[CBBarnett]

I don't really love this video or this YouTuber, but:

A few years ago I heard that the wisdom was direct airport->downtown links might seem like a good idea when you're traveling and visiting a new city as a tourist, but are not worth the money as they don't do much for the city itself. But now we have 3 Canadian cities with airport rail links, and urbanism/planning enthusiasts like this guy calling for an Edmonton light rail expansion to its airport, of all things.

As for Calgary, I thought the people mover plan was more advanced than he seems to be saying in the video. I also don't think it's such a terrible idea. Direct blue/green line service to the airport would be more expensive, and also cut into service frequency on the other branches of those lines. Finally he doesn't really explain why he thinks Calgary is dropping the ball on LRT planning compared to Edmonton. I get that the green line has had setbacks, but when it's done it won't be less useful than Edmonton's new Valley line, and the stub NW extension they're building.

I am increasingly leaning towards a faster and direct downtown-airport connection being preferrable. This should be an LRT or train eventually, but should exist today as a direct bus. The city and airport are growing rapidly, there is a market for efficient transit connections to the core.

The main thing Calgary Transit continues to lag on regarding airports is travel time competitiveness to the core. It's one thing to say "airport trains are not always great investments" (which is typically true given other, better capital investments needed) but Calgary has historically taken this axiom further in practice - any transit at all is almost impractically inefficient for downtown to airport travel.

Here's a quick google trip assessment of Canada's big 4 airports - so expect minor variations from real-world. To give the optimal transit competitive edge, I am only include actual transit moving time - no waits, no walks. This is the best you can do by transit in these respective cities. Destinations are the main hubs in downtown.

The main take-away is not just that Calgary's Route 300 is 20 minutes slower or 1.8x slower than a car, it's also that it takes 44 minutes - this is very long for a direct bus. Our airport is not particularly far away from the city centre compared to the others, it's just the bus route is slow and inefficient to create quick trips. And this is the theoretical best trip time - add in wait times, traffic delays and it's even further from competitive. The main reason is Route 300 takes Centre Street rather than Deerfoot, ensure that cars get all the benefit from billions of dollars in highway infrastructure while the bus takes surface roads.

Of course, we could argue that adding another bus on Centre Street to supplement the productive 3 / 301 is overall better and ultimately the right call from a cash-saving, optimized network approach - (it probably is?). But being so operationally focused and current state thinking isn't inspiring or helping transit champion itself as a real option to get around, particularly between two major walkable clusters - the airport (no one flies with their car) and downtown (walking distance to everything).

In summary - I think Route 300 is too compromised with other objectives and leans too heavily into an "airports aren't good for transit" ideology. We may not "need" a train, but until we decide can we at least try to inspire a bit more transit culture with a redesigned bus that gets you from airport to downtown in 30 minutes by transit?

 

[darwink]

as a Vancouver/BC taxpayer I don't know

YVR paid for a big chunk out of airport improvement fees.

There will be YYC and Transport Canada money on the table for a YYC link.

 

[trtcttc]

The YVR rail link was also built for the Olympics, there’s not as pressing a demand for a YYC rail link. Most of the well used cities have a lot of international tourists and have good local transit (Hong Kong, Paris, London) and are terrible to drive in. The US doesn’t see as many international tourists and many visiting cities like Phoenix and Chicago are very comfortable driving there. Calgary would probably be in the latter bucket, and that’s why a spur line would make sense, and not a direct downtown connection

 

[darwink]

The YVR rail link was also built for the Olympics, there’s not as pressing a demand for a YYC rail link. Most of the well used cities have a lot of international tourists and have good local transit (Hong Kong, Paris, London) and are terrible to drive in. The US doesn’t see as many international tourists and many visiting cities like Phoenix and Chicago are very comfortable driving there. Calgary would probably be in the latter bucket, and that’s why a spur line would make sense, and not a direct downtown connection

Important to keep the context of a direct link in mind, super charging visitation by unifying Banff and Calgary much more closely into one destination, one that doesn't require special planning or effort to move between for visitors to either.

Adding a day to many more convention visits is incredibly lucrative. Adding a Calgary day (and eyes on knowledge of the urban context) to Banff visits equally so.

Without the Banff component, I agree with the skeptics: the airport link would be near the lowest priority for me.

 

[Albertasaurus]

My own thoughts:

Vancouver - I think YVR's rail connection is great, and seemed well used to me. I never rent a car when I'm there (or I'll only have one for a day trip), and used to take buses to and from the airport. Both the public transit option (2 buses) and the private shuttle were often slow due to traffic, and packed full (I was denied boarding once). As much as I resent those goofy little trains, the Canada Line is a godsend - like a 20-25 minute trip right into downtown and never a wait for the train. Much faster than a taxi.
Toronto - Before the UP Express, I used to take the Airport Rocket bus to the end of the Bloor line. That was actually fine, but a bit of a long subway trip. The UP Express is better, but not much better. It's expensive (or it used to be), there's a wait for the train, and then you need to deal with Union Station when you're in the city. Union is pretty terrible for wayfinding, and not as convenient for me as being on the Bloor-Danforth line. Like Vancouver, both options are faster than a taxi, as Toronto's traffic has seemingly increased exponentially in the last 10 years.
SFO - No complaints. Looked like other tourists were using it. I think it was as fast or a bit faster than taking a taxi on the 101 (which can have traffic jams at midnight).
London (pre-Elizabeth Line) - I think I was going to somewhere on the Central Line, and had to take a meandering journey across multiple tube lines. Actually pretty annoying with luggage.
Hong Kong - As you said, a good fit. Just amazingly convenient, like the most obvious place to go after your flight is right on to the train. I remember Amsterdam/Schipol being like this too.

I wonder about the other light rail airport links in the US like Baltimore, Minneapolis, Portland and St. Louis. I suspect they're something like Phoenix in terms of popularity.

I've taken the Portland link and found it to be well used. Ditto for Seattle's. Pretty sure I've taken the Denver airport train also. The Portland case seems like a reasonable comparison as the airport passenger traffic numbers between PDX and YYC are very similar.

 

[darwink]

I've taken the Portland link and found it to be well used. Ditto for Seattle's. Pretty sure I've taken the Denver airport train also. The Portland case seems like a reasonable comparison as the airport passenger traffic numbers between PDX and YYC are very similar.

Portland reports station usage and the airport station was one of their under performing stations circa 2014. Post pandemic ridership collapse, it is in the top 10. I am not sure how it would rank compared in Calgary, at 3,300 on offs a day.

https://trimet.org/about/pdf/census/2023spring/max_station_passenger_census_report.pdf

 

[DougB]

Portland reports station usage and the airport station was one of their under performing stations circa 2014. Post pandemic ridership collapse, it is in the top 10. I am not sure how it would rank compared in Calgary, at 3,300 on offs a day.

https://trimet.org/about/pdf/census/2023spring/max_station_passenger_census_report.pdf

PDX is centrally located and easy to access, so driving presents tough competition.

 

[DougB]

I've taken the Portland link and found it to be well used. Ditto for Seattle's. Pretty sure I've taken the Denver airport train also. The Portland case seems like a reasonable comparison as the airport passenger traffic numbers between PDX and YYC are very similar.

Seattle is a text book example of poor execution. The airport is located right on the mainline light rail, not a spur, but stops across the street from a parking garage, forcing passengers to walk a long ways through a large parking garage. The local municipality was partially responsible for the sub-optimal design as it wanted the station to spur development in the area adjacent to the airport.

By far the best executions in the US are O Hare and Atlanta which bring rapid transit right into the terminal. SFO has BART into the International Terminal, but it operates strangely as a spur to Millbrae on some lines and as a through line to San Bruno on others.

 

[zagox]

I forget exactly where I saw this, but the Banff Downtown YYC proposal was looking at using the same stations and tech as a people mover to also connect on an exclusive ROW to downtown. There would be a forced transfer downtown for a more conventional train to Banff (would be forced no matter the tech due to the vastly different headways). The province funded the study to try to get everyone working together, so we don't end up with 2 or 3 different systems at the airport exploding costs.

That seems extremely smart to me - a lightweight automated people mover with short headways that can go up/over/under things like the runway, Deerfoot and the Bow. Not cheap, but cheaper than heavy rail from downtown to the terminal once you find out that CP won't give away their ROW.

 

[trtcttc]

By far the best executions in the US are O Hare and Atlanta which bring rapid transit right into the terminal. SFO has BART into the International Terminal, but it operates strangely as a spur to Millbrae on some lines and as a through line to San Bruno on others.

Having taken the one in SFO recently, it is so confusing that even the new BART trains with fully LED route displays, the arrow indicating the direction the train is going was pointed in the wrong direction for that section.

 

[Albertasaurus]

Portland reports station usage and the airport station was one of their under performing stations circa 2014. Post pandemic ridership collapse, it is in the top 10. I am not sure how it would rank compared in Calgary, at 3,300 on offs a day.

https://trimet.org/about/pdf/census/2023spring/max_station_passenger_census_report.pdf

Well, looks like Portland's overall ridership on its metro system is between 1/3 and 1/4 of Calgary's. Parking rates at PDX look to be not dissimilar to the costs at YYC (parking at the terminal itself is cheaper at PDX but they don't appear to have the offsite options like ParknFly etc). So an educated guess might put Calgary at 10-12,000 a day? That doesn't sound like a lot but is nearly double the total daily ridership of Buffalo's entire metrorail system, and about the same as Baltimore's. As an aside, it never ceases to amaze me how low the ridership is on most US metro systems...

 

[kora]

By far the best executions in the US are O Hare and Atlanta which bring rapid transit right into the terminal. SFO has BART into the International Terminal, but it operates strangely as a spur to Millbrae on some lines and as a through line to San Bruno on others.

Denver light rail comes right up to the terminal too. Integrated as well as the best European examples

 

[CBBarnett]

Denver light rail comes right up to the terminal too. Integrated as well as the best European examples

I've added every airport people have talked about to this table that looks at travel time in a "perfect" scenario (no walks/no waits) for transit. The destination is somewhat arbitrary but always a centrally located transit station. All are single transit routes, no transfers. I didn't standardize this against congestion, so car routes (and some transit routes) will vary by time of day.

Of these cities, Calgary is:

• Longest airport to downtown time (44 minutes)
• Biggest absolute time-savings by taking car over transit (20 minutes shorter)
• Mid-pack in both travel distance and travel time by car

 

[kora]

I've added every airport people have talked about to this table that looks at travel time in a "perfect" scenario (no walks/no waits) for transit. The destination is somewhat arbitrary but always a centrally located transit station. All are single transit routes, no transfers. I didn't standardize this against congestion, so car routes (and some transit routes) will vary by time of day.

Of these cities, Calgary is:

• Longest airport to downtown time (44 minutes)
• Biggest absolute time-savings by taking car over transit (20 minutes shorter)
• Mid-pack in both travel distance and travel time by car

Atlanta has a very pleasant, easy and quick trip from the airport to downtown on their subway, a legacy of their Olympic games. Too bad they haven't expanded their system.

 

[SlippinJimmy]

Seattle is a text book example of poor execution. The airport is located right on the mainline light rail, not a spur, but stops across the street from a parking garage, forcing passengers to walk a long ways through a large parking garage. The local municipality was partially responsible for the sub-optimal design as it wanted the station to spur development in the area adjacent to the airport.

By far the best executions in the US are O Hare and Atlanta which bring rapid transit right into the terminal. SFO has BART into the International Terminal, but it operates strangely as a spur to Millbrae on some lines and as a through line to San Bruno on others.

Dulles finally has the DC metro going to it, many many years late. Although I don't know if they've fixed the problem of just having almost no rolling stock left to run the system properly.

I've added every airport people have talked about to this table that looks at travel time in a "perfect" scenario (no walks/no waits) for transit. The destination is somewhat arbitrary but always a centrally located transit station. All are single transit routes, no transfers. I didn't standardize this against congestion, so car routes (and some transit routes) will vary by time of day.

Of these cities, Calgary is:

• Longest airport to downtown time (44 minutes)
• Biggest absolute time-savings by taking car over transit (20 minutes shorter)
• Mid-pack in both travel distance and travel time by car

View attachment 555295

Three things here.

28 min from YYZ to downtown Toronto is very generous with traffic, but I can't say I haven't done it. The UP is a weird concept, but I love how smooth the rails are and how fast it goes.

The SkyTrain is just yeah, I really wish we had that thing here.

And the top right box there sums up a lot of what should be improved with transit in Calgary. Driving is just so much faster... again I wish we had a train like the SkyTrain here.