University District | ?m | ?s | University of Calgary Properties Group

[trtcttc]

It's unfortunate. I always think of the old expression 'perception is reality' My perception of the train has been fine, but I'm done with trying to convince people it's fine when they have a different perception. All it takes is a bad experience or a story of a bad experience and the damage is done.
My son and I have taken lots of trips on the train over recent years, and this summer he wanted to do a big boy trip with his friends. They decided to take the train from Brentwood to Sunnyside, and then were going to take the bus home from there. As luck would have it there was a physical altercation on the train, and one of the guys in the altercation ended up urinating in the train car. Long story short he's not interested in taking the train again.

This isn't unique to Calgary, and I don't think this will change unless we meaningfully reduce our road network. In Toronto, every person can tell you a story of a problem with the TTC, from delays, replacement busses, crazy people, fights, etc. When I lived downtown Toronto, in a span of 4 years had 2 separate incidents where police with actual rifles boarded the train looking for something/someone, countless encounters with people screaming or removing their clothing on the train, one time the streetcar was filled with flying cotton because a homeless man was ripping the filling out of a bunch of pillow, it looked like it was snowing in the train. But when that happened, most people stayed in the train, because the next train could be 20 mins away (the headway on TO streetcars and extremely inconsistent), and most people either didn't own cars or driving downtown is a nightmare.

In Calgary, transit is almost always slower than driving, outside of maybe the few hours of rush-hour on very specific routes. So when someone has a bad experience, they can just swear off transit and be done with it. Whereas in Toronto, New York, etc. you just have to tough it out because the alternative is slower and more expensive. Some on this forum would argue we should be all transit and stop building so many roads, but I think that is the trade off with the size of city we are. If we are a 8 million city like the GTA then part of that is the need for transit, but you get a more vibrant downtown, bigger concerts, etc.. We're a smaller city and part of that is traffic isn't a nightmare and if you need to drive, you don't have to waste hours in traffic.

 

[zagox]

I do believe that sidewalk is painted now, or it should be but the line just wore off over time. I do agree the Max stop should've been there from day 1, and I'm fairly certain if CTransit wanted a stop there, they could've stopped there from day 1, but they chose not to because the ridership figures weren't there, but that's more of a Transit decision. I don't think walking a bit for transit is considered prioritizing cars over transit. For transit to be efficient, it can't be doing little loops and turns into every stop.

In this example, the infrastructure is not stopping the bus from stopping right at the front door of the hospital, closer than any space in the parkade. Similarly, the new stop is on University Avenue, it is much faster to walk from the bus stop to most destinations than using the underground parkade and take the stairs/elevator up. Drivers feel similarly, which is why the street parking is almost always full, while the parkade has lots of space.

The bus could easily turn into to the hospital front door, or stop in the U/D parkade, but Transit chooses not to do that because that slows down the BRT, and part of transit efficiency is well spaced stops. I agree transit has a long way to go in Calgary, but the choices in this case has nothing to do with cars vs transit and is simply the reality of running an efficient transit system.

If the road network, the hospital, and the movie theatre were designed with transit in mind, there would be no tradeoff required.

Because the hospital entrance is set back 200m from the main street, it can’t be accessed directly by the BRT.

Because the road network has been laid out to move private cars rather than buses efficiently through the site, the BRT is slower than cars to access it.

Because the movie theatre has no provision for a BRT waiting area inside the lobby, it will be worse to access by bus than by car on a cold night.

As built, there are operational tradeoffs and it cannot be improved much.

What would great transit and cycling look like for this site? Probably more like the university itself - a core walking-only area with cars parked along the edges, and no through-access roads for cars. Maybe a BRT only Main Street oriented to go directly from the hospital towards the c-train. Or let’s get crazy and build the neighborhood around a gondola with direct connection to the LRT. Lots of options.

What was delivered is fine, it’s better than its surroundings, but it’s not special.

 

[DiscoStu]

It's unfortunate. I always think of the old expression 'perception is reality' My perception of the train has been fine, but I'm done with trying to convince people it's fine when they have a different perception. All it takes is a bad experience or a story of a bad experience and the damage is done.
My son and I have taken lots of trips on the train over recent years, and this summer he wanted to do a big boy trip with his friends. They decided to take the train from Brentwood to Sunnyside, and then were going to take the bus home from there. As luck would have it there was a physical altercation on the train, and one of the guys in the altercation ended up urinating in the train car. Long story short he's not interested in taking the train again.

I'm sorry that happened to your son. As you say, perception is reality...and while it takes years to build up a good reputation, it only takes one bad incident to ruin it.

I used to be a heavy CT user from high school all the way through college (so a good 7 year stretch from the late 90s-00s), often through downtown... and I honestly don't remember anything particularly unruly happening, aside from the odd drunk or mouthy teen. I'm only an occasional rider these days, but there is definitely a sketchier vibe, especially around the stations. I have a decade of NY transit experience under my belt (which let's face it is a whole different level of crazy), so I'm still ok riding on it by myself...but it's also important to acknowledge that the perspective is different for a grown man compared to someone who's more vulnerable...seniors, women, kids etc. If I'm feeling things are sketchy, chances are it's much worse from their perspective.

If there's one case of "Tokyo vibes" I really wish we had in NA, it's how safe, clean, and civilized their subways are. You see elementary school kids riding it by themselves and it seems perfectly reasonable to do so. I wish we had that.