[JesseLikesCities]

From 2013:
Ministry of Transportation:
Rob Penny, deputy minister

Penny: The corridor itself has the highest trip generation in North American city pairs, about three to four times the Toronto-Montreal trip generation rate. [In 2006 at the time of our study] the population of the Calgary-Edmonton corridor [was] around 2 and a half million – remember this is 2006, so they haven’t been updated, okay? – travel in the corridor is equivalent to a population of 8 million to 10 million people.

Do you have any more information on this @darwink? I'm even having a tough time digesting the definition "Trip Generation" in this sense. I find it interesting as I remember awhile back I was following the I45 on Google Earth between Dallas and Houston and noticing large swaths of it was only four lanes. I found that quite remarkable considering both metros are over 7 million. I think what spurred my interest in checking that out was noticing how busy the QEII is all the damn time. Among other things, is obviously a testament to the economic juggernaut that the Calgary-Edmonton corridor is relating to other Canadian regions.

 

[darwink]

Do you have any more information on this @darwink? I'm even having a tough time digesting the definition "Trip Generation" in this sense. I find it interesting as I remember awhile back I was following the I45 on Google Earth between Dallas and Houston and noticing large swaths of it was only four lanes. I found that quite remarkable considering both metros are over 7 million. I think what spurred my interest in checking that out was noticing how busy the QEII is all the damn time. Among other things, is obviously a testament to the economic juggernaut that the Calgary-Edmonton corridor is relating to other Canadian regions.

There is some in the economic reports the province did in the late 2000s.

The main thing to visualize is most of the USA is in a grid. So urban-urban trips are generated in all directions between all centres.
4 cities in a grid, 1 million each. Think of each arrow as 4,000 trips each day, each direction.

In Alberta due to our relative isolation from other centres, our relative prosperity for a long time (running what may have been close to the densest air service on the planet in the 70s between the cores of each city, building a 4 lane highway decades before it was 'needed' to speed up travel significantly), and the development of specialization over time we have much stronger links.

Even if only 70% of trips are now taken due to a variety of factors, we have this instead:

 

[JesseLikesCities]

Thanks that was exactly what I was looking for.

 

[Chowda7]

Liricon Capital has partnered with Plenary Americas to submit a proposal to advance this project to the design phase. Cost has been updated to $1.5 billion with an anticipated completion date of 2025 and will connect downtown Calgary to Banff

Calgary Airport - Banff Passenger Rail Project Enters Design Phase

Partnership Proposal provides expertise and capital to develop the high frequency passenger rail service from Calgary Airport to Banff National Park for...

www.globenewswire.com

 

[October]

Pretty sure I've preached this before but imagine how nice it would be if we could tear down that terrible 3 storey office building around the Calgary tower and replace it with some kind of central station for this. Allows for space for YYC- Banff or YEG or the airport or Maybe even MH or Leth one day, plus once (or if) the 8th Avenue subway gets built it could be integrated with an underground walkway. Have the vision in my head i'll try to sketch it out in a couple days here.

I know you all know exactly which building i'm talking about...

 

[October]

I rock with this part hard:

"The CABR system will operate on a new, dedicated passenger line built within the existing CP Rail freight corridor and will provide high frequency, reliable service between 7 stations: Calgary Airport, Calgary Downtown, Calgary Keith, Cochrane, Morley (Stoney Nakoda), Canmore and Banff. Net ticket costs from Calgary to Banff for Albertans are estimated to be about $20 taking into account anticipated discounts to the Park."

Having 7 stations along the line is huge, especially for Morley and the Stoney Nakoda Nation, I hope they are able to capitalize off of some tourism traffic.

They also released an artist render of the train at the station in Banff.

 

[MichaelS]

Any indication where the Calgary Keith station location would be? Man, I really want to see this happen.

 

[CBBarnett]

Any indication where the Calgary Keith station location would be? Man, I really want to see this happen.

IIRC Keith is the name of the rail area just north of Bowness stretching outside the NW ring road north of the Bow River. It's a bit of a train yard with multiple tracks. Good place for a suburban station.

I am curious how much twin-tracking they will be doing, particularly in the city as the CP corridor is only single track from 14 Street to Bowness. $1.5B is a lot - but not enough for full dedication I would think.

Whatever get's built, it would be light-years ahead of where we are currently. The success of the project would help trigger further investments as well. Total game changer if this system is as good as it could be. I'd never drive to Banff again.

 

[adamyyc]

I rock with this part hard:

"The CABR system will operate on a new, dedicated passenger line built within the existing CP Rail freight corridor and will provide high frequency, reliable service between 7 stations: Calgary Airport, Calgary Downtown, Calgary Keith, Cochrane, Morley (Stoney Nakoda), Canmore and Banff. Net ticket costs from Calgary to Banff for Albertans are estimated to be about $20 taking into account anticipated discounts to the Park."

Having 7 stations along the line is huge, especially for Morley and the Stoney Nakoda Nation, I hope they are able to capitalize off of some tourism traffic.

They also released an artist render of the train at the station in Banff.

View attachment 367882

Airport to downtown express (15 minute service) would be such a huge win too! As much as the Union-Person Express in Toronto got dragged during development and in the early stages of operation, it's such a convenient way to get to the airport. You want to revitalize downtown? Create a link to the airport so downtown residents and business travelers can get to the airport conveniently without having to get on the Deerfoot.

 

[googspecial]

Amazing news!

 

[ByeByeBaby]

I feel like a luxury coach leaving downtown every 5 minutes would be better, and cheaper, and higher capacity, and potentially more environmentally sensitive. This solves something that's not a real problem at a high cost, but like airport transit, building it'll be very popular. A boondoggle like UPX is a great comparison; a colossal waste of money and underwhelming ridership.

 

[darwink]

I feel like a luxury coach leaving downtown every 5 minutes would be better, and cheaper, and higher capacity, and potentially more environmentally sensitive. This solves something that's not a real problem at a high cost, but like airport transit, building it'll be very popular. A boondoggle like UPX is a great comparison; a colossal waste of money and underwhelming ridership.

Buses don't lead to the economic spinoffs that are the real prize. Having transit to Banff and the airport for Calgarians is the gravy on this turkey dinner economic development project.

Opening this train will be a huge deal in the rail-fan, and rail-tourism community. It will be huge for hotels and conventions in Calgary. It will be huge for the airport - creating a much better connection to our relatively high yielding destination (you don't have to tilt the case by much to make Calgary a more appealing superconnector than Vancouver). It will be huge for Banff, which can now pitch transit oriented hotels, to increase visitation without increasing the number of cars. All those things make it awesome without even talking about transit for Calgarians and Albertans.

The project makes too much sense really, but the benefits are really spread out in a way that isn't entirely capture-able.

And yeah, UPX is bad if you think of it as soley transit. If you think of it as 'this enables more head offices to by in downtown; and enables the convention market to grow; and enables downtown hotel rooms to grow'—then it makes sense. Downtown Toronto had lots its 'close to the airport' credibility.

 

[Urban Outdoorsman]

Now all they need is that gondola from Banff up to the ski hill and we'll be giving Switzerland a run for their money! Having traveled by train in Switzerland it's amazing the way you can get pretty much anywhere by train, and just about every town in the Alps has a gondola in the middle of it. I think the two could really help make Banff an even more attractive/accessable destination

 

[Chowda7]

Buses don't lead to the economic spinoffs that are the real prize. Having transit to Banff and the airport for Calgarians is the gravy on this turkey dinner economic development project.

Opening this train will be a huge deal in the rail-fan, and rail-tourism community. It will be huge for hotels and conventions in Calgary. It will be huge for the airport - creating a much better connection to our relatively high yielding destination (you don't have to tilt the case by much to make Calgary a more appealing superconnector than Vancouver). It will be huge for Banff, which can now pitch transit oriented hotels, to increase visitation without increasing the number of cars. All those things make it awesome without even talking about transit for Calgarians and Albertans.

The project makes too much sense really, but the benefits are really spread out in a way that isn't entirely capture-able.

And yeah, UPX is bad if you think of it as soley transit. If you think of it as 'this enables more head offices to by in downtown; and enables the convention market to grow; and enables downtown hotel rooms to grow'—then it makes sense. Downtown Toronto had lots its 'close to the airport' credibility.

I could see this being a huge lift for tourism just from Asian tour groups alone. Would definitely simplify the logistics for them.

 

[darwink]

Now all they need is that gondola from Banff up to the ski hill and we'll be giving Switzerland a run for their money! Having traveled by train in Switzerland it's amazing the way you can get pretty much anywhere by train, and just about every town in the Alps has a gondola in the middle of it. I think the two could really help make Banff an even more attractive/accessable destination

Liricon is still working on this.