Calgary Transit

[Red Star]

Take the MY every Monday and Wednesday. Its route is frustrating, MT would serve MRU perfectly fine. To be selfish, I live off Flanders and need to take the 20 two stops to 33rd, even then I take it over the milk run that the 7 and 13 do into downtown.

I do think a MY stop at the 20 stop on Flanders would take some ridership off of the 7 and maybe even get people on the bus and out of their car.

A dedicated bus lane on 9th is long overdue. Could also implement priority signaling at some streets to increase ease of crossing 9th to go north into downtown. MY is a solid service that requires only minor tweaks to be great.

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

 

[Joborule]

I took the MAX yellow from the SW to downtown during the morning commute for the first time on Wednesday. I was pretty impressed with the service. The bus-only underpass at 90th Ave. is pretty neat and the bus moves very quickly along Crowchild trail.

There are a couple things I'd change to improve the route:

1. Get rid of the stop at Mount Royal. No one uses it. In my opinion, it's a useless detour and adds about 5 minutes to the commute time to downtown. Students travelling to Mount Royal from the SW can transfer at Heritage or Rockyview BRT station and take the MAX Teal.

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2. Extend the bus only lanes along Bow Trail and 9th Ave. The bus gets stuck in traffic along this street.
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I'm not a transit expert, but I think these changes are not overly costly and will get more people to use the MAX Yellow. My friend in the SW prefers driving to Southland C-train station and taking the C-train to work as it's quicker than the MAX BRT. She lives about a 5-minute walk from a BRT station.

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]

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.

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.