Calgary's $8 BILLION Transit Plan - The RouteAhead
 

This deserves its own thread:

Council today reviewed the first cut at an $8 Billion 30 year Rapid Transit Plan. It's part of a comprehensive strategic plan for Calgary - The RouteAhead.

It's not only a network plan, it also looks at customer service, fiscal sustainability, governance and organization of Calgary Transit and service delivery objectives.

www.routeahead.ca

http://metronews.ca/uncategorized/373507/calgary-council-embarks-on-8b-transit-plan/

Here's the draft proposed RouteAhead Network Plan.

http://metronewsca.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/transit-map-web.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v311/joshwhit/RouteAhead2.jpg

The goal of the plan is not only to craft a new direction for the service, but also to highlight the need for a funding solution - $8 billion is a lot of money, and there's no current funding solution in partnership with the Provincial and Federal Governments. Transit represents by far the largest infrastructure need for cities.

What do you think of the routes? Discuss.

Overall, a good step. Unity in vision is prerequisite to funding, and planning around ROWs should minimize construction costs and maximize system utilization. That said, without some kind of major adjustment in access to revenue this will take a long, long time. I would argue that nearly all of the proposals are already needed in 2012.

I like that they left the routes deliberately vague, focusing more on nodes and travel direction than alignment. However, in several cases alignment will have a significant effect on cost, and on connection to the next node (ie. UofC/Foothills). I'm curious to see what becomes of the West Campus as well, as it may play a vital role. First things first, let's get a few billion so we can start SELRT.

Also, I'm glad to see SELRT/NCLRT cohesion in writing. The thought of anything else was keeping me up at night.

Why is there no cross-town route in the South, linking the future SE Line, to the South Line at Shawnessey, and then continuing on to the future area of Providence? The draft Providence ASP is planned entirely around a future BRT line running through the heart of that community, yet it does not appear here?

Discouraging to see that the subway, out of all the projects in this plan, is the one that is planned to be built furthest in the future.

Always great to see this work going ahead. Kudos to the Route Ahead team. More thoughts will be forthcoming (watch our TransitCamp blog).

What I do like, which isn't explained well in the map, is the idea of keeping things technology neutral and prioritizing "upgrades" based on a set of several criteria (ridership, operational savings, cost of infrastructure, connections to other routes etc). I honestly think both the north crosstown (16th avenue) and the south crosstown (MRU/Heritage) routes could eventually be upgraded to rail based on the number of large employment centres they serve. I wouldn't want to preclude that at all.

This may be a stupid question, but what is a transitway?

Dedicated, separate infrastructure for transit. Ideally that means regardless of the actual means, whether it's bus, LRT, tram, etc. In this case it's pretty heavily implied to mean a bus-only road, which I think is totally 'meh'.

But it is also a bus only road that can be converted easily to rail.

Here is a search for Ottawa transit way pictures to give you an idea:
http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&q=otta...og&sa=N&tab=wi&ei=cZVYUJXzHaO8igKMj4CgAQ

Basically it is like 7th avenue except drop the LRT. Only the buses & police/emerg. vehicles can use the transit way.

Regarding the map, I note that the NC and SE LRT's go through downtown on the East side, which might be the best compromise (though I recognize it is just a place holder). As East Village develops, there may be more and more employment hubs on that end, and there is the free service on 7th ave anyway.

I'm happy this version of the plan doesn't have a cross-town at Shawnessey. There is just too much sprawl in the South. A station at 210ave south - unbelievable!

What is that extra red blip on airport trail? Is that because they are still considering making the LRT connection all the way across from NE to NC? I sure hope so.

What is an HOV corridor as opposed to a transit way? Are they still considering a gondola for Foothills Hospital?

It's essentially a product of falsely labelling non-BRT as BRT because they wrongly allocated the name. I can not stress enough how big of a blunder it is and will more so be in the future to have and to continue to label what isn't BRT as BRT. It may seem trivial, but all that it does is relegate a service whose original aim, for all intents and purposes, was to mimic high capacity and rapid rail services as best as possible at a lower capital cost, to that of what is effectively an express bus. The corresponding perception will follow as such and diminishes the would be (would have been) abillity for these systems to overcome the proverbial "rail bias."

The false labelling of these systems slowly lowers their credibility and level of service perception on the whole. True BRT is Bogota, Curitiba, Istanbul, Jakarta, Ahmedabad etc.

That's what I figured, thanks guys. I think a transitway is a great idea for how to phase the SELRT, buy up the land required and build the ROW with busses running on it until money is available to build the LRT.

I also agree about the sentiments about the lack of a cross town route in the south, that's something that should definitely be included IMO.

Also, what kind of connection will the LRT have to the future HSR?

What's up with the "North Crosstown" route?

It seems to run along 16th Ave N as it passes through a transfer point called "16 Ave/Centre Street N", but somehow does not connect with the 305 which also runs on 16 Ave N. It also shows it going to "UofC" which is a fair distance further north. It also doesn't show connections with either of the NW or NE LRT, which seems odd.

I realize it's just a "draft", but I think the design of this route needs clarification/improvement.

delete

305 doesn't really run on 16th Ave N, does it?

I think the 800 lb gorrilla in the room that nobody is addressing is that regardless of the fact that you add a 4th car to the train and run them every 5 minutes, without an express system, you have major inefficiency in the system. Since the vast majority of people along the entire systems are heading to the core, the further this city sprawls, the faster and faster the trains fill up rendering them useless to commuters closer to the core.

I'm disappointed to see that despite massive public opposition over the last 20 years, they are still trying to push the "bridge over Edworthy Park" thing.

When will they realize that wrecking an important natural area is not acceptable to save 10 minutes on a commute? Attention Planners: The public does not want this. Stop!

We do not have a "rapid transit" system in Calgary. Why does this word keep getting tossed around?

Who said anything about a bridge?

Considered, but streetcars are not considered Rapid Transit (unless we decide to give them a dedicated ROW) and thus aren't part of this particular map. Doesn't mean they shouldn't/won't eventually be built however.