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The Globe and Mail: Oil slump and pandemic fallout have the wheels turning on new mobility concepts for Calgary.
www.theglobeandmail.com

Oil slump and pandemic fallout have the wheels turning on new mobility concepts for Calgary

Green Line LRT plan remains a go, but attempts to diversify the role of the downtown core include a BRT ring and a rethink of how road space is allotted
www.theglobeandmail.com www.theglobeandmail.com

The article mentions that councillor Courtney Walcott campaigned on turning 11th&12th into one ways. What a dream that would be 😍 those are two of the most hostile streets in beltline, and also two of the most important. Turning those into two ways would dramatically boost the overall feel of beltline
 
Mountain Man said:
I really don't get the obsession with converting these streets to 2 way. Widening sidewalks would have a far bigger impact in my mind.
Click to expand...
Sure, entirely reconstructing the physical corridor from the ground up would have more impact than adding signals for both ways, changing some street signs and painting a yellow stripe. But it's also orders of magnitude more work and money.

I wonder if the best outcome is not a two-way conversion (and I've lobbied for one in the past) but a permanent road diet taking a lane for pedestrian uses and space making. Like this past year on 12th at 2nd, there was one lane of cycle track, two lanes of traffic, one lane of Beltliner patio. If the road is two-way, it's harder to imagine it going down to one lane per direction.
 
ByeByeBaby said:
Sure, entirely reconstructing the physical corridor from the ground up would have more impact than adding signals for both ways, changing some street signs and painting a yellow stripe. But it's also orders of magnitude more work and money.

I wonder if the best outcome is not a two-way conversion (and I've lobbied for one in the past) but a permanent road diet taking a lane for pedestrian uses and space making. Like this past year on 12th at 2nd, there was one lane of cycle track, two lanes of traffic, one lane of Beltliner patio. If the road is two-way, it's harder to imagine it going down to one lane per direction.
Click to expand...
This is my line of thinking - 2-way conversion and pedestrian/local friendly road reconstruction are both tools that can to achieve a similar goal - humanize two of the top three east-west car sewers (you're on thin ice 10th Avenue ). My preference would do both two-way plus pedestrian improvements, but as 12 Avenue has shown, even just substantial re-allocation of the road way to something other than car throughput yields big benefits while remaining one-way.

Whatever ends up happening, keep an eye on the implementation - it's the details that they don't announce that will make a big difference. For example, if they convert to two-way but give super long leading turning phase car-priority signals at some intersections as part of the re-signaling, that is a bad outcome and undermines the spirit of the conversion in the first place - to prioritize pedestrians and local activity over car speed and throughput. The cycletracks have a bunch of these examples where the process of adding bicycle infrastructure also triggered a bunch of long car-priority turning signals being added - contradicting the whole point of improving the flow and access of bicycles.

One my biggest pet peeves about how we use road space shoehorn driver-benefitting infrastructure into projects that are literally trying to provide a contradictory service. Bus bays, pedestrian overpasses, cycletrack car-prioritizing advanced green turns, LRT + freeway expansions - all in the same boat where the non-car infrastructure helps sell the increase car capacity and throughput.
 
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ByeByeBaby said:
Sure, entirely reconstructing the physical corridor from the ground up would have more impact than adding signals for both ways, changing some street signs and painting a yellow stripe. But it's also orders of magnitude more work and money.

I wonder if the best outcome is not a two-way conversion (and I've lobbied for one in the past) but a permanent road diet taking a lane for pedestrian uses and space making. Like this past year on 12th at 2nd, there was one lane of cycle track, two lanes of traffic, one lane of Beltliner patio. If the road is two-way, it's harder to imagine it going down to one lane per direction.
Click to expand...
They need to do something to align the streets at some point anyway, it's crazy how inconsistent the curb line is between blocks in this city. 11th isn't bad, but 12th drives me nuts. You can see the inconsistency in the bike lane and how the lanes stagger between blocks.
 
Mountain Man said:
They need to do something to align the streets at some point anyway, it's crazy how inconsistent the curb line is between blocks in this city. 11th isn't bad, but 12th drives me nuts. You can see the inconsistency in the bike lane and how the lanes stagger between blocks.
Click to expand...
Reminds me of a post from a while back when I got obsessed with this very issue - post.

I can't think of another city that does this to their curbs in their urban areas - it's the chaotic randomness of the curb line that I can't wrap my head around. Usually with transportation decisions the trade-offs are clear even if I am strongly opposed to them (e.g. tear down a bunch of houses to expand Crowchild Trail adds vehicle capacity for suburban driver commuters but at the great expense of neighbourhoods, local activity, pedestrian access, climate goals, funding other projects etc.)

But with the curb line randomness the benefitting party is not nearly as tangible - but almost always at the cost of coherent, safe and consistent sidewalks.
 
One big mobility win for the city centre (at zero cost) that I am surprised they haven't pushed yet is changing the bicycle on the LRT rules for rush hour.


Currently the old rules since the 1990s apply - no bicycles in any direction between 6:30 am and 9:00am. We should definitely make the rush-hour window shorter overall, but we could go further and make a rule that keeps the current bicycle restrictions in-bound, while removes them outbound (and reverse in the evening). Rationale:
  • booming city centre population, more reverse commuting by car-free/car-lite residents
  • Empty trains - both because city centre residents leaving the core are counter-flow commuting so it's always emptier (1) and the pandemic-induced drop in ridership freeing up space (2)
Of course some restrictions in some situations are likely beneficial, but speaking more broadly - just having an transit agency think this way be far more nimble to changing conditions would be a huge boost for the city centre. Translink and ETS fiddle with the bicycle restriction rules all the time - and both have always had smaller bicycle ban windows than Calgary. A quick sample below:
  • Vancouver: no bicycles on Skytrain 7am - 9am (but removed this rule for a year during the pandemic). Canada Line always allows them.
  • Edmonton: allows bicycles at all times (removed rule during the pandemic, previously 730am - 900am restricted).
 
While we're making quick, free wins for Calgary Transit, the free fare zone should expand by one stop (arguably two stops on the South Red Line, to Erlton) outside of rush hour (and maybe 24/7 until volumes return to pre-pandemic levels). It would make it easier for inner city residents and downtown workers to patronize main streets in Mission, Kensington and Bridgeland, and would help emerging/potential main streets on 10th Ave and 14th St in Sunalta and the weak east end of 17th Ave. Downtown merchants would have double the population in the free fare zone, so they could attract people in the evenings. And it would just generally help inner city vitality, reduce car usage, etc. For example, residents near Bridgeland could take the LRT one stop to get groceries at the Superstore rather than driving.

The trains are running already, so there's no additional spending for CT. They're not selling a lot of tickets today to people who are making these short trips -- you can take the free fare to the end of the line and walk 20 minutes to save the 3 bucks, or just skip the trip (or take a scooter or communauto, since these short trips are relatively cheap). And they won't cannibalize their longer trips much; these inner stops are relatively close to the existing free fare stops, but the walks from Sunnyside uphill to SAIT, from Sunalta to Shaganappi, from Bridgeland to Zoo and from Erlton to 39th are all long, unpleasant and/or uphill.
 
Mountain Man said:
I really don't get the obsession with converting these streets to 2 way. Widening sidewalks would have a far bigger impact in my mind.
Click to expand...
All things equal, I would probably prefer wider sidewalks too, but not sure you could widen them enough to make it count, unless eliminating a lane altogether. Right now you have 4 lanes, two of which are parking lanes off peak hours, and two that area always freeflow. You could eliminate a parking lane or a freeflow lane, but either way there would be blowback. Retailers wouldn't want a parking lane eliminated on their side of the street, and of course drivers would go mental if a freeflow lane was eliminated.
Two way might be something more easy to push through as it doesn't change much for drivers or retailers, but changes the feel of the avenues. Once two way is implemented, wait a couple of years and take away sections of parking lane and converting to widened sidewalks. Make some of the parking sections used only by transit, taxis etc.. Just my two cents.
 
Good suggestion, particularly with the caveat they could always adjust back if they need to. I'd imagine almost all boardings at Vic Park are to outside the free-fare zone in the North or South for the reasons you suggest, you probably wouldn't canabalize many tickets with converting to free-fare as these would all still be fare requiring

Overall, I'd like to see Calgary Transit get it together a bit. IMO as an outsider, it seems to be an agency that's become stagnant and not flexible/dynamic. Maybe it's celebrating the "most ridership of any North American LRT network" for too long thus reducing the pressure to innovate, maybe it's being in the all-consuming vortex of the Greenline saga for a decade, maybe it's because it's handcuffed by some invisible nuance of the political / bureaucratic structure , or maybe it's the long-term starvation of operating funding - perhaps a bit of all these - whatever it is, CT is leaving lots of opportunities on the table that would help the downtown core, and the wider city in general.

Apart from the inability to adapt quickly on free/low cost items, there's a bunch of other ones in recent years and decades that CT plays a role in, but didn't break the way that would favour transit users and transit-friendly city-building:
  • No branding refresh since - forever?
  • Fare app / card saga
  • lackluster TOD development, poor station planning and restrictive station parking policies
  • Continued low frequency trains and bus routes
  • Continued construction of bus bays everywhere - the anti-bus infrastructure.
The Victoria Park Station rebuild is a specific example too. I 100% agree the station rebuild will be a better format today and the right move - but let's not forget the train lost grade separation through the process which will result in less operational reliability, more accidents, slower speeds. The trade-offs are definitely worth it, but transit speed and reliability are notably the losers here.

I might be off-base on this, but to me all this paints a picture of CT losing key battles where it's an impacted stakeholder. Of course - many/most of these complaints are not exclusively CT's fault, running a transit system is impossibly difficult in any city. But things like improving reliability, speed and trip time, frequency, accessibility - all these are words that you see other transit agencies live and breath, but doesn't seem to resonate here (beyond the planning documents at least).
 
It has been awhile since there was any activity in this thread.
calgaryherald.com

'Grave' situation for Calgary hotels prompts plea for tax break

Calgary hotels are asking the city for a break on property taxes, due to the Omicron variant and a recent U.S. government travel advisory.
calgaryherald.com calgaryherald.com
In addition to the office vacancy rate, there is a lot of hotel space that has been mostly empty in the last two years ... very few leisure or business travelers, no conventions, conferences or other large gatherings.
I don't think business travel will ever be the same as it was pre-pandemic. A lot of companies are reviewing the purpose and cost of having employees travel on business for face-to-face meetings or in person work. Industry has been holding 'virtual' conferences with some success. Business travel won't be eliminated but it won't be at the same frequency either. It will probably be at least year before we see any significant increase in international leisure travel. Of course all of this has a negative impact on hospitality as well ... restaurants, bars, catering, entertainment etc
 
The hotels--their valuation should be decreasing, if they're not, they should appeal. That should result in a substantial tax break.

They're right, it is ugly out there for them. But I would also argue the city is the wrong target for this. The feds are still offering 75% wage subsidy for them as a "organizations hit hardest since the start of the pandemic". The feds are helping to buy up excess supply through the rapid housing initiative. The province could get off their butts and contribute to it to up the number of properties, and to not leave a single $ on the table, but alas.

From consulting for a hotel business a decade ago, mortgages were the largest non-variable cost centre - but certainly they are variable over the long term, and it was very advantageous to be mortgaged to the hilt from a tax planning perspective. But that doesn't mean it is a real cost, just a financial relationship between investors and companies (mortgages held by individuals aren't held to accounting consolidation rules). On a beneficial ownership consolidation basis I doubt the books are as bad as they appear (they are still likely very bad! just not as bad as they appear).

Here is last year:
1643129049146.png

1643129187162.png

Compared to 2019:
1643129111169.png
 
Hopefully we have reached bottom on vacancies and are going to start climbing out. There also seems to be a slight movement towards more residential in the DT, not game changing, but it helps.
Reading through this thread, I have to agree with the idea of putting a focus on streets/avenues with potential.
I have mentioned this idea in building threads, but will bring it up here too.
How about wrapping +15's in LED lights. There are options out there that allow visibility from the inside. They could have music set to the artistic designs, have an interactive component or just have artist designs. I feel like this could create an attraction that attracts locals and tourists to wander downtown at night....on the street. It helps light up downtown, thus creating a safer feeling.
I personally would think a good strategy would be to have a bit of a ring...say 8th Ave, down 8th Street, then down 4th Ave to 1st street and back to 8th Ave. I picked 4th Ave, as despite it being dn near a highway, there is a good amount of bars, restaurants, hotels and residential already. With a loop like that, I could see other North/South streets seeing more activation as a short cut between the two avenues.
Perhaps we could be "The Light on the Prairies" or Canada's "City of Lights". We have the Telus Sky lights, the light tree at Edmonton Tr & Memorial, lights on the Calgary Tower, Chinook Arc in the beltline, the 4th street rail underpass etc. Why not lean into this?
 
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