I think 69th is 3.2 km or 2 miles from city limits at 101 St SW. I'd love to see a 85th station because there is so much development on 85th, both existing (mostly north of Bow Trail, unfortunately), and planned. But I understand that the city studied that extension and made it a low priority compared to something like a NE extension of the blue line.
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- Thread starter Always_Biking
- Start date
CBBarnett
Senior Member
NE has had explosive growth for a long time, ideally both extensions happen but I can get why the NE one always ranked higher. Lots of significant (by suburban standards) density already built in alignment to the future LRT:
And it's not like the NE is slouching on density, such as this 600-unit development directly planned adjacent to a future Blue Line Country Hills Station extension dmap
I agree with many points on here that Calgary's LRT and transit system expansion has hit some big real and perceived headwinds. The Greenline and BRT projects are good projects and needed, but have dragged on - Greenline with it's politically-driven delays adding years of time, the BRT with it's operations lagging the capital projects to make it perform as intended.
According to the C-Train's Wikipedia the longest gap between extensions was 1990 - 2001 (11 years) between the opening of Brentwood and the opening of Canyon Meadows stations. Currently we are looking at a 16 year gap at least, between 2014 (Tuscany) - 2030 (Greenline).
There's also seems to be very little obvious strategic planning occurring (in public at least?) that re-tests old assumptions and provides updates on key corridors (i.e. bus network redesigns, extension planning, new lines not yet imagined 20 years ago). Some of that stuff is bubbling along I am sure - but this is hardly Metrolinx or Translink that have updates seemingly weekly on all sorts of projects, plans, and infrastructure planning. Makes it seems as if not much is happening, even if this is not the case. Communications is a weakness here.
None of these issues are necessarily Transit's fault alone, as it's mostly budget and politics, but still frustrating for a city that's growing as fast as ours. The good news is the core Red-Blue network and the MAX systems are still paying dividends, increasingly so in the future as redevelopment continues to occur. Just want to see some tangible results! More busses, faster buses, more plans, more construction, more ridership etc. etc.
Reecemartin
Active Member
I just know that as someone without a car I probably wouldn't be able to get by with MAX level service, and that's an important benchmark because we want to shift more people onto transit and grow ridership. While running more service seems simple, I think if it was YYC would already be doing so. If the service was frequent I don't see any reason why all of the lines would not be useful, since they all serve urban corridors, and have connections with C-Train, Post Secondary Institutions etc.
All of this is to say Calgary is getting close to metro van populations circa 1990, but the transit isn't there yet - MAX service levels pale in comparison to RapidBus even though MAX has way nicer infrastructure. On the rail side building continuously is a huge part of being able to build affordably, and I think the Green Lines high costs probably reflect the lack of that going on in the last decade. The Green line will be good in that it adds another suburban C-Train link, but for more than an evolutionary change in modesplit etc. the days of ambitious expansion need to come back. Heck, Edmonton isn't all that far off from having its own 5 spoke system, since the VLW is u/c.
Transit Apologist
New Member
1990 Vancouver was still 6 years away from its first B-Line, let alone Rapidbus. I won’t deny that our bus service is nothing special, but as far as that comparison goes I think we’re doing alright.
accord1999
Active Member
That might have helped some, but the Green Line had a lot of new challenging things for Calgary like the deep tunnel through DT and under the Bow River. I think it also didn't help that funding for the GL came by pretty easily, therefore the initial planning never really care about cost-effectiveness and often picked the most expensive or best long-term options, to the point the cost nearly doubled in just the first 1.5 years of development.
Patrick.1980
Active Member
The Max lines are still in their infancy and ridership has been increasing. Max Orange is now all day with intervals of 8.5min peak and 10min off peak on weekdays, which isn’t much different than Edmonton’s Valley line.
I wouldn’t say it’s good money chasing bad as the system is now built and is evolving. Rail doesn’t need to be everywhere if BRT can do the same for much cheaper.
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whatchyyc
Active Member
I really don't get the comparisons to Edmonton. They're just doing what Calgary did decades ago. The CTrain is already extensive as planned and the existing network only really needs the NE extension. MAX has a sweet spot in terms of dedicated road infrastructure since the city is already so overbuilt for general traffic (not counting Orange I guess). I wish the TSP was better timed to decrease travel times, not just avoid congestion. All we need for MAX is new buses to get our fleet back in order and increase frequency to at least as good as the CTrain, then add more lines all over the place. Purple is an identified corridor for future LRT and honestly with good land use down the road Yellow would be a great LRT line to further relieve the Red Line.
8th Avenue subway at this point is an extreme nice-to-have. 7th Ave already has such a high throughput capacity that we're probably more limited by suburban grade crossings than downtown. Green Line SE will take pressure off of the Red Line as well pushing that need even further back, it's not even in CT's 30-year plan anymore. The street level connectivity is nice to have anyway, although both the 8th Avenue Subway and Green Line's tunnel the stations will be fairly shallow.
I agree CT capital planning needs far better PR because the average joe has no idea what's going on
8th Avenue subway at this point is an extreme nice-to-have. 7th Ave already has such a high throughput capacity that we're probably more limited by suburban grade crossings than downtown. Green Line SE will take pressure off of the Red Line as well pushing that need even further back, it's not even in CT's 30-year plan anymore. The street level connectivity is nice to have anyway, although both the 8th Avenue Subway and Green Line's tunnel the stations will be fairly shallow.
I agree CT capital planning needs far better PR because the average joe has no idea what's going on
Patrick.1980
Active Member
None of the 4 endpoints badly need extensions, but NE and Deep South would be my choices. Both areas are growing rapidly.
Patrick.1980
Active Member
Putting the Red Line u/g is a lot of money for little gain. It would shorten trip times, but increase time getting in and out of the stations and it won’t increase ridership, and would likely decrease it.
A fair number of people use the train to go back and forth downtown as it’s so easy to hop on and off. Having underground stations would kill that.
When the green line is done transit nerds can brag that we have underground stations, but we don’t need to bury the other lines.
Chinook Arch
Active Member
Except that Vancouver’s rail system in 1990 wasn’t anywhere near the level of Calgary’s today. It pales in comparison of ridership numbers (16M compared to Calgary’s current 90M) and was a third of the size of today's Calgary rail network.
Vancouver has done very well since, but the metro pop has doubled in population since then growing by an equivalent population of Calgary in that time and growing mostly up instead of out. They had a lot of catching up to do.
Calgary too but its 5 spoke system will be twice as extensive, and will be a 6 spoke system when it reaches 16 th ave.
whatchyyc
Active Member
FWIW once Red Line does eventually need to go underground, the plan is to keep Blue on 7th which would be fine since Red leaving would free up more than enough capacity. Calgary Transit reported that the Free Fare Zone carried more than 8 million passengers in 2024 so it's definitely important to maintain
trtcttc
Active Member
Max frequency will just take time. They can’t increase frequency because there’s not enough riders to support that since most people own a car. That will happen with time. I don’t think it necessarily has to be MAX, but an in between BRT service that has normal bus infrastructure but much higher frequency. People take transit to get where they need to go not for super nice bus shelters
CBBarnett
Senior Member
MAX Orange is one of the busiest in the system, starting from nothing 6 years ago.
Why?
Excluding waiting, the bus flies. 24 minutes total travel time v. 18 minutes by vehicle. Once you include parking, it's absolutely competitive in travel time. It's obvious - a straight, direct line, no inefficient detours or stupid time-points. Frequency will reduce the wait time part further.
That's route design and frequency. You know what didn't increase travel competitiveness? Fancy stops. Arguably, the MAX BRT capital project might have actually slowed down this route by adding delay-causing bus bays at some stops.
Don't get me wrong - I love the fancy stops! But I would have take a stop 25% as fancy if it meant being able to fill in the bus-bays and adding a few hundred metres of functional sidewalk so people can actually access this pretty solid backbone bus route.
Like come on guys - pave the sidewalks to access these $3M stops:
whatchyyc
Active Member
Our bus fleet is in shambles right now, so the existing level of service is honestly a miracle. I really want to see more funding for buses because the ones we have on the way will pretty much all be followed by the beaters being retired.
This reminds me of 162 Avenue BRT. I would like to see a conventional route run along and eventually into the Providence area with Primary Transit Network service levels first, then when there's money around for MAX shelters, TSP, and branding that can nicely compliment the route that everyone likes to use! Same could be said for 52 Street E
AJX
Active Member
Not only 24 minutes travel time, but 11 frequencies all day gives it as good or better service than many rail options.
The max purple line is the only one that doesn’t run all day and has low frequency. The other three max lines run all day and have higher frequencies.
There’s a very good argument for the BRT lines. They’ve been good bang for the buck and I know people who are rail transit nerds might not like that, but they are very effective for the cost. It’s certainly isn’t a case of good money chasing bad.