Calgary Public Transit Discussion Thread

[firebane]

Originally posted by GOnSHO
20km of low floor trains (70 trains), 14 stations, 8 bridges, 3 park n Ride stations (1900 stalls), 3 tunnels..

WEST LRT was a billion for just 8km and 6 stations..

price tag includes land, stations, construction, buying the trains and more. its really not THAT bad of a pricetag



friend works for the Greenline portion of the city.

And the escalators at Westbrook are always in repair or down.

[FraserB]

Originally posted by killramos
Does your friend have a good reason as to why their initial estimates were so far off base?

Tunneling under the river and part of downtown is going to cost about $2 billion. If they had decided to go with elevated track instead of the tunnel, they could have used the money saved to finish most of the other portions of the line.

[Shlade]

I can't for the life of me understand why they'd want to tunnel under the bow....

[ZenOps]

Yknow, the only reason they dug the British<>French Chunnel was because it was chalk they were digging through.

If you have to dig through anything harder than chalk it gets exponentially more expensive, sometimes impossible if its mostly iron.

[ianmcc]

Not sure why the city is stuck on the idea of having one continuous Green line crossing the river.
How about a Green Line South that goes travels north and ends at a station on the Impark lot at 2nd and 2nd; have a Green Line North that travels south and ends at the area north of Memorial and west of Center St. with a covered elevated moving sidewalk that crosses the river and connects the two stations. Rough estimate is the walkway would cover 600m or so-not that far and a lot less expensive (and traffic disruptive) than a train bridge or tunnel.

[Xtrema]

Originally posted by ianmcc
Not sure why the city is stuck on the idea of having one continuous Green line crossing the river.
How about a Green Line South that goes travels north and ends at a station on the Impark lot at 2nd and 2nd; have a Green Line North that travels south and ends at the area north of Memorial and west of Center St. with a covered elevated moving sidewalk that crosses the river and connects the two stations. Rough estimate is the walkway would cover 600m or so-not that far and a lot less expensive (and traffic disruptive) than a train bridge or tunnel.

IMO, this sounds horrible for commuters because you are making someone walking 600m over river in -30c. Which is something they don't have to do with 301 right now.

Remember, you are building something that will handle growth in the next 30 years. I have no problem with doing it right. And if all the money we get is to do this portion only, let's do it before money evaporates and fight for the rest when next batch of $ comes.

[ianmcc]

How many people commute from the far SE to the north that would require a straight shot through downtown?
I would think that most of the commuters would get off in the downtown core and, if they don't work downtown would transfer anyway.
And no reason why it couldn't be heated for those overly cold days.

[jwslam]

Originally posted by ianmcc
How many people commute from the far SE to the north that would require a straight shot through downtown?
I would think that most of the commuters would get off in the downtown core and, if they don't work downtown would transfer anyway.
And no reason why it couldn't be heated for those overly cold days.

Must be a south person. You're telling me if I work on 8th Ave SW, coming from the north that my train ride ends north of the river... That's like a 20min walk.

[Xtrema]

Originally posted by ianmcc
How many people commute from the far SE to the north that would require a straight shot through downtown?

Stop thinking LRT is for people in the suburbs.

It is mobility for the inner city first. Suburbs can wait.

Originally posted by jwslam

Must be a south person. You're telling me if I work on 8th Ave SW, coming from the north that my train ride ends north of the river... That's like a 20min walk.

That's exactly my thought.

If you don't like the commute, move closer. Don't expect the city build a 1/2 ass system to cater edges and satellite cities.

[rage2]

Originally posted by Xtrema
Stop thinking LRT is for people in the suburbs.

It is mobility for the inner city first. Suburbs can wait.

But suburbs pay more taxes, and sick of subsidizing inner city.

[ianmcc]

Originally posted by jwslam

Must be a south person. You're telling me if I work on 8th Ave SW, coming from the north that my train ride ends north of the river... That's like a 20min walk.

OMG not 20 minutes! Even if most of it is on a covered moving sidewalk.

Add a bike path option on the moving sidewalk bridge and voila!

[kertejud2]

Originally posted by rage2

But suburbs pay more taxes, and sick of subsidizing inner city.

I had no idea the CBD's tax base was in the suburbs.

[rage2]

Originally posted by kertejud2
I had no idea the CBD's tax base was in the suburbs.

I had no idea that CBD's 6% total municipal tax contributions is paying for the entire city's share of the Green line.

[kertejud2]

Originally posted by rage2

I had no idea that CBD's 6% total municipal tax contributions is paying for the entire city's share of the Green line.

Makes one wonder why we even have commercial taxes in the city at all if the suburban homes are apparently subsidizing everything.

[rage2]

Originally posted by kertejud2
Makes one wonder why we even have commercial taxes in the city at all if the suburban homes are apparently subsidizing everything.

So people like you and the mayor can spin bullshit?

[kertejud2]

Originally posted by rage2

So people like you and the mayor can spin bullshit?

Are you honestly trying to say that the CBD only has 6% of the total municipal tax contribution in the city and not just the residential portion of the tax contribution on the city?

And you're trying to accuse ME of spin?

[rage2]

Originally posted by kertejud2
Are you honestly trying to say that the CBD only has 6% of the total municipal tax contribution in the city and not just the residential portion of the tax contribution on the city?

And you're trying to accuse ME of spin?

References:

Business Tax @ 6% : http://www.calgary.ca/CA/FS/Pages/Ac...enditures.aspx

Thread from 2013 when I only had 1 kid and a boatload of time: http://forums.beyond.ca/showthread.php?threadid=369115

Downtown (Residential + Business tax), basically your CBD + residential in CBD contributes 9% of total tax contributions. But the first link actually breaks down business tax specifically out of property taxes.

So yes, I am saying that. I know the business tax rate is way higher than residential tax rate, but there are a lot more people than businesses and numbers don't lie.

[kertejud2]

Originally posted by rage2

References:

Business Tax @ 6% : http://www.calgary.ca/CA/FS/Pages/Ac...enditures.aspx

Thread from 2013 when I only had 1 kid and a boatload of time: http://forums.beyond.ca/showthread.php?threadid=369115

Downtown (Residential + Business tax), basically your CBD + residential in CBD contributes 9% of total tax contributions. But the first link actually breaks down business tax specifically out of property taxes.

So yes, I am saying that. I know the business tax rate is way higher than residential tax rate, but there are a lot more people than businesses and numbers don't lie.

Business tax and non-residential property tax aren't the same thing.

The CBD losing tenants means you see business tax revenue going down because the buildings are vacant so there aren't businesses to tax. But the buildings themselves still have a property tax assessment that needs to be paid (the non-residential property tax).

This is why, from your link, "Of The City's total revenue sources for the operating budget, property taxes account for approximately 42 per cent. Residential property taxes account for about 20 per cent of The City's operational funding" that means the other 22% of the property taxes making up the 42% of the total operating budget comes from the non-residential source.

So to get downtown's contribution it is residential property tax + non-residential property tax + business tax.

[rage2]

OK fair enough, let's work out the math here to see how much CBD's business contributions are using both business tax as well as business property tax. There's a full breakdown here of residential, non-residential, as well as business tax in terms of assessment value. See Page 5:

http://cocnmp.com/Assessment-Annual-...l%20Report.pdf

I broke it down in a public spreadsheet:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...it?usp=sharing

Column B is the assessed value from the PDF report of residential, non residential, and business tax.

Column C is the tax rates for 2013, found here:

http://www.calgary.ca/CA/fs/Pages/Pr...Tax-Rates.aspx

http://www.calgary.ca/CA/fs/Pages/Bu...istorical.aspx

Column D is the tax contribution in Billion $ for each category.

Column E is the contribution for downtown areas from my spreadsheet:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...it?usp=sharing

For the % contribution, because my spreadsheet (well the city) doesn't break down actual numbers between residential and non-residential, I'm giving you a freebie and using the 8.89% from the communities of Beltline, Chinatown, Downtown Commercial Core, Downtown East Village, Downtown West End, and Eau Claire. That's an even bigger area than CBD. Hey, I'm being generous here.

Column F is the total dollars from my generous CBD in terms of non-residential and business taxes.

Column F is the % of the total. It's even lower, at 5.53%.

Now, time to put the kids to bed before the next rebuttal.

[kertejud2]

Why wouldn't those areas be contributing via the residential property tax anymore? They still exist (Beltline has gone up quite a bit since 2012). If we're just assuming everything is stagnant wouldn't the contribution just remain at 8.89% across the board? Downtown and the Beltline have seen an increase in the number of units, their share wouldn't drop to 0.



But there's also the issue of where the extra $630M+ came from in revenue between 2012 and 2013. But a lot of that could be because your 2012 spreadsheet is missing over $400M in revenue from property and business tax (Page 25)

The City of Calgary 2012 Annual Report


Your spreadsheet is flawed and has been for a long time.