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3 hours ago, downbeat said:

Well this is depressing … newly reduced weekend headways on Route 1, coupled with severe delays. I hope this doesn’t become a regular weekend occurrence.

(And I’ll be really peeved if Transit comes back to make more cuts because of declining ridership. Talk about self-inflicted injuries.)

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It's too bad that Memorial Drive doesn't use the "switch lanes" principle to implement a car-pool/transit only lane during rush hour. If they did, it might help out things on that section of the routes.

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1 hour ago, armorand said:

It's too bad that Memorial Drive doesn't use the "switch lanes" principle to implement a car-pool/transit only lane during rush hour. If they did, it might help out things on that section of the routes.

The trouble today (and last week) is west of Memorial Drive, from what I understand. Transit was tweeting about paving in Parkdale and Bowness causing all the trouble.

P.S. Timekeeping on Route 1 has improved dramatically in the last couple of hours, thankfully.  I take that back, it's worsened again.

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The delays on Route 1 are happening again … and one of the 6 buses isn't tracking, it appears. I actually walked to my destination earlier — it was shorter than waiting 30-40+ minutes for a bus.

I know farebox recovery is important, the city's having a bit of a budget problem and it's expensive to have drivers out on Sundays and holidays, but holy moly I hope too many people haven't been turned off of transit because of the delays on Route 1 these last two weekends.

Due to planned paving on Parkdale Blvd. and to maintain something resembling basic service, would it have been feasible to dedicate one bus (even a community shuttle would do) to run a segment of Route 1, back and forth from downtown to West Hillhurst and back? According to Transit's schedules, a round trip like that would take 25-30 minutes. So during those periods when buses were/are running 30-60 minutes behind schedule, anyone whose destination is closer to downtown than Parkdale (or going from West Hillhurst to downtown) would only have had to wait for the amount of time it takes for the super-short-turn bus to do its round trip.

(The east side has MAX Purple and the west end has Route 53 so people going shorter distances in those areas have alternatives along the route to fall back on.)

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Thought a lot about east-west connections earlier while investigating how to get from Marda Loop to Manchester/Alyth by transit. I was offered a lot of long U-shaped suggestions, notably 20 ➤ 1 ➤ 10 and 20 ➤ 9 ➤ 10.

I ended up not needing to make the trip but it still got me wondering about how Transit could provide an east-west crosstown service south of the core and north of  Glenmore Trail, only by redeploying existing manpower.

I would suggest redesigning Route 17 to service this purpose. Except for the bits at its north and south extremities, much of its central portion duplicates service provided by Route 3.

I'd keep the everything east of Erlton/Stampede Station in Ramsay but instead of running north, I'd send the line west/south along Elbow Drive, then west on 36th Avenue, then turning the bus around somewhere near 14 St. and 33 Ave S.W., allowing connections with Route 7, Route 13 and the proposed Route 22. (This would also have the added effect of returning service coverage to areas that will no longer be within 400m of a bus stop, when Route 13 gets realigned.) Being shorter than the real-life Route 17, my fantasy Route 17 could offer a headway much better than 45 minutes during midday using two buses. (The current Route 17 uses two buses for a 45 note headway during midday off-peak.)

As for the north section of the route, I would suggest finding a way to re-align Route 19 to provide some of the lost coverage.

How does this idea sound to you?

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3 hours ago, downbeat said:

Thought a lot about east-west connections earlier while investigating how to get from Marda Loop to Manchester/Alyth by transit. I was offered a lot of long U-shaped suggestions, notably 20 ➤ 1 ➤ 10 and 20 ➤ 9 ➤ 10.

I ended up not needing to make the trip but it still got me wondering about how Transit could provide an east-west crosstown service south of the core and north of  Glenmore Trail, only by redeploying existing manpower.

I would suggest redesigning Route 17 to service this purpose. Except for the bits at its north and south extremities, much of its central portion duplicates service provided by Route 3.

I'd keep the everything east of Erlton/Stampede Station in Ramsay but instead of running north, I'd send the line west/south along Elbow Drive, then west on 36th Avenue, then turning the bus around somewhere near 14 St. and 33 Ave S.W., allowing connections with Route 7, Route 13 and the proposed Route 22. (This would also have the added effect of returning service coverage to areas that will no longer be within 400m of a bus stop, when Route 13 gets realigned.) Being shorter than the real-life Route 17, my fantasy Route 17 could offer a headway much better than 45 minutes during midday using two buses. (The current Route 17 uses two buses for a 45 note headway during midday off-peak.)

As for the north section of the route, I would suggest finding a way to re-align Route 19 to provide some of the lost coverage.

How does this idea sound to you?

If you were to modify the route 17 to do this portion, I'd keep the route through Renfrew the same, then have it follow the 24 until Vic Park garage, then follow the current 17 routing to Erlton, them have it run down MacLeod to 42 avenue, then Elbow to Sifton Bv, then loop around somewhere in the area of 33 Avenue and 14 Street. But that's if you were to use the 17. I'd personally create a separate bus to run 39 Avenue to Marda Loop/MRU, or extend the 449 and add a bus to do so.

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1 hour ago, Blake M said:

If you were to modify the route 17 to do this portion, I'd keep the route through Renfrew the same, then have it follow the 24 until Vic Park garage, then follow the current 17 routing to Erlton, them have it run down MacLeod to 42 avenue, then Elbow to Sifton Bv, then loop around somewhere in the area of 33 Avenue and 14 Street. But that's if you were to use the 17. I'd personally create a separate bus to run 39 Avenue to Marda Loop/MRU, or extend the 449 and add a bus to do so.

I thought about whether the 449 could be repurposed for my pretend scenario. I couldn’t figure out how to do it without adding a bus — and that went against my self-imposed parameters. ;)  A dose of realism in my what-if universe. 

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I can't remember where I wrote this on the forum … but I do remember saying there will come a day when the 25 minute frequency on Route 1 won't work out so well? Today is one of those days. It was by far one of the worst transit rides I've ever experienced in Calgary.

Route 1 has been running late all afternoon and there were lots of people waiting for the bus downtown, going westbound. Our bus was full by the time we got to the time point at 6th Ave and 2nd St SW., with standees filling every square inch of space at the including up at the back.

The bus stopped at 4th St. SW and we waited a few minutes more as the driver's intention was to keep filling the bus, even though we had no room. He yelled that he didn't intend to leave anybody behind. Some of the passengers on board, who had already waited about an hour for the bus, chirped back at the driver in protest. The atmosphere was noticeably tense.

The driver eventually left after taking on only a handful of people. At a few more stops, he attempted to cram more people on board, a physical impossibility at this point but after a while, even the driver gave up. There were a good three dozen people would could not board our bus in total, that I could see. 

When I finally got off the bus, I noticed another Route 1 was just a few minutes behind. It wasn't as full as ours but it was as busy as you'd expect at rush hour on a weekday.

Even while waiting in the bus shelter, I could overhear people were quietly bitching about how long the wait had been. Before I got on Route 1, I saw a Route 2 bus filled up to the doors going northbound after picking people up in Chinatown. The Route 3 behind it was packed in just the same way.

I was on the CTrain too earlier and that was incredibly busy, so full that I got off at some point and decided to walk the rest of the way.

The call centre is closed today. I will be sure to call in tomorrow. That was ridiculous.

P.S. I know there are transit staff on the boards … can you please pass the word to the people in charge of scheduling? Most riders can't be bothered to call to complain when stuff like this happens, even though they should.

P.P.S. Is what I experienced normal? Are rider expectations too high?

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That sounds like a pretty rough ride. I don't think running a flat level of Sunday service works well for Canada Day (lower frequencies, last buses leaving downtown at 2345, etc). It doesn't help artics aren't sent out on weekends anymore. I also noticed 3-car trains on the system today.

It's a busy day out there to not be running extra service.

If you want to save yourself the phone call tomorrow, you can put in the request online ;) http://www.calgarytransit.com/sr

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I have a hard time with that form, but I might give that another shot, thanks!

11 minutes ago, 1604 said:

It's a busy day out there to not be running extra service.

I did notice there was a ton of traffic downtown. It also took us four traffic light cycles to clear the 10th St bridge.

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Canada Day does tend to see an increase in passengers to/from downtown. Coupled with heavier traffic downtown, the construction in Parkdale/Bowness and the reduced frequency, that's a good recipe for disaster yesterday. Next two weekends aren't going to be pretty with the Stampede either.

I still think 25 minute frequency for a mainline crosstown route is quite low especially since there's few other routes to balance it out in the west leg. East end has the Max Purple as well as the 411 on 9th Ave and 87 on 17th Ave for shorter trips.

I was out yesterday as well. Took a 1 inbound and MP outbound. Both were decently filled but not jammed pack. There was a good number of families out for Canada Day events. I can see how it would've been overkill with the previous weekend service hours, at least on this leg.

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On 7/1/2019 at 6:57 PM, 1604 said:

That sounds like a pretty rough ride. I don't think running a flat level of Sunday service works well for Canada Day (lower frequencies, last buses leaving downtown at 2345, etc). It doesn't help artics aren't sent out on weekends anymore. I also noticed 3-car trains on the system today.

It's a busy day out there to not be running extra service.

If you want to save yourself the phone call tomorrow, you can put in the request online ;) http://www.calgarytransit.com/sr

Adding to the Sunday Service on Canada day, I was kind of surprised given that not many people too the bus along Centre Street  (NB and SB) after the fireworks (from my observations). Not only that, but the bus I was on heading south on the 3 (from Centre Street and 32nd to Heritage) was fairly empty heading towards downtown and was completely empty (except for the driver and myself) after hitting 6th ave and 2nd st heading all the way down to the end. However, the 1 sitting at that stop was completely filled, which doesn't surprise me.

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20 minutes ago, R. Meu said:

Adding to the Sunday Service on Canada day, I was kind of surprised given that not many people too the bus along Centre Street  (NB and SB) after the fireworks (from my observations). Not only that, but the bus I was on heading south on the 3 (from Centre Street and 32nd to Heritage) was fairly empty heading towards downtown and was completely empty (except for the driver and myself) after hitting 6th ave and 2nd st heading all the way down to the end.

The southbound Route 3 that left 6 Ave/2 St SW at 2345 was actually running very late and not the bus designated for the signalled departure. It took on all the patrons who were waiting for the route at this stop. Looked busy but was not full. (I was waiting for my bus and observed this.) If you were riding on the next southbound Route 3 bus, this would explain why you didn't have much company.

The last Route 1 westbound after the fireworks was almost full but we were able to accommodate everyone all the way through Kensington. I'd estimate almost 60 people aboard after Kensington/10th, it was very cozy and close quarters in there, LOL. The bus arrived at 6 Ave/2 ST SW a little late. It then idled there for a long time waiting for very late incoming buses (on routes 3, 4 and 24 I think) and we didn't leave until about 0015. 

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31 minutes ago, downbeat said:

The southbound Route 3 that left 6 Ave/2 St SW at 2345 was actually running very late and not the bus designated for the signalled departure. It took on all the patrons who were waiting for the route at this stop. Looked busy but was not full. (I was waiting for my bus and observed this.) If you were riding on the next southbound Route 3 bus, this would explain why you didn't have much company.

The last Route 1 westbound after the fireworks was almost full but we were able to accommodate everyone all the way through Kensington. I'd estimate almost 60 people aboard after Kensington/10th, it was very cozy and close quarters in there, LOL. The bus arrived at 6 Ave/2 ST SW a little late. It then idled there for a long time waiting for very late incoming buses (on routes 3, 4 and 24 I think) and we didn't leave until about 0015. 

Fair enough. We can say for sure that the levels of service on Canada Day is not acceptable, especially for the high ridership routes. One thing in specific regarding this for sure is that the 1 usually suffers more than the 3 on days like these, and I can say for sure that both of these routes are gonna be interesting during stampede season now that it's coming up very quick. One last thing to note is if they have plans to put artics on the 1 and 3 during the weekends, because I remember last year seeing artics on the 3 and 301 on Saturdays and Sundays to accommodate the stampede traffic.

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1 hour ago, R. Meu said:

One last thing to note is if they have plans to put artics on the 1 and 3 during the weekends, because I remember last year seeing artics on the 3 and 301 on Saturdays and Sundays to accommodate the stampede traffic.

I can’t remember if there were artics on Route 1 on weekends during Stampede last year. Might be helpful if that happens this year …

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I wonder if there would be any demand for additional Stampede Express routes outside of Centre St. Probably not or we wouldve seen more of them already.

They had the 303 from the west prior to the west blue line being built.

Centre St has the benefit of already high ridership plus there's the park and ride at North Pointe.

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On 7/3/2019 at 5:47 PM, R. Meu said:

One last thing to note is if they have plans to put artics on the 1 and 3 during the weekends, because I remember last year seeing artics on the 3 and 301 on Saturdays and Sundays to accommodate the stampede traffic.

Artics running on 3, 301 and 504 today, according to Transit55.

Standard buses on Route 1 but unusually they are all XD40s. (On weekends, there’s often at least one D40LF thrown into the mix. Sometimes there are no XD40s at all.)

And apart from 8062 on MT, the MAX services are an XD40 affair. 

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37 minutes ago, downbeat said:

High passenger loads, eh?

 

But in all seriousness, what are the chances of a mid-signup adjustment to rectify these constant weekend problems on Route 1? Or would something like this even be seen as a problem?

I mean if every bus is 50 minutes behind schedule then there's no issue ?

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Sorry, please know I don't mean to come off as whiny, seeing that I bring up Route 1 a lot in this thread. I am genuinely curious as to what state things have to reach before an adjustment is made. Unlike the discussion about Route 18 we had many months ago, what I am observing for Route 1 is not a result of cyclical/seasons seasonal passenger volumes.

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13 minutes ago, downbeat said:

Sorry, please know I don't mean to come off as whiny, seeing that I bring up Route 1 a lot in this thread. I am genuinely curious as to what state things have to reach before an adjustment is made. Unlike the discussion about Route 18 we had many months ago, what I am observing for Route 1 is not a result of cyclical/seasons passenger volumes.

I wish i still had a laptop with decent RAM... just to make a video of my Cities in Motion 2 gameplay, send it off to Calgary Transit (right after i send Winnipeg Transit a Star Wars-style saga) and maybe get the lightbulb going, that the current Route 1 needs to be restructured severely... 

I rode Route 1 from Bowness to downtown the other day too at 10pm. They had an artic on, but not even 8 riders from Bowness to Downtown, and half of them only got on at Kensington... CT managed to split off Route 3 a few years ago, so why not route 1...?

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42 minutes ago, armorand said:

I wish i still had a laptop with decent RAM... just to make a video of my Cities in Motion 2 gameplay, send it off to Calgary Transit (right after i send Winnipeg Transit a Star Wars-style saga) and maybe get the lightbulb going, that the current Route 1 needs to be restructured severely... 

I rode Route 1 from Bowness to downtown the other day too at 10pm. They had an artic on, but not even 8 riders from Bowness to Downtown, and half of them only got on at Kensington... CT managed to split off Route 3 a few years ago, so why not route 1...?

I play CiM2 as well! ? I'd prefer however to leave the game in the realm of the imaginary. As much as I love how real so much of it is, I also understand it's a game and can't possibly replicate all real-world conditions to act as a representation of a city for planning purposes.

As for artics operating inbound during nighttime off-peak … that's going to be a problem even if you split Route 1 in half. Some outbound evening departures are busy enough, a 60 foot bus is welcome but the bus is going to have to turn around in Bowness, so the same you thing you describe will keep happening, so long as there are artics operating between city centre and Bowness at night. Are you going to forsake comfort and capacity for outbound riders to avoid having a bus look empty when it turns around and goes inbound?

You see this on Route 1 going into the core from Forest Lawn too, later at night. And Route 3 inbound for that matter.

As for route splitting, the Route 3 split makes more sense as I imagine very few people rode all the way to Canyon Meadows from the core. And the line continues to be a crosstown service after the split.

I do understand why Transit is hesitant to split Route 1 in half. A fair number of people use the line through the core as a crosstown route. Forcing those customers to transfer could be a show-stopper.

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While we're on the topic of Route 1, they really need to sort out the situation at WB 52nd Street.

Today, I was on the Max platform waiting for a MP the entire time. According to transit55, both inbound Route 1 and MP were running quite a bit late. Both of them look liked they'd arrive at roughly the same time. However, the times in the app and on the platform's real time display were complete garbage compared to what I was seeing based on the actual location of the MP bus.

I must have been waiting on the platform for about 15 minutes. In that span, there was about 10 people waiting. The amount of flip-flopping some of these folks were making between the two stops was insane. A few people started off on the Max platform, and then switched to curbside and vice versa. Eventually, many saw the MP approaching and jumped back onto the Max platform. As predicted, the 1 also decided to show right when they did so.

Most of the time, people will stand by the emergency exit and hop across if they see a 1 coming or vice versa. I usually transfer here from an 87 on a regular basis and I see this almost every single time. Never have I seen anything like today though with people jumping back and forth multiple times unsure of which bus would arrive first.

They desperately need to figure out how to get the 1 to stop on the platform rather than curbside. Obviously, it's dangerous for people to be darting across the road last minute and it also makes for a horribly unpredictable and frustrating waiting experience. Unless the bus is running completely on time, if you rely on the app or real time display, good luck with figuring out which will arrive first and where you should be waiting.

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I should also mention that there is a ton of operational inconsistencies at this location as well. At the intersection at 50 St SE, the left-turn signals are staggered so that both directions aren't turning left at the same time. I believe the intention and correct procedure is for the Route 1 to safely turn into the left-turn lane and then enter the transitway when the left-turn signal is green.

However, because it's a left-turn signal, the priority of this light is not very high compared to the regular EB and WB lights which often means a relatively long wait. So what you'll frequently see is that route 1 operators will still enter into the transitway when the left-turn signal is not active but is active for straight-thru traffic. In this case, they'll usually slow down and yield to check for any incoming MP buses and then proceed.

I've also been in one situation where the operator entered from the left through lane and into the transitway. I was wondering why we wasn't turning into the left-turn lane and then at the last second, we swerved right into the transitway. No idea if he forgot that one time or if this is done on a regular basis.

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13 hours ago, downbeat said:

Sorry, please know I don't mean to come off as whiny, seeing that I bring up Route 1 a lot in this thread. I am genuinely curious as to what state things have to reach before an adjustment is made. Unlike the discussion about Route 18 we had many months ago, what I am observing for Route 1 is not a result of cyclical/seasons seasonal passenger volumes.

Oh don't worry, I meant it solely as a joke. 

As for the stop at 52nd street, I don't see why they can't model that intersection off of 7 Avenue and 1 Street SE, in that the stop line for the eastbound buses is a bit further back from the intersection so as to allow route 1 buses to have room to turn into the Transitway. But then again, you'd think there would be signal priority on the Transitway so who knows. 

11 hours ago, Transit Fan said:

I should also mention that there is a ton of operational inconsistencies at this location as well. At the intersection at 50 St SE, the left-turn signals are staggered so that both directions aren't turning left at the same time. I believe the intention and correct procedure is for the Route 1 to safely turn into the left-turn lane and then enter the transitway when the left-turn signal is green.

However, because it's a left-turn signal, the priority of this light is not very high compared to the regular EB and WB lights which often means a relatively long wait. So what you'll frequently see is that route 1 operators will still enter into the transitway when the left-turn signal is not active but is active for straight-thru traffic. In this case, they'll usually slow down and yield to check for any incoming MP buses and then proceed.

I've also been in one situation where the operator entered from the left through lane and into the transitway. I was wondering why we wasn't turning into the left-turn lane and then at the last second, we swerved right into the transitway. No idea if he forgot that one time or if this is done on a regular basis.

I think it's definitely up to the operator, cause some couldn't care less and run the red, whereas others wait. In my opinion they should be able to just go whenever it is safe.

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56 minutes ago, Blake M said:

As for the stop at 52nd street, I don't see why they can't model that intersection off of 7 Avenue and 1 Street SE, in that the stop line for the eastbound buses is a bit further back from the intersection so as to allow route 1 buses to have room to turn into the Transitway. But then again, you'd think there would be signal priority on the Transitway so who knows. 

I think it's definitely up to the operator, cause some couldn't care less and run the red, whereas others wait. In my opinion they should be able to just go whenever it is safe.

I had the exact same thoughts. Have the stop line for eastbound Max buses drawn farther back to allow buses enough room to make the turn. Although, I still feel like there's just enough clearance even if they kept it as is. There are far tighter turns buses have to make across the city.

As for the red light, it really doesn't make sense for buses to wait at the red since they're not crossing oncoming traffic. I would guess that they avoid making this official to avoid some potential case where an operator might enter the transitway on red when cross traffic on 50 St has right of way.

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