It's a textbook example of surplus extraction. The basic act of building the green line will bring in enough benefits to the city that it could be built for twice the price and still provide a net benefit, so the various 'stakeholders' will put in asks and requirements and scope increases and so...

Yep, that's it. It's clear that it's much shorter than peer cities using the same app, so it's not a recommendation from the app developer, and it's not best practices -- other than maybe CT wanted the tickets to expire after one day and they got talked up to 7. But it's clearly supported in the...

100%. It's mean and cheap and has no reason to exist. Would any other customer facing business work this hard to make it difficult for customers to pay? Amazon patented one-click ordering in 1999; it was a 'game changer'. Here's the process for buying a transit ticket - once you have gone...

I was at Lilac Festival and it was indeed bonkers. The extensions on 17th were quieter last year, but this year they were as busy as the rest of the street. One thing that hit me for the first time was that they always say Lilac Festival attendance is 100,000 people or so. The Stampede is 10...

We need more women cycling in Calgary; the last official data had 3 men cycling for each woman. There was an interesting study going around from Australia about how to attract more women to cycling. While the gender differences were being focussed on, the actual data suggested more commonalities...

Cool pics!

It's remarkable that Calgary Transit are proposing service changes but provide only vague information on what the frequencies are or would be, and no explicit information on where the stops are. Is it because the frequencies are too depressing to admit to in public? Or because they are defined...

Alberta has a major centre party; has for a decade now. From the CBC's vote compass; the dots are the party's policies and the hexagons are where the supporters of that party are. The NDP ran on a set of policies (Pro oil! Pro police!) that are about as close to the centre of public opinion as...

I don't think we definitely disagree; I just have no idea what your fundamental premise is. (Coming around once a month and then vanishing makes it hard to have a conversation; I'd welcome more 'discussing'.) You're arguing, I think, that the green line could and should be cheaply connected to...

Thanks for posting that, it reminded me to update my charts showing YYC boardings vs a simple projection from the four pre-COVID years (linear projection plus monthly seasonal factor): - previously from October Sort of looks like a bit of a stall out relative to the old trend. Note that the...

Okay, what would you think if the NDP instead committed to having the lowest corporate tax rates in the country? Shouldn't that cause a massive economic boom with the vaunted mobility of capital? Trick question, of course, it's the exact same policy. You can call the corporate tax rate going...

Always fascinated that it seems that of the hundreds of experienced former NHL players and the hundreds more hockey front office people, coaches, etc, it always seems to be someone who played a lot of games for the local franchise who just happens to be the best possible candidate in like 90% of...

"a new rooftop patio designed in an Oriental style"? 1975 called, and they want both their racist terminology and good ol' boys network back. Put this bozo out to pasture already.

Some good things; a better set of activations -- skateboard park, basketball/pickleball, dog park. Parks in locations that don't get natural foot traffic need attractions. But I don't know which of these facts is more depressing: 1). A park expansion manages to be roughly 1/3 parking stalls...

Here's the Calgary-Edmonton-Ottawa trio of populations (annual estimates, which are not consistent with Census counts): Calgary's been moving away from Edmonton pretty consistently. The other wild card is that the CMA definition could in theory be changed at some point in the future. StatsCan...

I believe they said that the renovations will be done by the end of 2024, but at that point they have an empty museum and it'll take another year to actually set up all of the exhibits. Because it's one thing to have art and artifacts covered in plastic sealed up in a room during construction...

Had a chance as part of Avenue Magazine's Future of the City festival to do a site tour of the Glenbow on Wednesday, which was super cool. Led by Nicholas Bell, the Glenbow's President/CEO, (he's the bowtie guy) it was really interesting to see the progress and hear about the plans up close and...

I have a big update to come, but here's a teaser:

There's an old adage in politics from Reagan that says "If you're explaining, you're losing". Perhaps there are exceptions, but I'm guessing that if you're explaining what you meant when you said that the 82% of Albertans who got vaccinated to help protect themselves and the vulnerable in their...

The Tempe deal isn't great by any means; the owner is on the way sketchy side even for a professional sports owner -- they got kicked out of Glendale for not paying rent. There's around $500M in eventual public funding that Tempe's giving up, partly through site-specific sales taxes but mostly...