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Calgary Transit

Looking back now, would've been nice to have the Red Line go by both Foothills Hospital and Mac Hall on the main campus. Have swing west over by Market mall on it's way to Crowchild could've also opened the opportunity for a station inside University District.

Hope that a gondola system does get built to give coverage to those part of the university area.
 
Joborule said:
Looking back now, would've been nice to have the Red Line go by both Foothills Hospital and Mac Hall on the main campus. Have swing west over by Market mall on it's way to Crowchild could've also opened the opportunity for a station inside University District.

Hope that a gondola system does get built to give coverage to those part of the university area.
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Transit thrives when it's connected to large, walkable destinations - it's less effective when it services highway medians. Over time some TOD will mitigate the mistakes of the highway alignments (through creating more destinations), but the NW hub is a tough nut to crack due to the ad-hoc layout of all the institutions making them difficult to service.

Calgary's limited number and location of major institutions is a weakness from a transit perspective. There's little for a transit line to "aim for" as institutions are spread had-hazardly, far apart and generally car-oriented - sprawl. Green Line has this problem - the South Hospital is a great thing to connect to transit. But to get there you need nearly 25km of transit line.
  • Major Post-secondary: good connectivity overall - with U of C transit access being shoved far away from the centre of activity but still good service. MRU not accessible by rapid transit.
  • Major Hospitals: only 1/4 hospitals are accessible by rapid transit (by a long, pedestrian unfriendly walk to PLC from Whitehorn Station)
  • Major Malls: The Core is the only major one with full integration rapid transit station. Chinook has put some effort on the pedestrian experience but it's still a walk. Sunridge and South Centre are close to stations but require long circuitous walks through parking lots and over major roads. For a small malls, North Hill is pretty connected; Westbrook, not so much.
  • Airport: Route 300 is great while we debate a rapid link in the future; but it's no where near fast enough and stops a ton of times on the way to and back from the airport. It's nowhere close to rapid or express level of service.
Transit tries to plug these gaps (MAX BRT for example) but the real issue is land use and investment patterns of many provincial institutions in previous decades. It shouldn't be possible to build a major high school, university campus or health care facility without locating it on existing or near-future rapid transit.
 
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The city has plans to extend the blue line to 85th street SW and the Red line down to Silverado & 210 street SW. I was wondering if these expansions are on hold until the green line phase 1 is complete?
 
ThujaPlicata said:
The city has plans to extend the blue line to 85th street SW and the Red line down to Silverado & 210 street SW. I was wondering if these expansions are on hold until the green line phase 1 is complete?
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Last year prioritization of non greenline projects failed due to council infighting over the greenline.
 
If I had to guess, next thing we'll see is prioritization of a blue line extension NE to allow the airport link to be launched. This can be done after Green Line Stage 1 - Segment 1 construction launches and before they're ready to go back to the market for Green Line Stage 1 - Segment 2. Then I think we'll see Green Line Stage 2 launched either at the same time as Segment 2 or closely there after followed by the launch of the airport rail link from the Blue Line to the terminal. That pretty much takes us into the mid 2030s for major rail investments.
 
The logical plan. With some BRT projects added in. Basically what I wrote for the Jan Damery 'Network 2030' election piece. Too bad that campaign didn't have the window to take off. Alas, most of the things will still be done :)
 
ThujaPlicata said:
The city has plans to extend the blue line to 85th street SW
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The Blue Line to 85th SW, that project has a pretty bad cost benefit as conceptualized. I bet it is rejigged overtime. Blue Line to airport trail much better.

I believe Red Line South can only happen after the downtown tunnel for the red line is completed, and the upgrades at Heritage Drive to allow for 5 car trains or much more frequent 4 car trains.
 
darwink said:
I believe Red Line South can only happen after the downtown tunnel for the red line is completed, and the upgrades at Heritage Drive to allow for 5 car trains or much more frequent 4 car trains.
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Is the 8th Avenue tunnel still on the table? Reading from the November 2020 RouteAhead report it seems like it won't be in consideration for 20-30 years with the expectation that the Green Line will reduce need in the interim.

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SPC on Transportation and Transit - November 17, 2020

pub-calgary.escribemeetings.com pub-calgary.escribemeetings.com
 
Did anyone else notice that they completed the installation of the transit-only left turn signal on 5th Ave and Centre St in the far right lane?

I remember someone suggesting it on here or SSP back in the day. It was a simple and effective solution to relieve all of the congestion from buses trying to make a left turn on Centre Street during rush hour.

Anyways, koodos to whoever suggested it! And glad that the city actually implemented it!
 
Colinfill said:
Did anyone else notice that they completed the installation of the transit-only left turn signal on 5th Ave and Centre St in the far right lane?

I remember someone suggesting it on here or SSP back in the day. It was a simple and effective solution to relieve all of the congestion from buses trying to make a left turn on Centre Street during rush hour.

Anyways, koodos to whoever suggested it! And glad that the city actually implemented it!
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Drove past it yesterday! I imagine it is part of the initial Green Line North BRT work initiated some time ago, but haven't seen it in any planning docs.
 
darwink said:
I believe Red Line South can only happen after the downtown tunnel for the red line is completed, and the upgrades at Heritage Drive to allow for 5 car trains or much more frequent 4 car trains.
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Does anyone know the capacity of the current Red Line without any infrastructure upgrades? Granted 7th Avenue interlining is the ultimate bottleneck on the system, what's our current passengers per hour per direction (pphpd)?

I might be mis-remembering, but I vaguely recall a time (mid-2000s) where the LRT system had more ridership than the Skytrain and the Red Line had near/higher capacity to the Expo Line.

Of course, lots has changed since then, with the Expo Line continuously improved capacity and is now somewhere around 15,000 - 20,000 pphpd. Similarly Vancouver's many high-quality extensions such as the Canada Line has now vastly out-paced C-Train ridership overall. While costly to start, the automation and grade-separation of the Skytrain does keep a much higher level of service and on-time performance as well.

I'd be curious to know the utlimate capacity differences between all the major systems in Canada to see how the LRT compares.
 
CBBarnett said:
Does anyone know the capacity of the current Red Line without any infrastructure upgrades? Granted 7th Avenue interlining is the ultimate bottleneck on the system, what's our current passengers per hour per direction (pphpd)?
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There's an old study from 2006 that claims 7th Avenue could theoretically handle a peak of 36 trains per hour in one direction. But that was back when they wanted to connect both the NC and SE LRT to 7th Avenue from the East. It could be a case of "Situating the appreciation", assuming factors to get to the conclusion that having the 4 highest ridership lines enter DT from the same direction would work.

https://www.calgarytransit.com/content/dam/transit/about-calgary-transit/reports/lrt/downtown_final_report.pdf

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