Quote:
Originally Posted by cabasse
cough *calgary*
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Transit in Calgary in 1980, before it finished building LRT, had around 50 million linked trips annually, which is around 75 million unlinked trips, around 2.5 times higher than Austin has today.
Calgary's ridership has doubled since 1981, it's population has also doubled since 1981.
Calgary's transit ridership has not grown any faster as the result of LRT. Calgary built LRT because the ridership was already high, too high for buses, not because it was low. Their ridership was already growing very well before it built LRT, 25 percent from 1975 to 1980, from 39 million to 50 million. The ridership actually fell significantly immediately after it built LRT, from around 53 million 1981 to 44 million in 1984 (recession). Calgary's ridership did not return to its 1981 peak until the 90s.
Looking at those budget figures highlights what is the real problem with transit in Austin: lack of fare revenue. $28 million from fares? 10% cost recovery?
Capital Metro fare: $1.25
Calgary Transit fare: $3.50
THAT is the real difference between transit in Austin and transit in Calgary. Not LRT, but the fares. No matter how much LRT it builds, Austin will never be able to provide good transit by charging $1.25 fares.
So many people from US on this forum say Canadians use transit more because incomes are lower. But reality is that transit in Canada costs 2 times more. You can see also all the high ridership systems in US also charge 2 times more than typical systems like Austin. Without that fare revenue, a system will not have funds to provide enough service to attract riders. And ultimately the amount of service is what really matters, not the amount of rail.