Red Star
Active Member
It's impressive how fast the MY can rip down the shoulders of the freeway. I felt like a rockstar when all the cars were backed up on Crowchild and the bus sailed past them
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Calgary Transit
- Thread starter Always_Biking
- Start date
Joborule
Active Member
In regards of servicing Mount Royal, the purpose of the MAX Yellow is to also provide rapid transit service to downtown for the Currie area whenever that gets built out. It's also intended for MRU students from the NW Red Line & NE Blue Line to transfer from downtown to MRU. Alternatively, NW LRT users could Route 20 from University Station, and NE user could go to Westbrook to grab the MAX Teal.
Playing around with your idea of 'what if' MY was to just stay on Crowchild to speed up it's trip to downtown, I would propose that MRU gets it's Streetcar from Westbrook built to handle Blue Line transfers still. MT would then be rerouted to serve Currie, and then head to downtown to double the frequency and capacity of Crowchild/Downtown rapid transit service. I would also introduce a MAX service that would function as a Route 20 upgrade, originating from Chinook to Brentwood-ish. It would serve Rockyview Hospital, MRU, and the UCalgary/Foothills HUB area. This would give the Crowchild corridor extremely strong transit to essentially go to any of the major destination's in the city. Anywhere that wouldn't be on these routes itself, should mostly be one transfer away.
Red Star
Active Member
I think there-in lies the problem with the MY. It's trying to do too many things.
1. Provide a quick and direct trip to downtown for residents of the SW.
2. Provide service to MRU.
Pick one.
whatchyyc
Active Member
Speaking as someone who takes the MY to work in the SW I don't find the MRU "detour" that bad (I've had full seated load buses empty out at MRU). And of course when it runs straight down the middle of Currie that will be an important connection. It's already so fast for a bus the thing that would improve MY the most would be higher frequencies that put it on par with the CTrain
-Posted on board MAX Yellow
-Posted on board MAX Yellow
Transit Apologist
New Member
MRU is where most weekday MAX Yellow ridership comes from. South of Glenmore the area it serves is not very transit-friendly (having openly protested against SW BRT in the past, and continuing to fight TOD projects such as Glenmore Landing) and that portion of the route sees relatively weak ridership as a result. IMO they only extended it to Woodpark to pick up a little bit more off-peak ridership and clean up the disorganized pre-2019 Southland feeder routes.
Red Star
Active Member
Interesting...I would have never guessed there were so many MRU students living in Woodbine, Cedarbrae and Oakridge.
I still think a transit line should strive to be direct, fast and frequent. My friend that lives close to Southland says it's faster to drive to Southland C-train station and take the Red Line to get to downtown. So that's what she does instead of take the MY.
CBBarnett
Senior Member
You're forgetting the other direction - I'd take a big guess that the daily MRU to Downtown / Downtown to MRU MAX Yellow section is huge ridership compared to the Woodbine to MRU section. Students from everywhere transfer downtown and head back out in the morning form the core.
I understand the "detour" penalty, not sure what should be done about it though in this case. MRU is a huge ridership draw citywide. South of Rockyview, the MAX Yellow is pretty nice but it's all very low density and few true destinations. You'd need a Glenmore Landing-scale TOD (or 10 Glenmore Landings) along that southern stretch to balance out ridership and create something that begins to "outweigh" the benefit of stopping at a popular spot like MRU at the cost of 5 minutes detour.
In the spirit of offering solutions, I'd think a few options would be worth looking at.
Fully separate the bus from the Crowchild/Glenmore/14th nonsense. That's a common delay area and where bus separation and a dedicated lane would often give you back 5 minutes. It can be shared by many routes all struggling with this car-induced bottleneck (MAX Teal, Route 9 etc.). Essentially what I am saying is extend the 14th Street transitway to the part where it's actually super needed - find a way the bus doesn't have to wait for 4 minutes to turn Left NB out of Rockyview, and prevent it from entering the slog that is 14/Glenmore/Crow. What I am suggesting is probably very expensive which is likely why they did the transitway in the second best spot instead of the best spot to begin with.
Would staying on Glenmore save any time? It avoids a left-turn at the interchange, at the expensive of missing 54 Ave Station. Maybe can squeeze a minute or two faster with that approach. The SB journey would still probably make sense to take Mount Royal Gate. May or may not prove out as any time savings here.
This is the tough one. Because we want to hit MRU and a future Currie, we put the Marda Loop stop in an awkward spot. Sucks a lot and forces unnecessary signals for buses today. In the future it won't be better - more travel time within Currie at a slower pace than today (with the expectation this will be worth it because of higher ridership).
Here's what's proposed today. I'd scratch this whole thing and make the Currie people walk a few blocks to save 5 minutes of Marda Loop congestion per route.
Do this instead - Keep the bus on it's current route along Richard Road permanently, merge back onto Crowchild at Flanders. Keep the bus on Crowchild and build the station into 33rd Avenue interchange so the bus never leaves Crowchild again and can stay in shoulder bus lanes the whole way. That would save a ton of potential delays. Currie folks (when they exist in large enough number) would have to walk 5 minutes further but in return everyone, including them, gets to skip a ton of delays and turns.
Lastly, put bus lanes along 9th Avenue the entire way. Reclaim a car sewer choking itself to death at the car buffet and make that Avenue something more efficient for buses at speed and volume.
CalgaryTiger
Senior Member
I second this, I took it to mean riders coming from the SW. I didn't think it would be so full going to MRU from there.
It makes sense it is full coming from downtown in the morning and going into downtown in the afternoon, I don't see that as I'm going the opposite way at those times of day.
darwink
Senior Member
This misses two high schools, which due to the age of the people attending, likely have half as many captive riders as MRU. Plus the ATCO campus.
CBBarnett
Senior Member
Ah good catch - I forgot about Central. Yeah scratch my Glenmore idea.
Red Star
Active Member
I like the proposal!
The only thing I would keep the same is the stations on 33ave. The intersection surprisingly doesn't delay buses that much as there are bus-only queue jump lanes with signal priority.
Although, the MAX "station" on the west side of Crowchild is only a sign and a bench.
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CalgaryTiger
Senior Member
Was looking for more details on the budget adjustments and the news was very high level so I went digging...
$20 Million for planning and partial construction of Anderson, Southland and Fish Creek Transit Oriented Development (TOD) sites seems like something that should be newsworthy. Wasn't the problem with Anderson was that there wasn't the infrastructure to support TOD, seems like that is about to change.
There are other sites being considered. $4.5 Million, wonder many sites they're studying.
Is it only $60 Million for a flyover? Not bad, another $130 Million to get MAX Purple to City limits seems like a lot but maybe that accounts for operation?
$20 Million for planning and partial construction of Anderson, Southland and Fish Creek Transit Oriented Development (TOD) sites seems like something that should be newsworthy. Wasn't the problem with Anderson was that there wasn't the infrastructure to support TOD, seems like that is about to change.
There are other sites being considered. $4.5 Million, wonder many sites they're studying.
Is it only $60 Million for a flyover? Not bad, another $130 Million to get MAX Purple to City limits seems like a lot but maybe that accounts for operation?
Red Star
Active Member
Here...I'll take another kick at the can and see if we can figure it out.
1. Remove the 2km detour and add a 'station' at Flanders Ave. This will probably save 5mins travel time.
Most of the high density development in Garrison Woods will be within a 10 minute walk of the new station.
2. Add a new bus route from MRU that travels to and from downtown. Once it reaches Crowchild trail, it can shadow the MY.
1. Remove the 2km detour and add a 'station' at Flanders Ave. This will probably save 5mins travel time.
Most of the high density development in Garrison Woods will be within a 10 minute walk of the new station.
2. Add a new bus route from MRU that travels to and from downtown. Once it reaches Crowchild trail, it can shadow the MY.
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darwink
Senior Member
The capital cost for the SE BRT extension was estimated at $43 million in 2021, operations costs at -$200k. Now, that it is the all things being equal operations cost, so higher frequency in the interim can throw that number off. So $51 million for the entire package sounds a bit on the low side imo
Extending to city limits was capital cost $71 million and operations cost $2 million in 2021.
Forecast trips 3300 for extension to 88th, an additional 2200 for extension to city limits.
Edit:
Made a sheet for ranking projects at the time:
