Calgary Transit

[CalgaryTiger]

Live Wire did a good article on this (they're great and really my go to for Calgary news).

Calgary to Banff rail group says it will foot route construction costs if the province builds an airport-to-downtown track

The group behind a Calgary to Banff passenger rail line said they’ll pay for that whole route if the province comes through with an express rail route from the airport to Calgary’s downtown. …

livewirecalgary.com

It mentions a little more detail I didn't know, or forgot, about The rail master plan: Alberta’s regional rail master plan is right now with a consultant, according to their passenger rail webpage. That is to include a 15-year delivery plan that provides options and recommendations to the government.

So if it comes out in 2025, the plan's time frame would be from 2025-2040... Interesting, how much can you get done in 15 years if it will take that long to do a 7-stop Green Line?

Article says (I paraphrase) about the Airport that the City of Calgary and the Government of Alberta began a study to determine the optimal rail connection and route between downtown Calgary and the Calgary International Airport, that report is expected this fall, so the picture gets clearer soon.

The article's writer makes a good point: It’s not clear at this time if the proposed express passenger rail is in addition to this tie into Calgary Transit, or if it’s separate. It’s also not clear if an express passenger rail built and operated by the province is to replace a Blue Line extension and airport connector line.

There's a lot of different ideas going on here, which I assume the City and Provincial study (fall 2024) and the Rail Plan (spring 2025) will clear up.

Personally, I'd like to see the different private proposals go away in favor of a single, unified provincial rail network, with an Automated connection to the YYC Terminal. There are just too many problems with multiple privately operated trains versus the public option, at least to get the service off the ground. It might not be a single seat ride but it should be a single ticket.

I'd like to see (eventually, not by 2040):

High Speed Rail between Calgary, Red Deer, and Edmonton; the rail right-of-way once you get west of 15 Street SE in Inglewood is difficult but maybe CPKC or whoever owns that track can sell you one track of right-of-way?

Slower (Commuter) Rail out of Calgary's Central Station (not sure it will be so 'Grand') to Banff (through Cochrane and Canmore), Strathmore (through Chestermere), Olds (through Airdrie, Crossfield, Carstairs and Didsbury) and Nanton (through Okotoks and High River).

Automated train between YYC, Slower Rail station and Blue Line. Eventually you can connect it to the Green Line (in the year 2100).

You'd minimize the train types to three, perhaps they can operate on the same type of track, with the exception of the automated train.

 

[GoVertical]

A bit disappointed in the trip length (~45 minutes) for anyone going end-to-end as it's not competitive to driving (15 minutes), but it's that balance between providing service along the way or operating a true express shuttle. Another issues that's painfully obvious with this kind of route is that buses need to leave the high-speed roads to access the bus bays at the Red Line, the result is circuitous and winding routes to get to the LRT, and not able to take advantage of the expressway fully which cars can easily. A way for a bus to quickly get to Tuscany station from Crowchild and back onto Crowchild again would save significant time.

Part of me wonders if CT is trying this route just to see if there's demand for this. Either way I agree that's a ridiculous amount of time but I'm glad to see they're still trying something new in existing neighborhoods. So I guess we'll see..

 

[whatchyyc]

One thing that I think could be cool about the Green-Blue connector line (if it does end up being interoperable heavy rail) is serving deep NC/NE customers to get downtown quickly while freeing up capacity on the green and blue lines. Would imo add to the value and justify those service levels

 

[accord1999]

Their release mentions the airport train stops at a Beltline station as well a few times so there should be another option to board downtown outside of the Grand Central station in East Village. It will just be a 20 minute wait for a Liricon train instead of a 4 (!) minute wait for a province train from the Grand Central station if going out to the airport. On that note, surely running a train every 4 minutes as mentioned is way more regular than what this service would need to start out with?

Yeah, that's a really high frequency. Green Line Stage 1 when it was still 16th-Shepard and an expected daily ridership of 55K-65K only ordered enough LRVs for 8 minute headways.

 

[CalgaryTiger]

What are people thoughts on electric buses? Chris Nelson with the Herald is water skiing on the wake of the Green Line to bash all city transit procurement.

Nelson: City charges ahead into electric bus lottery

Despite all the problems our friends in Edmonton discovered with their electric buses Calgary City Hall keeps charging ahead.

calgaryherald.com

Are there no other city's that use electric buses? Just because Edmonton has issues with a company that has filed for bankruptcy does mean we'll be in the same boat. Personally I drive an electric car, can you go as far in the winter as you do in the summer? No, you make adjustments and plan charging. The maintenance is next to zero, In four years I've been to the dealer to replace windshield wipers and an air filter, that is it.

 

[CBBarnett]

What are people thoughts on electric buses? Chris Nelson with the Herald is water skiing on the wake of the Green Line to bash all city transit procurement.

Nelson: City charges ahead into electric bus lottery

Despite all the problems our friends in Edmonton discovered with their electric buses Calgary City Hall keeps charging ahead.

calgaryherald.com

Are there no other city's that use electric buses? Just because Edmonton has issues with a company that has filed for bankruptcy does mean we'll be in the same boat. Personally I drive an electric car, can you go as far in the winter as you do in the summer? No, you make adjustments and plan charging. The maintenance is next to zero, In four years I've been to the dealer to replace windshield wipers and an air filter, that is it.

I think Calgary Transit is balancing a few things here - having a mixed fuel fleet is pretty smart (diesel, electric, CNG), as you can hedge all the different factors that go into how much busses cost to buy, operate and maintain. Choice limited in suppliers in one type of bus? Buy from another. Diesel fuel spikes? Put more kilometres on the battery busses.

All technologies come with pros-and-cons. A big pro in this case is that the Feds are picking up the bill for new electric buses. Labour is still likely the biggest cost, so it doesn't matter what busses you buy, you still need drivers.

I - much like Chris Nelson - have no clue the similarities or differences between Edmonton's procurement strategy and Calgary's bus procurement strategy so comments about how each will perform are just speculation.

But to get actually serious about electric buses - trolley busses are the way to go. A proven technology for like 100 years, no worries about battery life. Sure it's a bit more capital and people "hate wires" but makes your busses clean and quiet without any risk of new tech hiccups.

 

[trtcttc]

What are people thoughts on electric buses? Chris Nelson with the Herald is water skiing on the wake of the Green Line to bash all city transit procurement.

Nelson: City charges ahead into electric bus lottery

Despite all the problems our friends in Edmonton discovered with their electric buses Calgary City Hall keeps charging ahead.

calgaryherald.com

Are there no other city's that use electric buses? Just because Edmonton has issues with a company that has filed for bankruptcy does mean we'll be in the same boat. Personally I drive an electric car, can you go as far in the winter as you do in the summer? No, you make adjustments and plan charging. The maintenance is next to zero, In four years I've been to the dealer to replace windshield wipers and an air filter, that is it.

Toronto piloted Electric busses from Proterra, BYD, New Flyer, and Nova and are going ahead with Nova and New Flyer. Rode them a few times, and basically just quieter from a rider perspective. From our pilot I think they are replacing the community shuttles with electric, not the standard size busses. There's more risk in that since there's not a lot of established players.

If the feds program also apply to Hybrids, I think that's a much better investment at the moment, replacing the old diesel ones with hybrids. Battery technology is still rapidly developing, and Calgary's operating environment is not ideal - cold and inconsistent weather makes scheduling difficult. Makes no sense to buy a bunch of Electric busses that can't operate their share of the service (Edmonton's experience). Hybrids are especially useful for busses since they are constantly stopping and accelerating.

 

[Nawads]

Toronto piloted Electric busses from Proterra, BYD, New Flyer, and Nova and are going ahead with Nova and New Flyer. Rode them a few times, and basically just quieter from a rider perspective. From our pilot I think they are replacing the community shuttles with electric, not the standard size busses. There's more risk in that since there's not a lot of established players.

If the feds program also apply to Hybrids, I think that's a much better investment at the moment, replacing the old diesel ones with hybrids. Battery technology is still rapidly developing, and Calgary's operating environment is not ideal - cold and inconsistent weather makes scheduling difficult. Makes no sense to buy a bunch of Electric busses that can't operate their share of the service (Edmonton's experience). Hybrids are especially useful for busses since they are constantly stopping and accelerating.

I think its massively underrated how much better the quite electric busses are. Walking on a sidewalk downtown and a bus that goes right by you in the lane is so loud, way louder than other cars. I'd love to see electric buses mainly used on routes with busy sidewalks, where they also improve the pedestrian experience.