How Calgary Became a Transit City

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What if I revealed that Canada boasts the second busiest LRT system in North America, and it's not in Toronto or Montreal but in the western city of Calgary, Alberta? Yes, you heard it correctly – this bustling LRT system thrives in Canada's fifth-largest metro region. So, how did Calgary achieve this remarkable feat? Let's dive straight into it

Enter the C-Train, a light-rail system in Calgary that operates as a high-capacity light metro. Within the downtown free-fare zone, it transforms into a modern tram, gliding along a dedicated right-of-way. This innovative subway-surface alignment, often dubbed semi-metro, might just hold the key to why the system excels in transporting Calgary's citizens. But before we unravel the bigger questions, let's delve into the fascinating history of the C-Train.

#canada #transit

[TheUrbanique]

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[taylortheyummy]

The Calgary C-Train is very successful! However, as someone who used this train line for nearly a decade, there has been a lack of funding and care put into the system and it's really not as strong as it could be. The people of Calgary deserve better transit and for the Green Line to be built!!

[Roshi_]

I live in Calgary and I do utilize the C-Train quite often. But unfortunately Calgary is still quite car dependent and I wish the city would spend more money on transit. But I am glad that the Green Line project is beginning soon...

[glaframb]

Calgary : C-Train;
Ottawa : O-Train;
Montréal : REM
Edmonton : E-Train;
Toronto : Go-Train
Vancouver : Skytrain
Winnipeg : What Train ?

[TheLiamster]

This system is great but it needs an airport connection. When that is eventually built ridership will increase even more

[stickynorth]

Calgary shows you that you don't really need a dense city to make LRT work. You just need it connect to major transit hubs as well as have a fairly big and centralized office district to make it work...

[ZacHartley]

Might be time for an update. Maybe a deep dive on how we lost the green line?

[johnwang]

Keep in mind that Calgary had a population of 345, 000 in 1967 when that study was done, 440, 000 in 1975 when the first downtown to Anderson station line was designed (I believe the Andersen location was a drive in theatre in the middle of open fields at the time) and through booms and busts, was just barely passing a million before regressing to 750, 000 when the C-Train was finally built.

It's interesting to note that the first line incorporated money saving measures such as the surface rail doentown on an avenues dedicated to public transit and emergency vehicles hence minimizing the effects of traffic on an otherwise dedicated route. Compared this with the proposed green line where despite having expensive underground sections and stations doentown but also further out, the line is also dusl mode mixed with regular street traffic thereby severely restricting the advantages of not only dedicated throughfare portions but exoensive dedicated underground thoroughfare portions. Dual mode may be necessary to reduce infrastructure costs and rights of way but does severely affect capacity and creates a vulnerability to traffic and accidents.

It seems to me that the early cost saving measures of the first line were well thought out and heavily debated whereas the cost saving measures on the current proposed line are more ad-hoc just to try and get it past ever increasingly restrictive budgets.

Despite the seemingly ad-hoc cost reductions, the green line is to be a low floor tram which would be cars that are incompatible to the existing routes which use high floor cars. Yes, low floor means the stations are simply sidewalk curbs and hence inexpensive to build but with the stations being centre landings in the roads, this would also lead to pedestrians running across traffic and the tracks at inopportune times. The low floor train is probably due to the focus from the manufacturers pushing low floor trams everywhere but the low floor green line surely decreases flexibility for deploying cars and inceases maintenance facilities and training needed.

The Blue Arrow program which studied if there would be a market for commuter transit to downtown instead of the ore-existing grid public transit (basically BRT to study the viability of LRT before BRT was a thing), included a dial a ride transir service (DART) to six then remote sub-urbs in the south west using the Flxible Flxette high floor total conversion minibus that was popular for airport and hotel shuttles at the time and basically looked like miniature buses. Though some people today call those Flexettes crude and ugly, I find them to be a lot cuter and more polished than the cutaway van conversion into minibuses today. When I inquired Calgary Transit about the DART program as it's not even mentioned on their website's history of Calgary Transit despite being successful enough to be continued after the Blue Areow program and basically ran till the Flxette buses could no longer be effectively maintained, my question got elevated to the most senior official before finding someone that remembered the program and he said that the goals of the on demsnd service by minibus to underserved neighbourhoods is now being met by the cutaway minibuses on schedulef routes during non-peak hours and normal buses during peak hours.

It would seem to me that with GPS and smart phone ride hailing apps, the DART concept could not only be more effective today but with the future of autonomous vehicles, could lead to dual mode PRT as collectors and distributors to the LRT system.

Nothing beats fixed scheduled route transit for peak capacity but people also want convenience and flexibility during non-peak hours and the system can benefit from only running vehicles when needed instead of empty buses however small on non-peak schedules (note one scandanavisn country placed cameras and call buttons at the bus stops so that the bus would only be dispatched when there are actually passengers though that was still fixed route.

Calgary's LRT and Blue Arrow service came from a time when people were willing to experiment with transit, even for notably small populations that were expected to grow. What we have today is innovative transit such as the Masdar city PRT being reduced to two passenger stops and two cargo stops. Public transit is quite fixed on what they consider tried and true.

We're not carrying through with innovations to even see if they might be worthwhile anymore and designed obsolescence is being effectively marketed by the manufacturers, specifically with the low floor trams of the green line but even the other three lines now have three models of cars though they all used the same rails and high platforms, two models could be linked together while the third can not be linked with the other two, not because of the coupling but because of the control system.

[cliffwoodbury]

I didn't know Calgeries skyline was so impressive

[marcwenger]

2:56 wrong map. That's the proposed SE (green line) extension; not West extension

[actionnew]

Calgary was the first city on earth to have City-wide Wi-Fi in 2001 -2002 from WestNet Calgary.

[spencermatthews]

2:28, Calgary dosen't have three lines, it has two, with four legs. A third is being constructed. Also, it's not the fifth largest metropolitan area in Canada, it's the fourth, behind Toronto, Montreal and the Vancouver lower mainland.

[myheartbelongoi]

The system is excellent if you need to go downtown or somewhere that happens to be near a station. What needs to happen now is a line to the airport and connector lines that branch off the "spine" that has been built.

I can't imagine how long and expensive that would be, especially in light of the incredible infrastructure deficit that has come to light in Calgary lately.

[skyscraperman]

For the size of the city it's a very successful rail system. It could use improvements, but it's getting there. Recently the transit department changed the frequency of the trains, and at peak they are now running 3 minutes apart. Off peak ranges, but still shorter frequencies than before. In other good news on the C-Train front, Ridership is ahead of its all time high time back in 2015 before the oil and gas industry had a massive downturn. The downtown still has a 30% vacancy rate and those offices that aren't vacant are busy all the time as large numbers of people work remotely full time or part time, so the fact that ridership is above its previous all time high is hopeful news.

[jayskeleton]

we really need a ring line it makes travelling between train line wayy easier than having to change it at downtown but Idk when well ever get that to happen lol

[greggreg]

Public transit should be free across Canada to promote people to use it even more❤

[specialcb]

Small, nitpicky correction: Calgary is Canada's 4th largest metro not 5th, Ottawa which was previously in 4th has dropped a place in recent statistics.

[joncalon]

The map you show at 0:14 show "Carleton" and "Hurdman". These are in Ottawa, not Calgary. Also, it's Somerset-Bridlewood, no r or extra o involved.

[joncalon]

The Green Line is a mere shadow of what it should've been. It's going from Eau Claire downtown to the maintenance garage in the southeast at a station called Shepard, through a bunch of industrial parks and skirting a couple of communities. Meanwhile, the hundreds of buses going north on Centre Street will continue because the planners decided to go south instead of north. This is one of those decisions that I believe will hurt the city's budgets for a long time to come. They could've gone north, and eliminated a ton of buses and their drivers, and been successful for ridership from day one, instead of hoping for extensions that will put the Green Line into populated areas...

[justinsimaluk]

So, you showed an image of the SE Green Line when talking about the west extension of the blue line. The free fare zone isn't a major factor in the amount of ridership the system gets. You completely glossed over the fact that downtown Calgary is extremely dense with jobs, as in the second highest concentration of head offices and towers outside of Toronto, and parking was limited/reduced with higher prices to encourage train ridership. That is the huge underlying factor in why Calgary has such high ridership. It isn't anything to do with ticket prices of free fare zones.