25% of the trains behind schedule, surely they can do so with no trains behind schedule.

So if all of the late trains were cancelled (which is drastic, but permits a lot more slack), there would be only 19 trains in the hour, and headways a little more than three minutes. If these trains are increased to 4 cars, that's 76 train cars per hour. If we recall, the current system has 11 trains heading northeast in rush hour, with 33 cars. So a 202-only, 4 car 7th Ave has 230% of the capacity it does currently, even after radical service cuts.

Right now, the 202 catchment (north of 17th Ave, west of Stoney) is around 45 sq km of residential land. There's another 17 or so sq km in the northeast inside the ring road east of Metis (the area west of there is planned as industrial). This represents roughly 40% more land to develop, ignoring the sour gas.

For a 7th Ave tunnel to be warranted within any reasonable planning horizon (50-70 years), one (or a combination) of these scenarios need to occur:

• The existing housing stock in the northeast is radically rebuilt in a denser form, something that you are adamant is impossible along Centre St where the network structure is more supportive.
• The new residential land is redeveloped not at the 8 UPA in the bylaw, and not at the Plan-It proposed 11 UPA the developers raised holy hell over, but at something closer to 16-20 UPA.
• The 202 C-train is extended past city limits to Airdrie. For some reason.
• Per capita transit ridership doubles, for some reason. This represents 260 boardings per capita; Toronto is around 180 and New York around 195.[source]
• Calgary Transit, who is doing a pretty good job running 26 trains per hour, is incapable of running 15 trains per hour (which would still represent an 80% increase in capacity, far more than the 40% or so needed). Furthermore, despite this, there is the political will to spend billions of dollars to build a third transit tunnel downtown just to improve operations, even though it's painfully clear that in general, there is far more interest in adding new service than there is in improving the reliability of existing service. If there was this will, of course, we'd already have the 8th Ave tunnel, or at the very least, there would be a study and it would be in the budget.

I'd love to see these happen (at least 1, 2, and 4), but I'm not exactly holding my breath.

[Policy Wonk]

Originally Posted by ByeByeBaby

[*]The existing housing stock in the northeast is radically rebuilt in a denser form, something that you are adamant is impossible along Centre St where the network structure is more supportive.

Between Memorial and 32nd Ave there are half a dozen enormous rental complexes along the LRT that I don't doubt for a second will be redeveloped at a much, much higher density.

[*]The new residential land is redeveloped not at the 8 UPA in the bylaw, and not at the Plan-It proposed 11 UPA the developers raised holy hell over, but at something closer to 16-20 UPA.

That doesn't seem very likely, now does it.

[*]The 202 C-train is extended past city limits to Airdrie. For some reason.

I don't doubt this will happen either. That reason would be having annexed most of the M.D. between here and Airdrie.

[*]Per capita transit ridership doubles, for some reason. This represents 260 boardings per capita; Toronto is around 180 and New York around 195.[source]

There is still room for significant growth in ridership.

[*]Even though it's painfully clear that in general, there is far more interest in adding new service than there is in improving the reliability of existing service.

It is all political and it is the same politics that dooms a Centre Street LRT.
Massively disproportionate spending on one project favoring a specific area at the expense (or perceived expense) of others just won't fly with the public at large. Had the 8th Ave Subway been built before the West LRT (and I am of the opinion it should have been) there would have been rancor from the West and Southeast that a "wasteful cadillac project" was put before introducing LRT service to their communities.

[MalcolmTucker]

Originally Posted by Policy Wonk

It is all political and it is the same politics that dooms a Centre Street LRT.
Massively disproportionate spending on one project favoring a specific area at the expense (or perceived expense) of others just won't fly with the public at large. Had the 8th Ave Subway been built before the West LRT (and I am of the opinion it should have been) there would have been rancor from the West and Southeast that a "wasteful cadillac project" was put before introducing LRT service to their communities.

I agree with this, beyond it dooming the Centre St LRT. I just think the NC LRT will be the last leg built, so there is less of a trade off to be made.

The next fight will be LRT to the airport vs ? with the comments coming from Nenshi. There just isn't enough money for a new leg before 2020, without a voter approved add on tax of some kind.

[frinkprof]

Just a reminder about the two events this week.

Human Transit Lecture on April 12th



"Better Transit in Calgary" Panel Discussion and Event on April 14th



Unfortunately we're all sold out of reservations, but if you're still really interested and haven't registered, I'll see what can be done. It looks like attendance will be 150+ people.

[outoftheice]

Looks like work starts on extending the Sunnyside station April 16th. Work is estimated to be complete this fall.

http://www.calgarytransit.com/html/s...struction.html

[DizzyEdge]

Originally Posted by outoftheice

Looks like work starts on extending the Sunnyside station April 16th. Work is estimated to be complete this fall.

http://www.calgarytransit.com/html/s...struction.html

"Calgary Transit customers who require ramp access are asked to use the adjacent stations (SAIT Station or 8 Street Station), as ramp access at Sunnyside Station will be unavailable during construction."

Seems like someone needing a ramp would have better luck asking strangers to carry them up to platform level than try to roll 1 km uphill to sait or 1 1/2 km to 8th Street. Particularly for 6 months.

[frinkprof]

Originally Posted by DizzyEdge

"Calgary Transit customers who require ramp access are asked to use the adjacent stations (SAIT Station or 8 Street Station), as ramp access at Sunnyside Station will be unavailable during construction."

Seems like someone needing a ramp would have better luck asking strangers to carry them up to platform level than try to roll 1 km uphill to sait or 1 1/2 km to 8th Street. Particularly for 6 months.

Yeah, it's one of those unfortunate things. There's just no way of keeping handicap access to the platform while it is under construction. It's a lucky thing that the whole platform isn't closed down for construction.

[fusili]

Originally Posted by DizzyEdge

"Calgary Transit customers who require ramp access are asked to use the adjacent stations (SAIT Station or 8 Street Station), as ramp access at Sunnyside Station will be unavailable during construction."

Seems like someone needing a ramp would have better luck asking strangers to carry them up to platform level than try to roll 1 km uphill to sait or 1 1/2 km to 8th Street. Particularly for 6 months.

Originally Posted by frinkprof

Yeah, it's one of those unfortunate things. There's just no way of keeping handicap access to the platform while it is under construction. It's a lucky thing that the whole platform isn't closed down for construction.

What is wrong with a temporary wooden ramp? This is kind of ridiculous. Cities everywhere else in the world seem to figure out who to accommodate pedestrians and wheelchairs during all sorts of construction with temporary walkways, ramps, etc. I am sure the construction company can figure out a way to put a ramp on one end of the platform at a time.

[Bigtime]

Are there any plans of the station area for Sunnyside online that one could view?