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Calgary Regional Rail Transit

Finally, there’s actually some money being thrown at this! Hope it isn’t going to be studied to death and we will get moving on this sooner rather than later!

livewirecalgary.com

Study coming on Calgary downtown to airport rail link

The province is moving ahead with the City of Calgary to identify an ideal route to connect the downtown with the international airport via rail. During the last provincial budget, the province ear…
livewirecalgary.com livewirecalgary.com

Study coming on Calgary downtown to airport rail link. Results are expected to come in August 2024, a news release read.

ByDarren Krause


The province is moving ahead with the City of Calgary to identify an ideal route to connect the downtown with the international airport via rail.

During the last provincial budget, the province earmarked $3 million for further investigation into the link. Now, the Calgary Airport Rail Connection study is set to recruit an engineering consultant to do a technical study.

This will all be done in partnership with the Canada Infrastructure Bank, the Calgary International Airport, Canadian Pacific Kansas City (CPKC) and other private rail developers with plans to connect Calgary with other regions…..
 
YYCguy said:
Finally, there’s actually some money being thrown at this! Hope it isn’t going to be studied to death and we will get moving on this sooner rather than later!

livewirecalgary.com

Study coming on Calgary downtown to airport rail link

The province is moving ahead with the City of Calgary to identify an ideal route to connect the downtown with the international airport via rail. During the last provincial budget, the province ear…
livewirecalgary.com livewirecalgary.com

Study coming on Calgary downtown to airport rail link. Results are expected to come in August 2024, a news release read.

ByDarren Krause


The province is moving ahead with the City of Calgary to identify an ideal route to connect the downtown with the international airport via rail.

During the last provincial budget, the province earmarked $3 million for further investigation into the link. Now, the Calgary Airport Rail Connection study is set to recruit an engineering consultant to do a technical study.

This will all be done in partnership with the Canada Infrastructure Bank, the Calgary International Airport, Canadian Pacific Kansas City (CPKC) and other private rail developers with plans to connect Calgary with other regions…..
Click to expand...
Interesting development, Liricon Capital (YYC-Banff train) are now proposing to the city/province that their train from Banff, would now stop at the airport, and then also continue to the current Blue Line Terminus station. Basically, they are proposing that their train serves as the connection to Calgary transit from the Airport, rather than the city building a separate link or extending the blue line.

https://calgaryherald.com/news/local-news/calgary-downtown-to-airport-rail-link-study

Quote from the article:
“The Calgary Airport Banff Rail extension to Blue Line will provide a superior service at a small fraction of the cost relative to a potential Calgary Transit Blue Line connector,” Liricon Partner Jan Waterous said in a June 5 letter to regional mayors.
 
Nawads said:
Interesting development, Liricon Capital (YYC-Banff train) are now proposing to the city/province that their train from Banff, would now stop at the airport, and then also continue to the current Blue Line Terminus station. Basically, they are proposing that their train serves as the connection to Calgary transit from the Airport, rather than the city building a separate link or extending the blue line.

https://calgaryherald.com/news/local-news/calgary-downtown-to-airport-rail-link-study

Quote from the article:
“The Calgary Airport Banff Rail extension to Blue Line will provide a superior service at a small fraction of the cost relative to a potential Calgary Transit Blue Line connector,” Liricon Partner Jan Waterous said in a June 5 letter to regional mayors.
Click to expand...

I am very skeptical that heavy rail directly to the terminal is going to be the best solution, either on the west or east approach.

In terms of the claim of "superior service," heavy rail to the terminal will deliver a very business/tourist friendly one-seat ride downtown. However, most transit trips to the airport are people working at the airport, and/or parking in remote lots near the airport and connecting to the terminal. Airport workers and remote lot parkers are much better off with a frequent people mover.

The claim of "small fraction of the cost" also doesn't make sense to me. There are a ton of grade changes, sharp corners, and constrained rights-of-way along the corridor. The people mover that the City proposed will require much lighter bridges and can accomodate much tighter turns, and it would likely be fully automated, reducing operational costs. It doesn't make basic engineering sense that heavy rail would be cheaper, let alone a "small fraction of the cost".
 
Nawads said:
Interesting development, Liricon Capital (YYC-Banff train) are now proposing to the city/province that their train from Banff, would now stop at the airport, and then also continue to the current Blue Line Terminus station. Basically, they are proposing that their train serves as the connection to Calgary transit from the Airport, rather than the city building a separate link or extending the blue line.

https://calgaryherald.com/news/local-news/calgary-downtown-to-airport-rail-link-study

Quote from the article:
“The Calgary Airport Banff Rail extension to Blue Line will provide a superior service at a small fraction of the cost relative to a potential Calgary Transit Blue Line connector,” Liricon Partner Jan Waterous said in a June 5 letter to regional mayors.
Click to expand...
Interestingly, in that same CH article, Liricon is proposing a separate study be jointly financed by them and the province and to be completed with a three month timeline! Why would theirs take only three months to complete versus the province/city study of 1+ year?
 
I'm imagining a single track of heavy rail with long headways. It seems like that would get you a great one seat ride to downtown and Banff, but an utterly crappy connection to the blue line (and green line in the future).

The people mover seems like a better plan. This is basically what NY/JFK does with the AirTrain.
 
I'd caution interpretation at this point. As various constraints have become clear, it may have become apparent that using the same technology for YYC-Downtown (frequency 15 minutes or better) and Downtown-Banff (frequency 120 minutes or better) is a mistake.

Lets see where this goes. Maybe we end up with an automated light metro from 88th and 60th, to the airport, then to downtown.
 
Nawads said:
Interesting development, Liricon Capital (YYC-Banff train) are now proposing to the city/province that their train from Banff, would now stop at the airport, and then also continue to the current Blue Line Terminus station. Basically, they are proposing that their train serves as the connection to Calgary transit from the Airport, rather than the city building a separate link or extending the blue line.

https://calgaryherald.com/news/local-news/calgary-downtown-to-airport-rail-link-study

Quote from the article:
“The Calgary Airport Banff Rail extension to Blue Line will provide a superior service at a small fraction of the cost relative to a potential Calgary Transit Blue Line connector,” Liricon Partner Jan Waterous said in a June 5 letter to regional mayors.
Click to expand...
None of this makes any sense; it's tying two bad and one good project together; they each have completely different requirements, both technically and in terms of what is needed; the only common themes are that they look vaguely similar if you don't know much and squint, and that there's apparently money from the Province for them (or at least for studies). I'm looking forward to Liricon's next study to be whether the Flames could play on the train.
 
Conspiracy take: the proponents simply have a better grift relationship with Danielle's UCP than they did with Kenney's, and are finding some more immediate ways to exploit it through these new studies...
 
Nawads said:
Interesting development, Liricon Capital (YYC-Banff train) are now proposing to the city/province that their train from Banff, would now stop at the airport, and then also continue to the current Blue Line Terminus station. Basically, they are proposing that their train serves as the connection to Calgary transit from the Airport, rather than the city building a separate link or extending the blue line.

https://calgaryherald.com/news/local-news/calgary-downtown-to-airport-rail-link-study

Quote from the article:
“The Calgary Airport Banff Rail extension to Blue Line will provide a superior service at a small fraction of the cost relative to a potential Calgary Transit Blue Line connector,” Liricon Partner Jan Waterous said in a June 5 letter to regional mayors.
Click to expand...
This seems like more politics and posturing from the Liricon group, reading between the lines I am guessing they sense a risk in losing their vision/seat at the table of the Banff to Airport single-seat proposal if a YYC to Downtown connector uses a different technology and design approach. I don't see how it would make sense to use a heavy rail/long range train to Banff for the shuttle function to the Blue Line LRT.

I am also wondering if the Liricon group is getting iced out or demoted a bit in the organization of all this work - I have always thought they were in a bit awkward place as key stakeholder for the station lands in Banff and an obviously loud advocate to the train, but then continued to be pretty heavily involved in more technical studies, technology specific promises (e.g. talking multiple times about a hydrogen train) and station design/layout stuff they really didn't have any control over (e.g. those sloppy renderings of the terminal proposal).

I hope this round of studies is the last and they start producing quality infrastructure rather than reports saying how great quality infrastructure would be to have.
 
The thing about more studies is maybe they will produce different results from the last study. Here's the summary table for the 2019 Rail to Banff study:
1689273132670.png


Comparing the medium case for bus and rail, the bus alternative provides:
  • 84% of the ridership
  • 1% of the capital cost
  • 22% of the operating subsidy cost
  • reduced greenhouse gas emissions, rather than substantially increased emissions
It's a pretty obvious home run, and could be implemented basically immediately. For $9M in capital cost; we're now devoting 1/3 of that to one study on one hypothetical part of a rail system.

Is the government not interested in prudent spending of the public dollar? They sure talked about that a lot a couple of months ago.
Are the supporters of mass transit to Banff interested in increasing or reducing GHG emissions? (We'd have to implement the buses twice just to offset the impact of implementing the rail once!)

The possible explanations are not very flattering.
 
ByeByeBaby said:
The thing about more studies is maybe they will produce different results from the last study. Here's the summary table for the 2019 Rail to Banff study:
View attachment 492060

Comparing the medium case for bus and rail, the bus alternative provides:
  • 84% of the ridership
  • 1% of the capital cost
  • 22% of the operating subsidy cost
  • reduced greenhouse gas emissions, rather than substantially increased emissions
It's a pretty obvious home run, and could be implemented basically immediately. For $9M in capital cost; we're now devoting 1/3 of that to one study on one hypothetical part of a rail system.

Is the government not interested in prudent spending of the public dollar? They sure talked about that a lot a couple of months ago.
Are the supporters of mass transit to Banff interested in increasing or reducing GHG emissions? (We'd have to implement the buses twice just to offset the impact of implementing the rail once!)

The possible explanations are not very flattering.
Click to expand...
Buses are not cool or sexy. Trains are cool and sexy. I'm honestly shocked the city built the infrastructure they did for BRT and we've seen the success of the BRT while the Green Line has Green Line'd time and time again. Even though I know it isn't, a bus also feels like a half measure. A train feels permanent and the psychology of that has to play a factor.

Maybe I'm scarred by the existing bus service to the airport. If that was properly done rather than it taking the milk run up centre I'd have more faith in a bus service.
 
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YYCguy said:
Finally, there’s actually some money being thrown at this! Hope it isn’t going to be studied to death and we will get moving on this sooner rather than later!

livewirecalgary.com

Study coming on Calgary downtown to airport rail link

The province is moving ahead with the City of Calgary to identify an ideal route to connect the downtown with the international airport via rail. During the last provincial budget, the province ear…
livewirecalgary.com livewirecalgary.com

Study coming on Calgary downtown to airport rail link. Results are expected to come in August 2024, a news release read.

ByDarren Krause


The province is moving ahead with the City of Calgary to identify an ideal route to connect the downtown with the international airport via rail.

During the last provincial budget, the province earmarked $3 million for further investigation into the link. Now, the Calgary Airport Rail Connection study is set to recruit an engineering consultant to do a technical study.

This will all be done in partnership with the Canada Infrastructure Bank, the Calgary International Airport, Canadian Pacific Kansas City (CPKC) and other private rail developers with plans to connect Calgary with other regions…..
Click to expand...

LRT would be a nice option for me to get to work. I live close to Heritage Station. I'd love to see it happen but I'm not holding my breath. Hopefully the Airport Authority and taxi mafia don't stand in the way.
 
christopherplace said:
Trains are better experiences for everyone involved.

Alberta is spending 2 billion dollars on highways over the next 3 years.

We can afford to spend a fraction of that on a transportation solution that is better in every way.

Those ridership stats are bullshit. Taking a train is superior and much easier to explain to tourists. Buses fucking suck, no one likes buses.
Click to expand...

I stand by my statement; the possible explanations for choosing the option that costs a hundred times more and gives worse results are not very flattering. The strongest arguments are "trains are cool", which I'd be pretty fine with if an 8 year old were planning a transportation system, and "Buses fucking suck", which sounds like his older brother angry he can't borrow the car.

Sure would be nice to have the grownups in charge.
 
That study i think was a bit, what would you say, basic?

I think the rail journey has the potential to be celebrated as one of the most affordable and iconic in the world. I think they really missed the tourist market and why wouldn’t they — not really a tourist consultancy! And the study was only downtown to Banff, missing great synergies.

I’m not saying that if money for buses were available that we shouldn’t do it. But that in this instance money for buses might not be available but way more money for rail would be.
 
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