Calgary Transit

[2102]

3 hours ago, Dreadteir said:

Thus far this morning, it appears that the Queue Jump light isn't working. A few busses I saw ended up having to go straight through and loop around The Bow.

Also, all the routes that stopped outside of Suncor Energy Centre before have moved to stopping at The Bow instead. Surprise!

I sometimes wonder if it would be easier to go through life with the collective brain power of the CoC...

[LRT]

ok FUCK!

Can we please keep the derogatory comments and direct insults to the City Of Calgary and Calgary transit off this forum?

People, many of us on this forum work for Transit, including myself and some of these comments that I’ve been noticing in the last few months have been really starting to piss me off, and I have been extremely insulted by this. 

I’ve been working for The City Of Calgary for over 15 years. The City Of Calgary / Calgary Transit has never done me wrong, personally, Transit has been there for me when I needed it the most. I’ve made many friends here and we all work hard and provide a pretty kick ass safe experience. Safety is paramount to all of us here.

I can totally understand that sometimes we get you to where you need to go late. Believe you me this is out of our control. We’re only human and we all do the best we possibly can.

Transit has helped me purchase 2 homes a bunch of cars, various trips around the world, and most importantly enough raise and provide for my daughter.

So once again, let’s keep the irrelevant bitching discussions about CT off this forum.
 

If you have problems with Calgary Transit perhaps you can express how you feel about Calgary Transit on Twitter not on CPTDB.

 

[2102]

59 minutes ago, LRT said:

ok FUCK!

Can we please keep the derogatory comments and direct insults to the City Of Calgary and Calgary transit off this forum?

People, many of us on this forum work for Transit, including myself and some of these comments that I’ve been noticing in the last few months have been really starting to piss me off, and I have been extremely insulted by this. 

I’ve been working for The City Of Calgary for over 15 years. The City Of Calgary / Calgary Transit has never done me wrong, personally, Transit has been there for me when I needed it the most. I’ve made many friends here and we all work hard and provide a pretty kick ass safe experience. Safety is paramount to all of us here.

I can totally understand that sometimes we get you to where you need to go late. Believe you me this is out of our control. We’re only human and we all do the best we possibly can.

Transit has helped me purchase 2 homes a bunch of cars, various trips around the world, and most importantly enough raise and provide for my daughter.

So once again, let’s keep the irrelevant bitching discussions about CT off this forum.
 

If you have problems with Calgary Transit perhaps you can express how you feel about Calgary Transit on Twitter not on CPTDB.

 

Perhaps I misspoke, not the collective brain power of the City of Calgary, but of City of Calgary MANAGEMENT. How is it EVERY SINGLE TIME they open a project it gets screwed up? $300 million on the 17 Ave Transitway and they didn't even install bus priority? In the private sector somebody would be losing their job over stuff like that

I too am a driver and would rather them actually properly give us infrastructure instead of having to sit in a line for 15 minutes and then have to go around the block anyways

[Nick B]

1 hour ago, LRT said:

ok FUCK!

Can we please keep the derogatory comments and direct insults to the City Of Calgary and Calgary transit off this forum?

People, many of us on this forum work for Transit, including myself and some of these comments that I’ve been noticing in the last few months have been really starting to piss me off, and I have been extremely insulted by this. 

I’ve been working for The City Of Calgary for over 15 years. The City Of Calgary / Calgary Transit has never done me wrong, personally, Transit has been there for me when I needed it the most. I’ve made many friends here and we all work hard and provide a pretty kick ass safe experience. Safety is paramount to all of us here.

I can totally understand that sometimes we get you to where you need to go late. Believe you me this is out of our control. We’re only human and we all do the best we possibly can.

Transit has helped me purchase 2 homes a bunch of cars, various trips around the world, and most importantly enough raise and provide for my daughter.

So once again, let’s keep the irrelevant bitching discussions about CT off this forum.
 

If you have problems with Calgary Transit perhaps you can express how you feel about Calgary Transit on Twitter not on CPTDB.

 

Respectfully, for the most part I don’t think anyone’s intention here in the last several posts was to insult you or any specific person or group of people here. I think every single one of us on here have had to rely on transit at some point in our lives and are all certainly grateful for all that it’s done for us, although whether or not that is the case for anyone here is frankly irrelevant to the subject I would say. What most people have been doing here is calling recent events for what they are and expressing real and reasonable sentiments likely shared by most of the riding public. While I understand the employees’ side of things, this vilification of speaking up on this discussion board about genuine problems faced by our transit system, which I’ve seen several times over the years from CT employees on this board such as yourself worries me as the encouragement of this kind of attitude is exactly what stalls change and improvement in any field of endeavour. Is this same attitude present around the workplace at transit as well?

[PartiallySD]

23 minutes ago, Nick B said:

Respectfully, for the most part I don’t think anyone’s intention here in the last several posts was to insult you or any specific person or group of people here. I think every single one of us on here have had to rely on transit at some point in our lives and are all certainly grateful for all that it’s done for us, although whether or not that is the case for anyone here is frankly irrelevant to the subject I would say. What most people have been doing here is calling recent events for what they are and expressing real and reasonable sentiments likely shared by most of the riding public. While I understand the employees’ side of things, this vilification of speaking up on this discussion board about genuine problems faced by our transit system, which I’ve seen several times over the years from CT employees on this board such as yourself worries me as the encouragement of this kind of attitude is exactly what stalls change and improvement in any field of endeavour. Is this same attitude present around the workplace at transit as well?

I agree with this. Part of a successful democracy and government is criticizing when you see problems like the ones that have been expressed recently. It is important to make problems known, because solving them is a positive for everyone.

I personally don’t think anyone here, or in the public for that matter wants to vilify transit, or the people who are employed by. It is an essential service that hundreds of thousands of Calgarians rely on or would like to rely on IF it was done correctly. The problem is that the city of Calgary has a tendency to half ass a lot of things. Every Calgarian has the right to, and frankly should complain about it because sitting and ignoring the problems doesn’t make a better transit system. We are a city that is perfectly capable of solving issues both in-front and behind of bureaucracy, especially those within the public service sector, so I think it’s perfectly fair for every Calgarian to strive for a better transit system.

 

[Yoho]

Looking at the past few posts, this has been an interesting discussion. I think there are a number of things Calgary Transit does very well and overall, Calgary Transit probably outperforms most major Transit Agencies in Canada from a cost and efficiency perspective. I'll share a few examples;

1. Calgary Transit LRT (C Train) - Calgary Transit did this right... within 10 years of opening, there was C Train service to NW, NE and South Calgary. Calgary was able to add more track compared to Edmonton (similar system), mainly due to being above ground in the Downtown Core. Compare that to Edmonton, for example, which their LRT started a few years prior to Calgary's and in 1990 Edmonton only had Corona Station to Clareview station, essentially the same line and service area compared to when its LRT first opened. Some of this was due to the Olympics and a favourable political environment. 

2. Pioneered Community Shuttle Operations - Calgary was the first city to implement Community Shuttle. The implementation of Community Shuttle allowed labor costs to decrease and greatly expanded service area for less cost. I would argue Calgary Transit implemented this in the late 1980's and no other Canadian city has been able to successfully utilize a fleet of small buses the way Calgary has. This is partly why if you look at newer communities around Calgary, they get service sooner than other comparable cities. 

3. Implementation of BRT and OPTICOM (Transit Signal Priority) - this is huge but most customers probably don't notice this. This has been in place for more than a decade and allows the bus to communicate with traffic lights at certain intersections to give Transit priority. Surprisingly most cities do not have this. 

4. Implementation of MAX BRT routes and additional transit priority - this includes additional transit priority measures such as the 17 Avenue transit way and enhanced transit priority. 

5. Successful internal implementation of ON DEMAND TRANSIT SERVICE - this one is also a major accomplishment for Calgary Transit. Most cities have contracted On Demand Service out. The fact that Calgary has implemented on demand service and was able to do it in house. I don't know the specifics, but I suspect the lower cost of Community Shuttle has allowed Calgary Transit to keep on demand service internal rather than contracting it out. 

 

Does Calgary Transit have some shortcomings? Of course, every Transit Agency has them. I will address the most recent shortcomings as outlined in previous posts... 

First, Calgary Transit does watch costs very carefully. I imagine this was part of the rationale of having Calgary Transit on a Saturday level of service on September 30. Having said that, stat holiday service is extremely expensive and creating a special schedule for one holiday creates its own logistical issues. I'm not privy to internal information but perhaps having some standby buses for those buses which were crowded could have helped or perhaps there were other factors at play which fuelled reliability concerns. 

Second, it does seem that Calgary Transit did not get signal priority 100% correct for some recent projects. While that is unfortunate, many cities do not have the que jump lanes or bus only roads that Calgary has. At least Calgary is on board with trying new technology to enhance efficiency... there is often some trial and error with new technology.

 

I think discussion is good, but I think sometimes it can be easy to focus on the negative and forget how Calgary Transit has done compared to other Transit Agencies and the fact that they pioneered some concepts that continue to live on today.

 

[R. Meu]

19 hours ago, Yoho said:

Does Calgary Transit have some shortcomings? Of course, every Transit Agency has them. I will address the most recent shortcomings as outlined in previous posts... 

First, Calgary Transit does watch costs very carefully. I imagine this was part of the rationale of having Calgary Transit on a Saturday level of service on September 30. Having said that, stat holiday service is extremely expensive and creating a special schedule for one holiday creates its own logistical issues. I'm not privy to internal information but perhaps having some standby buses for those buses which were crowded could have helped or perhaps there were other factors at play which fuelled reliability concerns. 

Second, it does seem that Calgary Transit did not get signal priority 100% correct for some recent projects. While that is unfortunate, many cities do not have the que jump lanes or bus only roads that Calgary has. At least Calgary is on board with trying new technology to enhance efficiency... there is often some trial and error with new technology.

I'm not sure about the fact of them watching costs nearly as much as they use to, just look at how much extra money they spent on overtime during the pandemic to keep the paltry service going then and it still raises questions whether it was the correct choice of decision-making or not (just look at the February 14 changes). The costs rationale regarding September 30 doesn't seem to align with a lot of other things that seem to be contradicting the argument of cost effectiveness. I don't know about you but small things like spending money to change out the 6468 seat inserts on a lot of buses just doesn't seem to make much sense (sure you could argue easier to clean and cleaning costs in the long run, but a lot of these buses are already past midlife and it just doesn't seem to be worth it for that imo. Plus if ain't broke, don't fix it). 

 

You could boast about technological changes which is nice and everything, and shows that things can be done differently, but how many times have you seen operators not even bother using some of the signal priority that is available due to inefficiencies (like the one at 114 Avenue and Barlow Trail) on the 302, or in some cases the one at 36 Street and 16 Ave NE for the MAX Orange). It happens more often than you think, and riding these routes from my experience seems pretty common.

 

Regarding positive things, I will say this: the MAX routes are great and the concepts of them were worth putting them into reality with how quick they are and more efficient in most aspects, however, we all know the main problem that plagues these routes (and the majority of the services in general) and that is frequency. Concepts are one thing, and if it functions under the right circumstances it would be successful. That said, if there are little buses running around (like it is in reality), it defeats the entire purpose. We all want to strive for better transit here, and sometimes being vocal about concerns and issues and perhaps providing input on how to address these issues is the only way to convey these messages across to deliver better service.

 

 

 

[downbeat]

On 10/3/2022 at 4:53 PM, LRT said:

Probably has to do with the new queue jump  

Finally had the chance to get a good look at it.

Good to see there's physical lane separation here. There's also a sensor embedded in the pavement. The road markings, overhead signs and slanted signal light show this lane is only meant for buses turning left. Too bad it can't officially be used by buses going straight or turning right to skip ahead of the traffic backups on EB 5th. (I wonder why not?) That said, I believe I did see one bus using it for a right turn … 

[downbeat]

On 10/4/2022 at 3:29 PM, Yoho said:

Looking at the past few posts, this has been an interesting discussion.

Thanks for your contribution. I agree! Perhaps a little heated at times but better than not being able to talk about such things.

On 10/4/2022 at 3:29 PM, Yoho said:

Calgary Transit probably outperforms most major Transit Agencies in Canada from a cost and efficiency perspective.

Perhaps a little too efficient. I understand wanting to fully utilize the capacity of vehicles … but if buses and trains are full when people need them, it gives the indication to current and potential riders/customers there's not enough room to welcome them. This could become an unintentional turnoff to growth.

On 10/4/2022 at 3:29 PM, Yoho said:

within 10 years of opening, there was C Train service to NW, NE and South Calgary. Calgary was able to add more track compared to Edmonton (similar system), mainly due to being above ground in the Downtown Core.

A blessing and a curse, IMHO. Calgary traded LRT system breadth for system efficiency. Downtown being above ground is a major bottleneck due to conflicts with buses, non-transit vehicles and pedestrians all needing to be managed. This limits speed of operation, ultimately limiting throughput and lowering system capacity.

On 10/4/2022 at 3:29 PM, Yoho said:

The implementation of Community Shuttle allowed labor costs to decrease and greatly expanded service area for less cost.

I do find it weird Calgary Transit seems to be the only major Canadian (and maybe even North American?) transit agency to do this. I guess the labour cost benefits outweigh the ongoing costs of maintaining a huge shadow fleet of smaller vehicles with their own parts and maintenance requirements?

On 10/4/2022 at 3:29 PM, Yoho said:

OPTICOM (Transit Signal Priority) - this is huge but most customers probably don't notice this. This has been in place for more than a decade and allows the bus to communicate with traffic lights at certain intersections to give Transit priority.

When it works, it's great. The new queue jump downtown at 5th Ave. x Centre St. SW seems to be one of those positive examples, just from a couple days of casual observation on my part. But there are a few intersections where I can see the traffic system detecting the presence of a bus, but nothing actually happens. Westbound Kensington at 14 St. NW is one such location: the blue light comes when buses approach but the traffic signal timing doesn't really change.

On 10/4/2022 at 3:29 PM, Yoho said:

it does seem that Calgary Transit did not get signal priority 100% correct for some recent projects.

The signal design for the 17th Avenue S.E. Transitway remains a mystery to me. It's a truly excellent bus lane and related infrastructure but under normal circumstances buses aren't able to go any faster than car traffic, so trip times are similar to before (if not a little worse) with a practical time advantage only when there's some edge case due to a traffic incident in the non-transit lanes or due to the hill between Deerfoot and Forest Lawn being too snowy/icy. Buses don't get priority when entering and exiting at 26th St. S.E. or when crossing 19th St.  in Inglewood, although they do get some of the time back thanks to the bypass over Deerfoot Trail. I'd still rather have it than not, but it still feels like a lot of money spent for minimal time savings for riders and minimal efficiency boost for the transit operator.

The 14th St. S.W. Transitway seems better to me, although there's more grade separation/fewer crossings, so less opportunity to feel as if bus riders are having to wait their turn. Apart from costing even more money, maybe that's the only difference?

[Transit Fan]

5 hours ago, downbeat said:

Finally had the chance to get a good look at it.

Good to see there's physical lane separation here. There's also a sensor embedded in the pavement. The road markings, overhead signs and slanted signal light show this lane is only meant for buses turning left. Too bad it can't officially be used by buses going straight or turning right to skip ahead of the traffic backups on EB 5th. (I wonder why not?) That said, I believe I did see one bus using it for a right turn … 

Nice to see them put in the physical separation and not just slap down some painted lines. I'm definitely gonna check this out next time i'm in downtown.

5 hours ago, downbeat said:

The signal design for the 17th Avenue S.E. Transitway remains a mystery to me. It's a truly excellent bus lane and related infrastructure but under normal circumstances buses aren't able to go any faster than car traffic, so trip times are similar to before (if not a little worse) with a practical time advantage only when there's some edge case due to a traffic incident in the non-transit lanes or due to the hill between Deerfoot and Forest Lawn being too snowy/icy. Buses don't get priority when entering and exiting at 26th St. S.E. or when crossing 19th St.  in Inglewood, although they do get some of the time back thanks to the bypass over Deerfoot Trail. I'd still rather have it than not, but it still feels like a lot of money spent for minimal time savings for riders and minimal efficiency boost for the transit operator.

The 14th St. S.W. Transitway seems better to me, although there's more grade separation/fewer crossings, so less opportunity to feel as if bus riders are having to wait their turn. Apart from costing even more money, maybe that's the only difference?

I was able to take the Max Yellow a few times this summer for the first time. The underpass at 90th Ave feels so satisfying to travel under. Unfortunately, I couldn't help but notice that the level crossing at Heritage Dr seems to suffer from the same problem the 17th Ave transitway has. Not a single car in sight yet the signal appeared to be on a timer so buses still had to wait for what seems like a really long time.

As a regular rider along the 17th Ave Transitway, i'm definitely grateful that it was built. The multi-use pathway on the bridge over Deerfoot is absolutely amazing. Overall, the physical infrastructure itself along the entire corridor was really well done. After being on the Max Yellow though, I can't help but think how much better it could've been to have underpasses at the problematic crossings along the 17th Ave transitway. Cost is obviously the biggest deciding factor and committing to multiple underpasses probably would've meant that as of today, we probably wouldn't have a bridge over Deerfoot at all.

I have some old paper schedules lying around for the former 305. If you compare the trip time between 33rd St SE and 1 St SW (in both directions) for the 305 and Max Purple, surprisingly, (or maybe not so surprisingly) the transitway has shaved off a whopping 0 minutes from the former 305 trip times. We spent tens of millions of dollars to build a dedicated bridge for transit and have managed to reduce trip times by a negligible amount, if at all. I guess one positive thing about the transitway is that it definitely helps to keep the trip times more consistent when traffic is backed up in the area. That said, it feels like there is so much wasted potential that we aren't able to shave off even a few minutes in the schedule.

[Transit Fan]

I've added some scans of the 305 paper schedules if anyone is interested. Newest one I have is from Oct 2012 and the oldest one from Mar 2009. I recall the 305 first launched in Dec 2008 so this would've been the schedule for the second ever signup. Those headways were just absolutely insane; I think at the time, they were expecting the 305 to take off like the 301 did. Sadly, that never happened and things quickly went downhill ever since.

Honestly though, imagine that level of service on the current MAX lines. 

[vicinity]

On 10/2/2022 at 3:47 PM, vicinity said:

Look for 4 car trains starting Oct 10

This has been cancelled for the remainder of the sign up for unknown reasons 

[downbeat]

Is today the start of a new signup, unofficially? Or were there revisions for the fall signup? I notice there's no block "history" on Transit 55 today (i.e. what buses operated previously for any particular block) — typically a sign of the schedule having changed.

[LRT]

5 minutes ago, downbeat said:

Is today the start of a new signup, unofficially? Or were there revisions for the fall signup? I notice there's no block "history" on Transit 55 today (i.e. what buses operated previously for any particular block) — typically a sign of the schedule having changed.

No. It’s just another day in paradise. 

[R. Meu]

1 hour ago, downbeat said:

Is today the start of a new signup, unofficially? Or were there revisions for the fall signup? I notice there's no block "history" on Transit 55 today (i.e. what buses operated previously for any particular block) — typically a sign of the schedule having changed.

Small revisions from what I’ve seen, such as block changes.

[TimmyC62]

Something for the sign programmers : 

 

Edit: and apparently it's going to be actually implemented on the route itself: https://calgary.ctvnews.ca/calgary-transit-renaming-bus-route-in-honour-of-tegan-and-sara-1.6104786

[downbeat]

Is the system short of artics? There have been 40-footers on Route 1 lately and they are not big enough for rush hour. The bus I was on today was so full, the driver was unable to take on passengers for a while. At 20 minute headways, this wasn’t great for whoever was left behind. 

[R. Meu]

2 hours ago, downbeat said:

Is the system short of artics? There have been 40-footers on Route 1 lately and they are not big enough for rush hour. The bus I was on today was so full, the driver was unable to take on passengers for a while. At 20 minute headways, this wasn’t great for whoever was left behind. 

Imo it probably is…. Some keys are strictly 40 footer on the 1 even during the day, which is an indication that they probably don’t have enough to go around. Mind you, in the last few years, there’s been more artics being spread out between various routes…. Not only just the 3, 301, 302 + school runs but now the 14, 23, some on the 82, MO, and even more of them seen on increasingly more school runs, its stretching it thin. Perhaps it’s really time to allocate funding to procure more artics (and maybe replace the oldest ones, they’ve seen better days imo).

[JK-from-YYC]

A significant number of buses all over the city are 15-60 minutes late and some routes (4, 5, 8, 9, 13, 300, MP, etc.) are completely messed up by tonight’s weather. Hopefully the roads will be cleared overnight and driving conditions will be better tomorrow…

[yvarushin]

8 hours ago, JK-from-YYC said:

A significant number of buses all over the city are 15-60 minutes late and some routes (4, 5, 8, 9, 13, 300, MP, etc.) are completely messed up by tonight’s weather. Hopefully the roads will be cleared overnight and driving conditions will be better tomorrow…

It’s only going to get worse with the heavy snowfall expected overnight.

[downbeat]

Well, today is one of those days where a number of artics are out on routes where you don't normally see one.

Meanwhile, Routes 1, 3 and 301 are mostly/completely operated with conventional buses.

(All info gleaned from Transit 55, of course.)

[R. Meu]

28 minutes ago, downbeat said:

Well, today is one of those days where a number of artics are out on routes where you don't normally see one.

Meanwhile, Routes 1, 3 and 301 are mostly/completely operated with conventional buses.

(All info gleaned from Transit 55, of course.)

Even with that, the artics getting stuck in other places. 6064 and 6066 on the 21, for example, have both been stuck close to each other this morning. 6036 got stuck in woodbine and was left behind.

[vicinity]

The frequency index has been somewhat finalized for the south Macleod revision.

Route 14 Cranston/ Bridlewood 

Peak 7/8/30 minutes, 22 minutes midday, 30 evening and weekends 

 

Route 78 Sundance/ Chaparral

Peak 18 minutes, midday evenings and weekends 30 minutes 

 

Route 102 Silverado/ Shawnessy 

Peak 20 minutes, 30 minutes Midday, evenings and weekends.
 

Route 167 Walden/ Legacy 

Peak 14 minutes, 45 minutes midday, Saturday midday and Sunday midday 

 

Route 194 Wolf Willow

Peak 25 minutes, 45 minutes midday 

 

[TechSpotlight]

40 minutes ago, vicinity said:

The frequency index has been somewhat finalized for the south Macleod revision.

Route 14 Cranston/ Bridlewood 

Peak 7/8/30 minutes, 22 minutes midday, 30 evening and weekends 

 

Route 78 Sundance/ Chaparral

Peak 18 minutes, midday evenings and weekends 30 minutes 

 

Route 102 Silverado/ Shawnessy 

Peak 20 minutes, 30 minutes Midday, evenings and weekends.
 

Route 167 Walden/ Legacy 

Peak 14 minutes, 45 minutes midday, Saturday midday and Sunday midday 

 

Route 194 Wolf Willow

Peak 25 minutes, 45 minutes midday 

 

Is there any idea when these changes will be put in place?

[vicinity]

16 minutes ago, TechSpotlight said:

Is there any idea when these changes will be put in place?

This December service revision