Calgary may look to streetcar history for future of transit
The city of Vancouver should take note, there are streetcars on tap for Calgary.
What is old is new again and planners in North America are beginning to grasp the importance of simple streetcar.
Streetcars or trams are derided by the SkyTrain lobby who would rather close schools and hospitals to fund kilometres of aerial viaducts or stygian holes in the ground to operate metro.
There are drawbacks, streetcars are stuck in traffic flows, but this can be mitigated by tram priority at intersections and traffic calming measures including short stretches of reserved rights-of-ways. The benefits of tram operation are many, including higher commercial speeds when compared to comparable bus operation; about half the operating costs of buses; and the inherent ability to attract transit customers because transit customers want their transit on the pavement, easy to use.
In Vancouver there is fear and loathing of the lowly streetcar, because operating a properly designed streetcar will explode many SkyTrain myths which are held so dear by so few, to the detriment to so many.
I think Calgary will be successful with their streetcar plans because they already operate with LRT and the only difference between a streetcar and light rail is the quality of rights-of-way they operate on.
City may look to streetcar history for future of transit
By Jason Markusoff, Calgary Herald February 16, 2013
Inner-city denizensai??i?? dream of a Calgary streetcar system comeback could take a very, very small step forward next week.
It will come in the form of a proposed $100,000 study thatai??i??s very broad and very vague.
The senior transit planner helping plot this look into a potential ai???urban transit loopai??? said the following questions are not yet defined: what areas the loop would cover, what kind of transit mode ai??i?? streetcar or otherwise ai??i?? would be used, what purpose or service gap it would serve, and whether it should be a loop at all.
ai???Do we need something like a loop to feed people to 7th Avenue to get on the LRT, or do we need to connect the buses better in the inner city ai??i?? not just in radial fashion (to downtown), but also connecting those corridors,ai??? Jon Lea of Calgary Transit said.
Beltline community activists have long dreamed of a streetcar loop, similar to the one the neighbourhood is named after. When the draft RouteAhead plan for the next three decades of transit came out late last year, Ald. John Mar urged the city to also study a network of downtown streetcar lines.
His colleagues broadened that to a study of an urban transit loop, suggesting communities outside the core may benefit as well.
Mar envisions not just a new Beltline loop, but also a 17th Avenue streetcar from Westbrook Mall to the Stampede, and a 4th Street S.W. route from Eau Claire to Mission. His idea stems from a trip last decade to Portlandai??i??s Pearl District, where a streetcar helped spur an old warehouse areaai??i??s urban renewal.
ai???Itai??i??s much more about development and redevelopment than mobility, although mobilityai??i??s a part of it too,ai??? he said Friday.
The revised RouteAhead blueprint, coming to a transportation committee Wednesday, includes no streetcar or ai???urban loopai??? system in its $12.9-billion, 30-year capital plan for new LRT lines, bus routes and maintenance garages. But there is a call for council to approve this $100,000 phase-one study into some sort of new inner-city transit upgrade.
The study would determine the what-where-why-when of this ai???loopai??? by early 2014. Following up with a further study to determine land requirements and costs of such a broad plan would cost another $500,000 to $900,000.
Looks like the cyclist isn’t having any trouble with the streetcar lines which the COV engineers claim would be a hazard and impossible on West Broadway.
Actually streetcar tracks can be a hazard to cyclists, if they are not well-versed on how to properly cross them. We get a fair number of wipeouts here in Toronto.
That being said, it’s still a piss-poor argument against surface rail.There are ways to cross the tracks safely, and it’s boils down to cyclists paying attention, and crossing perpendicular to the tracks.
Zweisystem replies: Please see today’s post.
Way to go Calagary, here in Vancouver we are way too mired down in politics to consider anything other than our behemoth-cost poorly-run overhead rail system!
Bring in some of that Alberta common sense, let the engineers figure it out, not the over paid corporation directors!