Calgary Public Transit Discussion Thread

[frinkprof]

^Funny like I'm a clown? I'm here to amuse you?

[Cos]

Originally posted by CapnCrunch


Funny in what way?

Like useless? I agree with him actually

[CapnCrunch]

Originally posted by Cos


Like useless? I agree with him actually

I'm guessing the 96th ave would service the airport and there's a big mall right by Aurora. Im sure its usefull for some people.

[kaput]

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[Cos]

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[schocker]

Well I contacted CT about bus routes in my community and I thought they wouldnt reply, but they actually did any were very informative, though the route in kincora wont be extended and a study for the community wont be done until 2012 at the earliest, oh well.

[SmAcKpOo]

Originally posted by CapnCrunch


I'm guessing the 96th ave would service the airport and there's a big mall right by Aurora. Im sure its usefull for some people.

Yea, all the park and riders from Airdrie.

[frinkprof]

Originally posted by schocker
Well I contacted CT about bus routes in my community and I thought they wouldnt reply, but they actually did any were very informative, though the route in kincora wont be extended and a study for the community wont be done until 2012 at the earliest, oh well.

Yeah, it wouldn't be the Kincora route. What will eventually happen is all the separate communities in that area (Sherwood, Kincora, Evanston, Sage Hill, New Pleasant TowneHillsRidgeVilleLakeValleyWoods, etc.) will get their own route (or a CW/CCW route couplet between 2 communities) that will be a feeder to the route 301 BRT and eventually the north central LRT route discussed earlier. I'd imagine Sage Hill will have to wait a bit longer as the numbers just aren't there yet. As it gets built out over the years it will ramp up from community shuttle a couple times a day to eventually big bus service 7 days a week with 15-20 minute peak frequencies.

[schocker]

Originally posted by frinkprof
Yeah, it wouldn't be the Kincora route. What will eventually happen is all the separate communities in that area (Sherwood, Kincora, Evanston, Sage Hill, New Pleasant TowneHillsRidgeVilleLakeValleyWoods, etc.) will get their own route (or a CW/CCW route couplet between 2 communities) that will be a feeder to the route 301 BRT and eventually the north central LRT route discussed earlier. I'd imagine Sage Hill will have to wait a bit longer as the numbers just aren't there yet. As it gets built out over the years it will ramp up from community shuttle a couple times a day to eventually big bus service 7 days a week with 15-20 minute peak frequencies.

Yah, I figured it was too far especially for the 420 as you have to drive up symons valley then in my phase, there isnt much room at all for the bus to run. I think it is already into phase 5 though up the road, so hopefully they will come up with something next year.

[frinkprof]

So there's been a couple things recently that have given me quite a bit of information, which I'll share below.

First off, I and a few other people have founded a group called "Transit Camp" that aims to be a citizen's group that will advocate for better transit in Calgary, speak to ongoing issues, and tackle new ones that develop from the standpoint of the riders and other interested public parties. The name comes from being an aligned with and an arm of Calgary Civic Camp. We've been meeting for about 4 months now.

At our last meeting, we were able to meet with some representatives from Calgary Transit. It was mostly to present our purpose and goals thus far and to establish a relationship and dialog with CT. We were able to present some ideas and issues and get some feedback, as well as to get some rudimentary information about some hot topics that are current and upcoming with CT.

The other thing was that I stopped by the 7th Avenue Refurbishment open house setup at City Hall today.

I've tried to break all the information up by topic, which I'll share below.


7th Ave. Refurbishment

Both sides of City Hall Station will be open for Stampede 2011. Opening should be late June. The south side may have to close again after Stampede for a short time to finish up some work. There will be a new +15 connecting the two sides of the station (and City Hall building) that will be built just to the west of the station platforms. Removal of Olympic Plaza Station will follow City Hall opening.

Centre Street Station extension starts construction Spring 2011, ends Fall 2011. No closure needed (save for maybe a weekend closure or two).

11th Street Station will be open by Fall 2012.



Realtime Arrival Information (aka "GPS" implementation, but not really that simple)

Still on track for 2012 completion and rollout

Equipment has been on portion of the bus fleet for some time now, and information has been used internally by CT. With full implementation, goal is to analyze routes for pinch points and then help with decisions regarding scheduling, route planning and infrastructure improvements.

System elements will eventually be integrated with "Opticom" signal control system. This system has been in place since start of route 301 in 2003, allows buses on certain routes to allow for longer green lights or shorter red lights. Realtime information will help optimize system, which includes 160+ intersections.

Realtime data from GPS/RFID systems will be available to third-party developers for use in web/smartphone applications, research, etc.


Fare Payment Systems (aka smartcard implementation)

On track for 2012 rollout


Public Engagment

Calgary Transit putting much more focus on engaging public, especially through web and social media

Website will receive overhaul soon

Policy, procedure, planning, etc. information will be made more available to public. For example, documents detailing how and why routes, schedules, stop locations, etc. are planned and implemented will be made available on website soon

Public Engagement process for future NE LRT extensions (past Saddletown on toward Country Hills, Skyview, Stoney Trail and beyond) will be upcoming soon. Focus will be on areas around future stations, design themes, access, providing information, etc.

Open houses for North Central LRT upcoming, detailed more below


Bikes on Transit

One of the people at the meeting was from BikeCalgary, and made a presentation for a proposal for bike racks on buses serving route 3, BRT routes, and route 72/73, based off research from Vancouver and Victoria among other cities

Various attempts at implementing bike racks on certain routes have been tried over last 10 years with very little success

Problems with putting bike racks on are chiefly nuances with assigning buses to routes on a day-to-day basis, an ever-changing bus fleet, and the biggest being a huge storage space crunch at garages.


North Central LRT

Open houses upcoming. This was prompted by what was seen as a need to take a step back regarding the philosophy of the route selection. So, focus of these open houses will mostly be on route, primarily between downtown and Beddington Trail, and presentation of various trade-offs between routes.

3 corridors will be presented - Centre Street, Edmonton Trail and Nose Creek. Attendees are encouraged to provide thoughts on their preferred routes. E-mails and phone call responses also encouraged if unable to attend.

Ideally, this will help narrow down to 2 routes.

CT representatives strongly hinted that they hope to see people show preference for more central routing (Centre, Edmonton Trail) rather than Nose Creek

Original selection of Nose Creek alignment in 2006 report was influenced by need to put something on paper and other pressures. Route has since been further complicated by CP Rail corridor becoming unavailable in favour of future High Speed Rail route.


Fleet and Fleet Management

As noted above, there's huge space crunch for growing fleet. New garages needed and expansions to existing garages.

Spring Gardens facility (32nd Ave. North connector) will be expanded, timeline undetermined.

Several new garage locations (both bus and LRV) in various stages of development. 30 acre parcel on 194th Ave. south purchased several years ago, but waiting for site to be serviced by City.

Congestion and operational constraints for LRVs at Anderson garage is growing issue. LRVs may be moved out of Anderson altogether to new facility near 212th Ave. south. Need to wait until LRT line is extended there. If that happens, Anderson would convert fully to bus storage.

This didn't come up at the meeting, but the Oliver Bowen Maintenance Facility (SW of McKnight-Westwinds Station) will need to be expanded (as per plans) to accommodate next order of LRVs, and new LRV storage/maintenance facilities will be part of new SE and North Central lines.

U2 LRV refurbishment (old LRT cars) was proposed by Bombardier and is currently working its way through City Hall for potential approval. New numbers show possible $2.2M cost per car, to achieve maximum 40-50% increase on lifespan of vehicle. Seeing as how average cost of new cars is $3.6M per, this is unlikely to happen, and new cars will be purchased sooner than later to replace U2s. Report with new numbers will be online Friday afternoon.

GM New Look buses (c. 1977-1982, aka "fishbowl" buses) should all be retired by next year.

Calgary Transit has ~$310M total annual operating cost, this is before revenues (primarily fares) are subtracted to get the net. Unfortunately I didn't write down the net figure, but I think it's on the order of $160M.


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I think that's everything. If anyone has any questions I'll try and answer them based on what I have learned or ask them at my next opportunity to speak with someone at CT.

Also, if you're interested in being involved in Transit Camp, PM me. Involvement can range from just being on the mailing list or contacting one of us with questions, or attending our (so far) rather informal meetings and working on developing responses to various issues that arise.

[TimG]

bike racks shouldn't impact storage at garages. Most all of the busses in vancouver have bike racks which fold up when not in use.

[kaput]

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[frinkprof]

I found this on CT's website. It shows the tentative schedule for 4 car train extensions. I presume it will be updated sometime later this year to show a more firm date on the ones listed as "2012 or 2013." Also note the ones which need to be closed. If no more are added, I must say I'm surprised that it is only 3 total including Southland. The Chinook closure will be a bitch to deal with since a lot of bus routes (especially crosstown routes like 72/73 and 23) connect through that station.



This is in addition to the following assumptions:

- Victoria Park/Stampede will be extended during the hockey offseason, and not during Stampede
- SAIT and University will be extended during the months of May-August
- Banff Trail will be extended during the months of December-May

[frinkprof]

Originally posted by kaput
Could you make a suggestion for me? When the trains are delayed, they need to distribute live updates about the situation. I bet most riders would check that every morning before leaving home and every night before leaving work.

This would be very easy as they already have a twitter feed that (sometimes) connects to the iphone app, they just don't use it effectively. The same person who makes the intercom announcements every 5 minutes could easily distribute this same information online in real time.

I'll see what I can do. I know the Mayor's office was working on what can be done about this issue, but I haven't heard an update on that for awhile.

[frinkprof]

There is a significant committee going on today at City Hall. The Land Use Planning and Transportation (LPT) committee meets and will be presented with a series of reports that Calgary Transit was directed to prepare, largely dealing with the LRV fleet. The reports include:

- LRV fleet plan
- Whether to refurbish the old U2 trains, or to replace them with new ones
- Delivering 4 car CTrain service
- LRV storage and maintenance facilities.

I'll provide a brief summary. Lots more information, graphs, cool pictures of various LRV parts, etc. in the actual reports. I was going to pull some graphs and pictures, but I might save that for another time.

LRV Fleet Plan

Current fleet is 154 units, projected 2030 fleet is 233 units

Left out of assumptions are the possibility of SE and North Central lines, although it does assume extensions to Silverado and 212th Avenue in the south by 2021, and Stoney Trail in the NE by 2019, with the obvious extra LRVs needed to serve those extensions

Current U2s are to be progressively retired from 2013 until 2022 (based on replacing them rather than refurbishing them, see below)

Oldest SD160 units (32 of them, c. 2001) will undergo a mid-life refurbishment between 2015-2020 that will basically give them all the specifications of the new cars (interior cameras, side-mounted displays, new couplers to enable running them together), although not necessarily seating arrangement

Fleet total includes provision for extra cars needed for 4-car operation (see below)

U2 Refurbishment

Cost/benefit overrules refurbishment of U2s given the estimated $2.2M cost/unit versus $3.6M for a new car, and the marginal lifespan and reliability gains that the refurbishment would give

Delivering 4 car CTrain service

System will be 4-car capable by 2014.

2010 ridership numbers show that during certain segments of the peak morning and evening rushes on the various lines, 4 car service could be used now. More needed given 2020 ridership forecasts

When 2014 comes along, strategy will be to add 4 car trains to the schedule during these trouble spots

South Line during morning rush is busiest, with NE and NW lines being less, but roughly equal in terms of ridership

By end of 2014, a projection of 8 additional LRVs would be needed to be assigned to the 201 South-NW line, and 4 to the 202 NE line

More would be needed to accommodate future ridership over time for a total of 19 additional LRVs assigned to the 201, and 8 to the 202 line by 2020.

This amounts to what will be a incomplete peak system coverage by 4 car trains (meaning some trains at peak will be 3 car, some will be 4), so that leaves room for future growth

LRV Storage and Maintenance Facilities

This report was brief as apparently there is already a study regarding bus and LRV maintenance facilities being conducted by Calgary Transit and Transportation Infrastructure

Nature of operations, particularly at Anderson and Haysboro facilities will make 4-car train operation problematic for those facilities to cope

Currently, expansion is taking place at the Oliver Bowen Maintenance Facility (OBMF) in the NE, which should accommodate the current order of LRVs, and almost all of the projected 233 needed by 2030, but any more than that and capacity is constrained

Basically, new facility is needed to store LRVs in long term, and perhaps medium term to cope with 4 car operation.

Results

It is recommended that 50 more LRVs be ordered immediately for 2013-2015 arrival and commission.

20 are to replace least reliable U2s in current fleet, and 30 would be for growth (4 car trains)

Provincial GreenTRIP funding is recommend to cover the procurement costs

As many as 76 units are projected to be procured by 2017 to accommodate further U2 replacement, expansion of 4 car service, and future extensions to Stoney Trail and 212th Avenue.

Here's the link to the LPT agenda, if you click the last item listed (LPT2011-044), the report PDFs will pop up on the right hand side. The summary above is from these reports.

http://agendaminutes.calgary.ca/sire...doctype=AGENDA

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SE Transitway is also on the LPT agenda today, but I haven't gone over that yet. I may get to that later.

[frinkprof]

There's a new newsletter on the West LRT website. It mainly goes over what the major construction milestones will be for the rest of 2011, some of which will require more road closures, mostly at the at-grade crossings. The construction delays will mostly be finished by the end of the year though, with the remainder of the project construction taking place within the right of way, at stations, and then testing and commissioning.

Here's a map from the newsletter which shows the major work that will be occurring.



http://www.westlrt.ca/files/West%20L...ing%202011.pdf

[kaput]

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[frinkprof]

Originally posted by kaput
Do you happen to know what the bunker looking thing is that being built on the west end of downtown where the track switches are? They took down the hoarding last week and the concrete looks more than a foot thick

Not sure. I'd have to get a better look at what you're talking about. Where is it exactly? Near 9th Street/7th Avenue intersection? If I had to guess, I'd say a traction power substation.

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In other news,

As posted by CTrainDude on CPTDB:

Southland station reopens with start of service on Friday, May 6. The south pedestrian crossing and ramp will not open till the end of June.

[frinkprof]

Telvent to supply Calgary smart card-based system


Telvent, a real-time IT solutions and information provider for a sustainable world, announced it has been selected by the city of Calgary to implement a contactless smart card based electronic fare collection (EFC) system for Calgary Transit.

When the project is completed, Calgary Transit will provide to over 94 million passengers per year a more convenient method to pay for fares. The new contactless EFC system will allow Calgary Transit to obtain information from the field fare collection equipment, customize fare policy, and offer more flexible methods of payment.

[...]

Link to rest of article

[schocker]

Good, finally being able to pay without change.

For the people who drive to crowfoot though, what time do you have to get there to get parking lately. I used to get there at 7:30 and get parking, then when it was free again, no parking, then I was getting there at 7:15 and getting parking for awhile but for some reason that changed last week. Today I got there at 7:05 and no parking what so ever. How much earlier must I leave? I have signed up for the reserved wait-list but that isn't until June so I still have a few weeks to go.