Chinese Daniel Posted January 28, 2018 Report Share Posted January 28, 2018 Those people only know how to shut down the system, They never thinking how to change. For example, they never build a heater shelterd for rider, they make the people wait the bus in - 30, that why now one ride that. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
M. Parsons Posted January 29, 2018 Report Share Posted January 29, 2018 19 minutes ago, Chinese Daniel said: Those people only know how to shut down the system, They never thinking how to change. For example, they never build a heater shelterd for rider, they make the people wait the bus in - 30, that why now one ride that. Spoken clearly from a transit fan perspective and not a real world perspective. Why would they spend money to not just build, but operate (pay for heat and maintenance) a heated bus shelter for a short term pilot project? Looking at the schedule... I see the most use a bus shelter would receive would be 2 buses per day. http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/edmonton-warms-to-heated-bus-shelters-1.2919861 http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatchewan/regina-building-heated-bus-shelters-1.2929558 Upwards of $50,000 each for a heated bus shelter. So, how would you keep the system running beyond the pilot project with the existing budget? How would you increase ridership? Don't get me wrong, I'm quite disappointed to hear of the demise of this operation but from some of the numbers I'm seeing for ridership, it is quite grim. And with multiple municipalities putting in funding, all it takes is one to withdraw to compromise the ability to run an operation like this. In the Edmonton area, most transit operations have been funded by only one or two municipalities, and so far they've all been successful. Now, with their success we're talking about joint operations, such as Edmonton and St. Albert, and Edmonton and Leduc to run an Airport-Edmonton-Leduc service. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chinese Daniel Posted January 29, 2018 Report Share Posted January 29, 2018 30 minutes ago, M. Parsons said: Spoken clearly from a transit fan perspective and not a real world perspective. Why would they spend money to not just build, but operate (pay for heat and maintenance) a heated bus shelter for a short term pilot project? Looking at the schedule... I see the most use a bus shelter would receive would be 2 buses per day. http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/edmonton-warms-to-heated-bus-shelters-1.2919861 http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatchewan/regina-building-heated-bus-shelters-1.2929558 Upwards of $50,000 each for a heated bus shelter. So, how would you keep the system running beyond the pilot project with the existing budget? How would you increase ridership? Don't get me wrong, I'm quite disappointed to hear of the demise of this operation but from some of the numbers I'm seeing for ridership, it is quite grim. And with multiple municipalities putting in funding, all it takes is one to withdraw to compromise the ability to run an operation like this. In the Edmonton area, most transit operations have been funded by only one or two municipalities, and so far they've all been successful. Now, with their success we're talking about joint operations, such as Edmonton and St. Albert, and Edmonton and Leduc to run an Airport-Edmonton-Leduc service. Tell you the trues, Edmonton anything was way better than Calgary, Calgary Anything just behind the time. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bus_Medic Posted January 29, 2018 Report Share Posted January 29, 2018 A little off topic, but I believe certain key end loops in Toronto are getting extra large glass “waiting room” style shelters, part of the wheel trans’ trip integration with the existing network. one has gone up near my place at sheppard and meadowvale recently...long story short, I’m pretty sure it has infrared heat installed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Doppelkupplung Posted January 29, 2018 Report Share Posted January 29, 2018 40 minutes ago, Bus_Medic said: A little off topic, but I believe certain key end loops in Toronto are getting extra large glass “waiting room” style shelters, part of the wheel trans’ trip integration with the existing network. one has gone up near my place at sheppard and meadowvale recently...long story short, I’m pretty sure it has infrared heat installed. To add to the off-topicness, some GOT stops have this. Heck, even the UTM bus stop has it. There's a button you push and the infrared heaters light up. Only work below 0 though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
M. Parsons Posted January 29, 2018 Report Share Posted January 29, 2018 4 hours ago, Chinese Daniel said: Tell you the trues, Edmonton anything was way better than Calgary, Calgary Anything just behind the time. I don't know about that. Edmonton has quite a number of closer in suburbs, which Calgary doesn't quite have, which helped bring about all of these smaller transit agencies. Of course, Calgary by itself is a larger city than Edmonton, but, Metro Edmonton is I believe a larger population. As examples, Google maps gives the following driving distances between the Downtown's of each City. Edmonton to: Spruce Grove 28 km Fort Saskatchewan 34 km Beaumont 26 km Leduc 35 km Of course, St. Albert and Sherwood Park are much closer than those. Calgary to: Airdrie 36 km Okotoks 45 km Cochrane 37 km Chestermere 23 km Edmonton also has an advantage with a centrally located University. I can only imagine it's quite a haul from even Chestermere to the U of C, let alone Okotoks. That is a feature of how Edmonton is laid out that does help with regional transit. Here's what I think On It should have done: Take over the privately operated commuter services from Chestermere, Cochrane, and Okotoks as a launching point. Maybe provide subsidies to the current operators and put everything under one branding? The subsidies would lower the fares, which could then increase ridership, and offer more service than On It provided. Southland does 4 trips from Okotoks to Calgary at $256 for a monthly pass. On It is 2 3 trips with a $155 monthly pass, but, that doesn't get you Downtown. Tack on a Calgary Transit pass to catch the LRT and there's no advantage over a one seat ride with the Southland commuter. Seems a compromise could have been to use the On It funding to extend a few trips beyond Okotoks, and lower the fares a bit. Maybe purchase transit buses rather than coaches? Probably the best would have been to purchase double deckers so that capacity goes up to absorb the ridership increase from lower fares but additional trips don't need to be funded initially. Ugh. I'm going deep with this. Fares... Fort Saskatchewan $187 integrated commuter pass, take LRT from Clareview Spruce Grove $135 and will get you to West Edmonton Mall, NAIT, Downtown, South Campus, or $176 for an integrated pass. Leduc $80, but you'll need an ETS pass to get Downtown so about $180 total. If you have UPass, Leduc Transit is apart of it. Generally speaking, you can commute cheaper by bus in Edmonton for comparable distances as the Calgary commuter buses. Some of the Edmonton options are similar to On It, requiring the LRT to complete your trip, and Spruce Grove is comparable to the private operations as they do go direct to Downtown. All are cheaper than the Calgary options. They are even overall cheaper than Airdrie Transit, although, not by too much for Fort Saskatchewan and Leduc. Spruce Grove is one hell of a deal at $135. In fact, after working on this post I must say... On It didn't stand a snowballs chance in hell. If they could have provided an integrated fare to Downtown Calgary in the region of $200 they may have had a better chance at success. Although, in response to the post I quoted, it's not that Edmonton's any better or Calgary is behind the times. Calgary has had a legacy private commuter network for many, many years. Edmonton hasn't had that, at least not in recent years. It's apples to oranges to try to compare commuter transit in Edmonton and Calgary as a result. Did On It do this right? No, probably not in my opinion, but, at the same time I'm not familiar with everything involved in starting up On It. It's costs, structure, goals, politics etc. Edit: It just occurred to me that there are actually 3 buses through Okotoks, not 2. Never the less, still less than the private operation. 3 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chinese Daniel Posted February 17, 2018 Report Share Posted February 17, 2018 http://www.cbc.ca/beta/news/canada/calgary/calgary-regional-transit-bus-southland-1.4523148 So southland will be take over on it transit. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Articulated Posted February 17, 2018 Report Share Posted February 17, 2018 10 minutes ago, Chinese Daniel said: http://www.cbc.ca/beta/news/canada/calgary/calgary-regional-transit-bus-southland-1.4523148 So southland will be take over on it transit. I think that this is the best case scenario. I never understood why Southland kept their existing commuter runs operating and competing against a publicly-funded system, in many cases running side-by-side with the On-It routes. It just seemed like an unnecessary level of duplication. Combining the downtown commuter runs with the more modern On-It branding makes a lot of sense. The continuation of the Calgary-Banff service is also good news, as that service seemed quite successful last summer. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Articulated Posted February 17, 2018 Report Share Posted February 17, 2018 46 minutes ago, Articulated said: The continuation of the Calgary-Banff service is also good news, as that service seemed quite successful last summer. Okay so through further research, Southland did not automatically pick up the Calgary-Banff route as part of the On-It branding, as I had originally thought. Banff and Canmore are looking to put out a tender to operate service this year. http://www.rmoutlook.com/article/Regional-transit-from-Calgary-area-to-be-tendered-20180215 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chinese Daniel Posted February 17, 2018 Report Share Posted February 17, 2018 48 minutes ago, Articulated said: I think that this is the best case scenario. I never understood why Southland kept their existing commuter runs operating and competing against a publicly-funded system, in many cases running side-by-side with the On-It routes. It just seemed like an unnecessary level of duplication. Combining the downtown commuter runs with the more modern On-It branding makes a lot of sense. The continuation of the Calgary-Banff service is also good news, as that service seemed quite successful last summer. I agree, Because On it now is start Somerset-Bridlewood and If the c-train was broken down, will be make people use more time to take that On-it bus, And They maybe be miss the bus too. Where they start in downtown? Greyhound station? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TimmyC62 Posted April 18, 2018 Report Share Posted April 18, 2018 On 17/02/2018 at 11:01 AM, Articulated said: Okay so through further research, Southland did not automatically pick up the Calgary-Banff route as part of the On-It branding, as I had originally thought. Banff and Canmore are looking to put out a tender to operate service this year. http://www.rmoutlook.com/article/Regional-transit-from-Calgary-area-to-be-tendered-20180215 Looks like Southland's continuing the Calgary-Banff service after all: More details on the Roam website: http://roamtransit.com/2018/04/take-transit-to-and-within-banff-national-park-for-an-unforgettable-experience-this-summer/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TechSpotlight Posted June 21, 2018 Report Share Posted June 21, 2018 Here is a photo of MCI 102-DL3 #2782 running a charter from an elementary school in SW Calgary. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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