The Missing Transit in This Fast-Growing Canadian Province
Вставка
- Опубліковано 5 кві 2024
- Watch this video ad-free on Nebula: nebula.tv/videos/rmtransit-th...
From Ottawa to Vancouver, to Montreal & Toronto, big cities across Canada are all connecting their airports to rapid transit. It's time for the Albertan airports to catch up.
Support the Channel and Get Exclusive Content: / rmtransit
My Blog: reecemartin.ca
Twitter: / rm_transit
Instagram: / rm_transit
Mastodon: masto.canadiancivil.com/@reece
Bluesky: bsky.app/profile/rmtransit.bs...
Threads: www.threads.net/@rm_transit
Community Discord Server: / discord
Music from Epidemic Sound: share.epidemicsound.com/nptgfg
Map Data © OpenStreetMap contributors
Nexa from Fontfabric.com
A downtown to downtown HSR line between Edmonton and Calgary with stops at the airport and Red Deer is the exact type of thing VIA should have been ordered to build 20 years ago, the fact it didn't and now the HSR line between the two cities is being done by a new provincial entity should be considered an unparalleled failure in Canadian transit policy.
There IS that company Transpod that screams gadgetbahn initially that wants to do the tubed train, but since they don't want to do vacuums it *DOES* seem much more actually viable. Jet powdered maglev trains in a safety tube doesn't sound sci-fi. I also just watched a video about a company called Zeroavia, that should have a high powered, high heat, hydrogen fuel cell that only emits hot water vapor designed for planes. If they were to adapt that kind of technology to power maglev trains, and give them safety rails (which is all the tube is essentially) that could LEGITAMATELY be a really genius mode of transportation.
I feel like it would be quite beneficial to build a nice rail line from Edmonton to Vancouver, stopping in red deer, calgary, banff, revelstoke, kamloops, surrey and vancouver. It would be a beautiful route and possibly calm down the need for so many planes. I think the fact that Calgary-Vancouver is the most common flight route in Canada should be a bit concerning, especially considering how it could defenitely be turned into a train route instead.
There is a proposal from Prairie Rail Link in 2021 to do that, but it's just that, a proposal. I don't disagree that this is something VIA should have already had. I've also heard that Edmonton International Airport has lobbied against that link because that would take away flights.
@@andrewisvrycool that would be amaaazing! I wish they can use the carbon tax to pay for building that train line!
@@KartRacer720So unfortunate to hear that… it’s also quite short-sighted to block it or lobby against it as train users are a different demographic, I think. Would think that there are people that will still opt to ride a plane as they need to get to places faster, but at least the train would open it up for people who may not be able to ride a plane due to health reasons, or who want to stop over at other cities, have the luxury of time, or may not afford flying. Hopefully, the Prairie Line gets built!
In Calgary, we should have spent the last 40 years OBSESSED with expanding our LRT system because of its success! But there’s no reason why we can’t start now!
Sprawlcast used to frequently cover whenever such discussions at City Hall were interrupted by lobbyists from General Motors and Ford. Especially disgusting as the Canadian government owns a significant portion of GM stock.
One major issue is how many people in Alberta are staunch enemies of any transit whatsoever. Lot of people here have drank the Kool aid and think it's either a waste of time or part of some evil plot to make everywhere like Beijing or something.
The LRT system's been consistently expanded over those forty years, though. Could more have been done? Sure. But they've been expanding it basically every single year.
The C-Train has expanded consistently, but Calgary has grown faster than the C-Train expansion. In the last 25 years, the population has doubled (809,000 in 1995 to 1.6 million today).
LRT expansion is great but some things to think about:
1. LRT ridership per capita has decreased since Covid. Most historical ridership has been commuters downtown, where much less folks work downtown now. Existing bus services accomplish a lot of cross city movement without the need to spend billions of $ on new LRT infrastructure.
2. Calgary has some of the best road infrastructure in the world for a major city. Global studies support this.
3. Flaws in the proposed green line include no link to the south health link campus, no intersection with the existing lines, no link to the airport, managed by public servants who do not have experience managing a project remotely of this size, and already well surpassing the original budget mesning it's prone to catastrophic cost overruns, putting strain on taxpayers for years to come.
As a Calgarian, I couldn't agree more that there's so much potential for good rail connectivity! The current idea of some intermediate connection between the Green and Blue lines is definitely not the way to go. Some kind of master planned railway station at YYC just like you mentioned would be an absolute dream.
Thanks Alex! I know you'd have a good sense of how to connect an airport :)
YYC screwed up, because our bureaucratic class lives in its own bubble of ignorance and arrogance. They could have gotten the additions done quickly and simply by creating spurs off of the existing two lines. A spur from the blue line turning north at Deerfoot Trail and traveling along Deerfoot up to the airport. But here is the problem: the bureaucratic class is ideologically captured by those who believe that cities are to be reformed into prisons where we won’t be allowed to have vehicular devices. The city HATES people who drive vehicles. There is a litany of ways that the city ACTIVELY tries to frustrate drivers. Why else would they put the green line right down the middle of Center Street, a 4 lane stroad that many use to get in and out of downtown from the north central neighbourhoods? The city already does alternating 3 to 1 lane shifts in the morning and late afternoon rush hours on center street, so why would anyone with half an ounce of common sense think that it’s a good idea to cut this road down to 1/2 capacity? If folks think spurs are too confusing, one only needs to look at NYC to see how it’s done. Folks would have to observe the train number to know which spur it will end up on. It’s really not that hard, and it would cost way less. But those are the realities of life in YYC.
Denver built a light rail to its quite remote airport, 37 km from its central Union Station. It's a matter of will.
Not light rail! Suburban / regional rail - I think the distinction is pretty important because the trains are faster and higher capacity than light rail! Even though Denvers build out has had a lot of problems I think the scope of it would be good for the Albertan cities to aspire to.
It’s also one of the business airports in the world. Much much larger than YYC.
The United States is a lot more efficient building massive infrastructure projects at a state and federal level.
And subsidy.
@@libertyoverbondage Less union power.
"X thing in Canada needs rail" can be said about sooooooo many situations. If Canada wants go low carbon, rail is super efficient.
For some reason though... "rail" is for getting commuters from the suburbs to the downtown core - and only in major cities. Considering how Canada used to be absolutely covered in rail, the fact that cargo and inter-city rail are just not taken seriously is kind of disappointing.
We need to build a lot more rail in the next few decades than we did in the last few, and thats happening in Ontario - but it needs to happen in the rest of the country!
@@RMTransit ... and also stop tearing up what we already have ...
It is disappointing, but also completely understandable. We have cities that are spread out and were largely designed while the car was the new thing providing the ultimate in freedom of mobility.
Also, no one was much concerned about pollution at that time, so roads and cars became the focus.
Beyond that, with cars, who needed trains?!?!?
Of course, here we are in 2024 with a completely different reality, and I agree.. trains make a great deal of sense.
There's a hydrogen powered passenger train being tested out in Quebec. Those regions with plentiful hydro-electricity can produce hydrogen cheaply enough.
By the way, CPR has bought the Kansas City Southern railroad, and now has rail links all the way from Canada to Mexico, on the Gulf and Pacific coasts. As the Panama Canal continues to fail, that rail line will become rather important.
In the US, there's more and more demand for high speed rail, especially here on the Seattle-Vancouver BC corridor.
100%, tons of the industry lines are still there straight to factorys and they don’t use them at all lol. We have an extremely well set up rail network that has been ditched completely, on my GO train commute I pass massive amounts of un-used rail and parked trains.
As a Melburnian, I felt that, ahahaha. I hate driving to the airport, and I want a train link so badly, especially after I experienced Sydney's airport train link for the first time.
You beat us (Toronto) in every other respect, so let us have just this one.
airport rail is being built in 2030
@ps5hasnogames55 no not really. Until the airport agrees with the proposal it's not happening
It's being built right now. It's been paying my bills for the last few months.
@@michaelslinger6903 I laughed way too hard at that!
This is such low hanging fruit, it could be done tomorrow! Calgary already has great transit (I'm 100% serious, especially considering on a per capita basis), but there's almost nothing holding us back: ROW is already secure, terrain is easy to work with, and there's huge latent demand.
Please keep talking about Calgary. The more these ideas circulate, the better chance we have of seeing it realised!
It wasn't that long ago that cab companies had exclusive contracts on service to YYC. For instance, until 2021 Associated Cabs was the only company able to have cars waiting at the terminal to pick up passengers (you have the choice of three different providers now, but the airport fees mean departing from the airport is much more expensive). The same company tried very hard to get the one express bus killed, and fought very hard against the legalization of ride-sharing.
I'm an air traffic controller at YVR, and I live downtown. The SkyTrain is a fucking saviour for me. I still enjoy driving, but commuter traffic is not driving
Canada line to YVR is gorgeous. I never take a car to/from airport when visiting my daughter. And she lives in North Van ! Even with seabus it is a breeze.
@@dmitripogosian5084 it's a godsend of a line, during rush hour I can beat a car there, especially when I work holidays or long weekends I can save 10 minutes each way.
As someone who lives in the Edmonton area but is a dual citizen of Finland, I would love to see high speed rail from Edmonton to Calgary and LRT service to the suburb communities around Edmonton. Finland has excellent rail connection. I can get to most places in the country in less than 9 hours from Helsinki airport, with options for sleeper trains as well.
An airport train for Edmonton would be a dream as I hate having to pay to park my car at the airport for several days or over a week. In places like Vancouver or Helsinki, you can get from downtown to the airport easily and quickly. Having these connections will make people drive less and use public transit more.
thought you were going to say you would love to see high speed rail from edmonton to finland
I just uber to the airport it's a $50 flat fee, it's way cheaper than paying for parking.
I commuted every weekend between Calgary and Edmonton for a year in 2010. A rail service of any speed would have been welcomed.
@@Obscurai I feel sorry for you. The QE2 is abysmal to drive in good weather and is the seventh circle of hell in bad weather.
I spent a bit of time studying the rail connection between Helsinki and Tampere since I wanted to see how well a country with very high car ownership does on a similar (albeit shorter) connection between major cities (one of which is similar to yeg and yyc in population and the other being much smaller) and was extremely impressed
As someone who lived in New Delhi during the Delhi Metro expansion project, Opening of the Airport express line connecting New Delhi station (NDLS) and IGI Airport had created a huge buzz in the city. That cut down travel times like never before. Do you know? You can even check-in your baggage at the New Delhi Metro Station and go baggage free to on the Airport line.
Wow! That's integrated service!
Yes, I talked about it in my Delhi Explainer! The thing that annoys me are that the two IGI terminals are not connected by metro or at least an automated people mover, so going between them on rail is actually quite complicated!
@@RMTransit Yes! That is actually true.
The baggage thing is a game changer
@@hayleybarbara1589oh yes! It is, back then, I knew a few enthusiastic people deliberately booked flights out of the Delhi airport just to experience that.
Here in The Netherlands we have Amsterdam Schiphol Airport (Wich is actually situated in the municipality of Haarlemmermeer) wich is well served with multiple trainroutes and intercity busses (BRT). It would be even better if the Amsterdam metroline 52, known as the North-Southline, would be extended to the airport. But ofcourse the funding is what keeps the decisionmakers from taking action. Instead, they are widening highways... sigh.
And the only thing I do not hear mentioning, is the type of airport station like Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam, where there's NO airport shuttle to the city (yet, one is discussing about it), but a plain simple ordinairy RAILWAY station, where there are 4 Intercities per hour to Amsterdam Central, 4 Intercities going to Amsterdm Zuid (South), and in between 4 local trains to either station in Amsterdam, not to mention a High Speed Train to Rotterdam (4x per hour, maybe less now), and local and Intercity trains to The Hague! And a reasonable bus station, with buses going to the surroundings of Schiphol, including Amsterdam!
Like I said, no airport shuttle station, just an ordinairy NS Railway station like any other big city station in the Netherllands.
Hopefully it will be. Pretty sure this is meant as the start of a regional rail service.
My wife always takes a bus from Schipol to Amsterdam when she visits. Much cheaper than rail
It’s a truly glorious time to be an Edmontonian urbanist. Both RM Transit and Oh The Urbanity! posted videos about transit in Edmonton and Calgary one after another.
On top of that theValley Line West in Edmonton is making good progress! Despite it being an odd design being both cross city rail and relatively low speed low floor rail, I’m very excited!
The lrt is dangerous lol
There’s zero correlation between Edmonton and glorious. It’s a dump
@@garycheevers2671 Wtf did the oilers do to you while u were on the fighting saints
@@pwnedeful that doesn’t make any sense. You must be another Edmonton brain surgeon.
@@garycheevers2671 You have the same name as the Bruins goalie, so I made the joke
I mentioned this in the comments once before. Alberta is planning a regional rail service akin to Metrolinx. The first step is creating regional connectors from their airports to downtown, plus that airport to Banff train, like you mentioned. Extending the Capital Line may be an okay solution for people living on the south side of Edmonton, but the Capital Line is slow. What I'm really hoping is for the area between the Anthony Henday ring road and Whyte Avenue can be redeveloped. I've been in contact with some of the people working on this, to share ideas. Not only does this airport link get people to and from the airport, but it has the potential to create an alignment that high speed and regional service uses as well. However, if they extend the tunnel they'll need to get downtown, to Yellowhead trail, they could connect most of the metro region towns with little more than existing alignments. A HUGE factor in this is that Alberta is expected to add an additional 2 million residents in the next 20 years, mostly in the metro regions. So now is the opportunity that Alberta can remake its image. A big issue I see is the lack of a comprehensive real estate strategy around stations. I do see "ToD", but I think it has become too much of a catch phrase, which typically includes high rises directly adjacent to the station, then sprawl, just a few hundred meters away. Rather, I'd like to see whole new street layouts that radiate out from stations, to maximize the walksheds around stations.
Anyway, I've been in contact with a few of the planners from both the province and city, so you may be interested in some of the insights for your HSR video.
If you mean area along Gateway boulevard ? Isn't the large chunk of it CP tracks ? Which are fairly used ?
@@dmitripogosian5084 yeah, CP has tracks there, but the line could detour east just north of Nisku, then run along the Henday between Edmonton and Sherwood Park. There's tonnes of room out there. The CN yard along Yellowhead could be moved over there too. So the regional service coming from the South of the city could run north, through downtown and branch off either east or west at Yellowhead.
Interesting topic. Near and dear to my heart as a Calgarian transit lover and non-car-owner. I have always struggled to decide how high a priority I think an airport-rail link should be. Calgary has so many transit shortcomings, and they can't all be dealt with at once. I think I'd prefer Calgary (and Edmonton) to focus more on massively improving frequency on the transit that already exists than on expanding the system. But that being said, capital funding seems a lot easier to access than operational funding.
I think because politicians can cut ribbons on construction projects.
Well now you've got me thinking as to which is the faster route to a better system.
Improve our current system in the hopes of increasing service/ridership and justifying expansion
Expand our current system in hopes of increased ridership demanding improved service
I think the latter point of your comment is important, capital funding is plentiful and small C-Train extensions are going to have a minor impact on operations funding availability
Yes, the subsidy well is only so deep.
OMG! He's throwing transit shade to Melbourne!?! As if being the transit nerd wasn't enough!!! 😉
All in good fun, as I said the Metro Tunnel will be great!
I visited Edmonton for the first time last year, and I couldn’t believe how far their airport was from downtown. They definitely need a rail link! I used the express bus which drops you at the closest rail stop (Century Park at the time) to transfer onto a train that goes downtown. It took forever, and it was kind of expensive for the quality/frequency of the service. But with the airport being so far from the city, it made the cost of a taxi/uber unjustifiable. Also took a bus from downtown to the West Edmonton Mall which was… interesting. At least that has a new rail service coming online very soon. Seems like they’re making progress overall, but an airport link seems like a no-brainer.
It needs regional service and a loop line. The LRT is too slow, which you already know.
It might be a no-brainer, but the question is "whose brain?"
In the GTA, you have Metrolinx to cross municipal boundaries and get around red tape. In Edmonton's case, its hard for ETS to justify spending Edmonton's property tax revenue on serving people working in Leduc, and an airport that pays property tax to a different municipality. In turn, the airport pays Edmonton to run the bus - that's why it's not getting improved, because that's the only way they've figured to fund the thing. A rail link, or frankly even improved bus service, will require a regional transit authority or the province to step in.
One thing to to also consider is that the bus can go the speed limit on the highway (110 km/h) whereas our the Edmonton LRT vehicles have a speed limit of 80 km/h.
@@jgw928 Very good and interesting points. I’m definitely not a transit expert outside of just being someone who uses these services and has a casual interest in how it all works. I would also call myself an advocate and supporter of public transit funding and expansion everywhere. But the details and politics of a lot of these things are really outside my realm of knowledge.
I’m sure the two cities could come to an agreement for rail expansion to the airport. For example here in Toronto, our subway now travels outside the city limits to Vaughan (and soon North York as well). I know that those two cities have been pushing for a subway extension into their municipalities for awhile now because of the the massive benefits to their citizens (as a way to get downtown and elsewhere for work or entertainment purposes), and also for the investment potential that it provides in the way of increased development and densification around transit hubs. I don’t know the details of their agreement with Toronto, but I would imagine that these payoffs would justify them paying into the system somehow. With the increase in burden to our already strained transit network, I would have to assume that these cities had to make a sizeable capital investment as well as ongoing revenue support to the TTC.
I’m sure that a regional or provincial transit authority could help speed things up in regard to Edmonton’s needs (not sure how likely that might be with the current government). I Also think it would be shortsighted of surrounding cities to not want to pitch in for the benefit of having a rail line passing through their boundaries. People want to live near these transit lines for the option of an easy way to get to the airport or downtown without having to drive. It’s an easy way to spur development and increase the tax base for a city.
@@mrkylematz Great point. I remember it taking awhile to get downtown on the train, not even including the time spent on the bus. Some kind of express service would obviously be better, but I don’t have much hope of that happening.
calgary is having a public hearing on eliminating single-family zoning on april 22…. can we just borrow you for a day please???
Yes, pleeeeaaassee promote this on the channel
how does that help, it will just push people that want to enjoy a quiet neighbourhood out of the city. What's wrong with building high rises downtown and leave single family zones alone. Stupid Mayor.
@@cityboyis2 Infrastructure is expensive. If you don't want neighbours, buy the land; you don't get to choose your neighbours. It just gives you and them more rights to do what they want with the land.
It's not removing zoning entirely lol. High rises, sure, if you consider 4 floors 'high rise' lol
@@planefan082 what you are advocating does not help the city long term.
@@cityboyis2 It's helped drastically in other cities. I'm sick and tired of tons of people having to share houses. Individual apartments are far better. Also allows for the construction of small flats in the parking pads behind houses. Like my neighbours did, but took them a long time for approval.
I love living in Calgary, but it's hard to be an urbanist here, and it's unforgivable that there's no train to the airport considering how many passengers it serves.
You have LRT going not too far from the airport, you could do some branching/realigning easily, airport is quite close.
Great video! I do wonder how the Heathrow Express still hasn't lowered its prices despite the Elizabeth line being wayyy more convenient to get into Central London (not Paddington), taking only about 10 minutes longer to get to Paddington, costing about half the price and providing a better service (every 10 mins from T2&3 as opposed to every 15 on the HX). I guess it's because it's owned by the airport but it still feels very strange.
And there isn't really that much in Paddington, other than St Mary's Hospital which is a local trip generator not an international one; and a tourist trap in the form of Aberdeen Steak House. Other than that it is a mostly residential/secondary retail area that would be Zone 2 if it wasn't for the big railway station.
@@katrinabryceBut there Is a statue of Paddington Bear.
From Calgary, it sounds like the only long-distance train options are: 1) driving to Edmonton and taking The Canadian, or 2) driving to Browning, Montana and taking Amtrak's Empire Builder. The latter option being considerably more of a hassle if your eventual destination is another city in Canada. But, for instance, to get to Vancouver, BC, you could go Empire Builder from Browning to Seattle and then take the Amtrak Cascades to Vancouver, and it would actually be a shorter distance, and possibly cost less, than taking the Canadian from Edmonton to Vancouver.
It will probably be faster, Canadian takes like 36 hours :) (Use to do it under 24 hours 15 years ago, and in around 16 in the 50-s, if I am not mistaken about the latter )
Alberta already has LRT but lacks regional rail. I'd suggest adding more regional rail lines and making the airport a larger transit hub.
Originally, I suggested a northern extension to Edmonton but it is more than twice the length of the Banff route.
Uhhh you mean North?
I've seen the proposed station for the Calgary Banff route included a possible future expansion for a HSR to Edmonton
Wouldn't this mean the provincial government's cooperation be needed for this? I don't see this happening with the current provincial government. I think they would oppose it on the grounds that anything that decreases the oil & gas market might hurt the environment and would ruin the aesthetics of the province.
The only way Calgary will get regional rail is if CP gives up the rai line that goes through the centre of the city. Essentially get CP to divert their mainline around the city of Calgary, rather going right through it. Easier said than done.
@@drewpatterson8261 I've heard a rumor that CPKC is moving their operation out of Alyth yard to newer facilities outside of the city, because of residents complaining about noise. They can't really expand with the constraints of the intercity rail yard
Green line is such a major project that its taking the political and capital dollars for extensions of the existing lines for a few years. Now that the city is moving towards construction there will be staff capacity to start working on that blue line extension particularly with the growth in neighborhoods filling in the gap between saddletown and the airport
One can dream... Would also be nice to have bus link to the NW - say Crowfoot station. It's a 15 minute drive or a 1.5 to 2 hour journey on transit involving 3 connections through downtown.
Edmonton definitely NEEDS even more LRT expansion. It takes me ~1.5 hours by bus to get from my house to downtown, while only taking 30 minutes by car.
However, in my opinion, the most important factor to get more people using the LRT is improving security. There are many people I know who’d like to use the LRT, but avoid it like the plague by fears of being harassed, attacked, and/or stabbed, me being one of those people. I myself have been lightly harassed some of the few times I’ve used the LRT, so it’s not an overblown problem I do not feel safe, and that’s being a male in the day. I can only imagine being a woman at later times
For Calgary, I made it a through station for Calgary-Edmonton and regional trains to Didsbury. Calgary-Banff and LRT service could still terminate there, but I'm sure the LRT lines can share an island platform with a passing loop between the airport and the preferred routing. The existing main line could still have some facility for trains on it if desired/needed, but no passenger trains would run on the segment between 32nd Av and the HWY 201/2 interchange in order to serve YYC.
As for Edmonton, build a main line station where the ROW is and either just extend the Blue line to make the connection or just make an Airport line that runs between the Main Line station and the new Blue line Terminus. Maybe add an express bus to Devon and the University of Alberta Botanical Garden (and one to the university itself) while you at it
So, Edmonton's LRT is great for moving among more urbanized locales, but it would be terrible for an airport connection. The Capital Line is capped at 80 km/h, and is slower than that along virtually its entire length south of downtown. It will be competing against 90 to 110 km/h highway along much of the length of an airport connection.
An actual frequent airport express bus from the core to the airport would actually be a game changer though.
And perhaps regional and high-speed rail would be better suited for the downtown-airport links if rail is part of the equation.
@@ostkkfmhtsh012345678 If you're going to connect the airport to much more than a bit of SW Edmonton, absolutely. Something a bit more S-Bahn like would absolutely work.
Hm, for me the airport bus from Century Park is more convenient than from downtown (and I live in St. Albert, yes, sometimes I do take bus-LRT-bus to the airport, can make it in 2 hours :)
- never gets stuck in traffic
I can't get enough of you softly explaining your thoughts about public transport
As a Calgarian I came to this video armed and ready to fight - our city's success with LRT is rarely recognized. While its a flawed system, transit in Calgary punches way above its weight and delivers amazing value for the cost to run it.
So I felt a little sheepish once it became clear you had clearly done your homework and understand transit here very well.
I'm also obliged to say that while Edmonton is building a lot more than Calgary right now, they're playing serious catch up. And Calgary has made some serious investment in new BRT service that has been a really strong success, particularly in crossing the hub and spoke LRT system.
My only issue with the C-Train is that it essentially becomes a street-car system with the surface level stations in the downtown area. This means that it slows down considerably especially when all lines form a hub downtown. All the stops for traffic lights, not to mention all of the pedestrian accidents are terrible.
@@Obscurai The traffic lights downtown on 7th Avenue have been synchronized to the trains - therefore, if nothing goes wrong, the train departs say, 1st Street West and goes unimpeded to 4th Street West, and so forth. We have a history of being exceedingly frugal with our money. If we built the trains underground, we would not have the four lines of C-Trains we do today. Let's compare us to Edmonton. Similar sized cities, same start dates, same train technology. Edmonton started with their LRT starting downtown at the edge, but decided to go underneath Jasper Avenue, and went northeast. Calgary started theirs a similar distance from the south and went downtown, but stayed at the surface for the most part. Systems get up and running, carry lots* of people and years go by and the province doles out similar amounts of money to each system. Calgary builds northeast on the surface to Whitehorn and slightly lengthens the downtown line another couple blocks. Edmonton gets two stations further into the downtown core. More money comes from the province, and Calgary builds northwest to the University on the surface. Edmonton gets a couple more stations underground. Calgary extends their south line further by 4 stations, Edmonton gets across the river to their University.
It seems to me that Edmonton shot themselves in the foot by going underground in the downtown core while Calgary benefited from the decision to build on the surface.
@@joncalon7508 I understand why it was built the way it was. That said, having used the C-Train for 25 years however, it is clear that there is a bottleneck in downtown. The synchronization is necessary since the 7th Ave lights are throttling the throughput and is a limiting factor for increasing either the number of trains/lines or the frequency of service.
@@Obscurai Completely agree. However, it's gonna take about 800 million dollars to split the Red Line off of 7th Avenue and bury it under 8th Avenue. The plan is there, heck, even a station box has been constructed at City Hall, but there's only so much money and most of it seems to be going to a new arena for the billionaires to make more money and the Green Line.
Too many meth heads on the ctrain and stations.
As a workers at the Edmonton airport, I’d take a train, vs driving. My drives 35 minutes. Bad winter weather makes it worst. They could throw the train under or above, stop next to the airport hotel. Run under or above till it gets past the airport development, then go beside the highway. Only issue is that the cab companies protest these kind of ideas. I’m sure they’d still get business to the airport.
Melbourne is not alone, here in Rio de Janeiro we also don't have a rail connection to the city's main airport. Only the domestic airport in the city downtown has a tram line. Our international airport is connected by a BRT, the cheapest option. Other Brazilian cities are making progress. Porto Alegre airport is connected to the train by a people mover. São Paulo is building a rail connection with a monorail and Salvador has a metro station next to the airport, but needs a shuttle bus.
Reece for Calgary's urban planner in chief !
this has been in the calgary plan for yrs , its nothing new
I live in Edmonton, but was raised in Lethbridge. Getting from one to another in the case I want to visit family for the holidays is an actual nightmare unless I just use a personal vehicle. It’s SO frustrating! The three biggest cities in the province have basically no real connections besides one single red arrow once a day. Not to mention, the 5 ish hour drive becomes an 8-9 hour trip. I have been screaming we need I get city railway connection for years!
Hey, love your videos Reece! Just wondering if you'll ever do a video on Winnipeg's current rapid transit system, and their ongoing debates regarding whether a light rail network would be feasible or even worth it. Keep up the great work bro!
Back when Winnipeg was planning its Southwest Transitway, there was a proposal for light rail. Our mayor at the time, Sam Katz, was behind it. People from Bombardier Transportation were brought in, and they suggested a system for downtown and the transitway based on their Flexity cars. City council and the provincial government said no, and we ended up with a BRT based on standard, 60 foot transit buses. However, the transitway was built so that it could be converted to light rail in the future.
These 3 + HSR to Edmonton - needed now!!
I was taking the Edmonton 747 bus nearly every week last fall and winter. Payment is not integrated with the Edmonton Transit System, and it also has additional stops at the Airport Premium Outlet Mall and Costco on the return trip to Century Park for airport and retail workers. Travellers returning to YEG after a long flight have to wait up to an hour for the bus (huddling unceremoniously by Arrivals Door 8 in the winter), followed by a tedious return path to Century Park, followed by another 5 minute walk to the LRT station and waiting on an unheated platform for a train to get downtown - with luggage. The bus can be standing-room only with airport and retail workers at certain times of the day. Not surprisingly, very few travellers use this service. In my case, it was marginally tolerable with a backpack. With perfect timing, it was an hour from the YEG luggage carousel to Jasper Avenue. With less than ideal timing: two hours. A bicycle would be faster to go 25 km, but there is absolutely no way you can get to YEG other than by plane, car, or bus. Full stop.
Good ideas! Looking forward to your video on HSR in Alberta.
Well, for Paris, you need a change for Orly. There's no direct rail connection to the airport today. But soon, we'll have the Line 14 even though it's not the traditional rail mode
Some sort of high speed train from Calgary to Edmonton would be awesome
I got really angry when you mentioned that rail projects weren’t allowed to funded for direct airport connections… wtf America, the fact that that was ever a rule is appalling.
Yeah. Me too. I guess part of car-obsessed policies and probably lobbying. Just like cities ripping out Tram systems in favor of busses back in the day.
Airports make a lot of money from car rental and taxi operations, in the past at least.
Brotha man, I honestly appreciate the light shed on the best province. I don't fully agree with your idea for YYC to split each line runnning each side (north south). Think of the traffic, transit and people. You will have to have multiple sets of routes on the same line so either added rail traffic or decreased available service to make up for traffic, and the added take away from available capacity heading north from downtown. Having the east-weast line infront of the airport connecting the 2 makes the most sense brotha. Run it up in some cities skylines or somethin
Calgary is super blessed in comparison to Winnipeg. Nice new air terminal, lousy transit system with no large capacity or real rapid transit that light rail could provide (BRT = MCF), but the city is expanding in the in North and South with no plans for any real improvement. The best way to get around remains by vehicle, which getting slower each year, remains faster and more efficient than transit.
One of the reasons Calgary has no air-rail link because they make eight dollars per taxi in taxes. They finally got buses a few years ago, but a line extension or new line would be really helpful.
Will you ever make an Edmonton LRT video again? Ed's doing a lot now urbanism-wise
Great video reece, could you please make an explainer on the Buenos Aires suburban railways.
We absolutely need a high speed line between Edmonton & Calgary. Bonus points if it stops off at both airports, plus Airdrie and Red Deer. You could probably get away with skipping Leduc with and airport line, provided there was either a light rail to Leduc or better bus service. I'd like to see upgraded rail service from Edmonton to Jasper too. There is a train already sure, but it is slow and infrequent. And yes, and extension of the LRT down to the airport would be grand!
Jasper has little chance. There is not that much traffic going there, and you will not put 400 km of parallel tracks to CN for few passengers. And on CN tracks passenger service has lowest priority. It is all about freight
Get out your chequebook and anything is possible.
Agreed on pretty much everything. Other than Calgary being an overachiever, if anything IMO they're an underachiever due to how much funding discrepancy there's been from the provincial government compared to Edmonton for the past 50 years. Even the Wesjet 787 hub was paid for in part by the provincial government, yet no help to YEG to either complement the YYC hub or support Flair.
Yup, I think the last time Edmonton was favoured by the province was 1911 when they let us amalgamate with Strathcona and we got the university. Nada since
province didn't favour Calgary regarding the airport, the province made a deal with WestJet and Westjet chose Calgary to use for it's international flights, that's why there was additional funding to YYC.
Actually, with fast rail between Edmonton and Calgary, role of YEG will probably diminish even further. They may also go Lufthansa-Deutche Bahn way and sell rail tickets as air tickets with say Air Canada flight numbers :)
It has always baffled me as a Calgarian that we have been so slow when it comes to light rail development, despite the grand success it has been. This is especially since so much future proofing has been done, especially north of saddletowne, the airport tunnel, and down Harvest Hills Blvd, for tracks to be laid with ease.
This is largely due to population size and density. In the last 25 years, population has doubled so that should no longer be an issue going forward. Density is being address on April 22 City Council will consider blanket rezoning for Calgary: the proposal to re-designate residential areas in Calgary that currently allow only single or semi-detached homes to also allow row houses and townhouses.
I am aways impressed with the research you do!
edmonton international airport is already an embarrassment for lack of international flights and transportation to and from the airport. it's only calgary that gets the good ones like a non stop flight to tokyo and some will say that it will have a non stop flight to manila as well. for edmonton people who want to go to those places i mentioned, we have to get out either vancouver or calgary first (mostly vancouver) then transfer to another flight to get to where we want to go, which makes the flight ticket more expensive. same thing when going back, i don't know about calgary, but to make a pit stop in vancouver (for those who know what i'm talking about), is a catastrophic nightmare for connections
What's the problem with Vancouver for connections, why a nightmare, never used that airport.
@@valeria-militiamessalina5672 we have to go to customs in that specific airport. in case there's a delay, which me and my parents do, we miss our connecting flight
one of the most recent one was my mom had a delay flight for 5 hours because of some bs slot vancouver has and some rain in the philippines, which make it 50% a nightmare for vancouver. the boarding of the second flight is 5 minutes away from the time her first flight touched down
same thing happened to me last week. it's like a nightmare waiting to happen as well, but this time is from seattle
the question is: can someone run 5 minutes from their first plane, go to customs, pick up their checked in luggage, put it to the airline again, go to the security checkpoint again, then get to the gate of the connecting flight? philippine airlines can't even provide hotel for my mom when she got stranded for the night, so i'm disappointed in them, so i think this the most sh show she experienced and the same thing happened to me from my dad when china airlines said they will get their checked in luggage to the destination, but vancouver regulation bs says "oh you're gonna have to get your checked in luggage here blah blah blah
i wonder how air canada get a special treatment with the transferring checked bags though since mine i didn't have to go through that, even though i got delay from my flight from seattle as well
I’m so glad to hear about the rail extension to the Desrochers area of Edmonton. I have family in that neighbourhood, getting into town is an ordeal without a car there right now. And, ya, that makes the jump out to Leduc, where the airport is, a natural next step. To be able to fly there then be at their place in a few stops would be great.
Good work!! 👍🏻
Speaking as a guy who grew up in Vancouver but moved to Edmonton, One of the issues with Edmonton is that the community transit (ETS) is run by the municipality only, and surrounding suburbs have their own transit. So Leduc - the community where the airport is - is not really serviced by ETS. In Vancouver, Translink connects almost all of Metro Vancouver
Great video and I cannot agree more. and yes a rail link (high speed?) between Edmonton and Calgary makes a lot of sense for reasons well beyond air travel. In fact if you could incorporate the rail link between Edmonton and Calgary/YYC Airport to then Extend to Banff it would be ideal. I think given housing prices, this could give people more choice in terms of housing/living while working in other areas. For instance, someone could live in Red Deer, and take the high speed rail to Banff for work....assuming it was high enough speed. :)
Best airport rail connection I've experienced: Oslo, offering HSR on a 10 minute schedule from Oslo Central Station to Oslo Airport. I live in Munich, a city twice the population of Oslo, and all we have are commuter trains, taking twice as long despite having only half the distance to the airport.
Building the railway across Canada literally built Canada, especially the western provinces. It was the greatest nationalist project in the history of our country. Every major city from coast to coast should be linked by high speed rail, and the major corridors between close cities should be linked by regional rail. Let's make it happen this century, Canada.
The greater distance actually makes MORE of a case for rail than for road, surely.
Well, no, because the longer you are on the train, the greater the labour cost the railway has to spend attending to you. In your car, you provide your own labour, which is not dependent on the unions, btw. So the farther you are willing to drive, the more you save on paid labour. That's why train travel is so expensive. It's slow, so takes more hours of labour to get you to your destination. The airlines figured this out. Flight is expensive *per hour* but not *per trip* because the trips e.g. Calgary - Toronto are so infinitely much shorter than by train. Even flying business on a long-haul overnight flight is much cheaper than going first-class in an ocean liner was. It's win-win. The airlines profit from lower labour cost per mile and the passengers benefit because who wouldn't rather get to Calgary in 4 hr or so, compared to 4 days. Oh, sorry, I forgot. You can't even get to Calgary by train anymore.
Now sure, if fuel is really dominant, like in freight transportation, the train wins (sometimes) because trains are more fuel efficient than trucks to move the same load the same distance. But truck transportation is more flexible. The same truck can pick up the load anywhere and deliver to a customer anywhere there is road. With trains that only works delivering bulk cargo from a mine to a ship or a factory/power plant, or sort-of for automobile assembly plants where the parts come in by rail to the factory gate and cars go out on the same tracks. Intermodal helps with sea cans and truck trailer-on-flat-car.
But for passengers, fuel cost by itself isn't dominant in choice of transportation. The lower fuel cost of the train is outweighed by the higher labour cost. And if you have a bunch of strangers stuffed into any kind of public conveyance, you need people keeping watch over them to spot people starting to get unruly, as well as feed them, clean the bathrooms, attend to complaints, etc. You don't have that cost in a car. (In a bus you're on your own. Just you and the driver and 40 psychopaths. Pray.)
I love the taxi/limo service in Halifax (talk about an airport far away from downtown!). Fares are capped. Limo is the same price as taxis and service related to scheduling/reserving a limo is amazing. We didn't look into the bus service on our last trip to Halifax as it hit the day after a hurricane kept us from landing our scheduled day. But the highway from the airport to downtown was amazing (and somewhat scenic vs airports to cities in the "prairies".
Awesome video with great ideas super relevant after Primer Smith’s train announcement last week
Really good to see Alberta content that doesn’t solely focus on Calgary
I lived near the old downtown edmonton airport. It was pretty close to the original LRT. I loved jumping on the plane to hop over to Vancouver in the 90's. The air planes flew over my apartment but they limited to the medium commercial and small planes.
Stuttgart Airport:
S-Bahn check
Stadtbahn check
Regionaltrains End of 2026
and we are a regional Airport 😂
Right of way for C Train is already secure, and the route planned McKnight station to Airport.
As somebody dependent on public transit in Edmonton, the thing I'm looking for in the LRT expansion is the transit hub at the airport potentially means greater bus service in the Nisku area. Currently there is only one bus there and I dare not rely on it to try and get to any jobsite. Likewise with Acheson and Refinery Row/Clover Bar. It's very frustrating as those places have the most job openings―job openings that would be filled much quicker if more people could get to them.
Hello from a Melbournite, who thoroughly agrees we should have had airport rail a long time ago. Check back in ten years though, because there are rumblings...
My favourite London airport rail link is actually Gatwick, not Heathrow, because it is right on the Southern Mainline, and you can take trains in three different directions from the station, that includes Thameslink which takes you right into central London in the same way that the Elizabeth Line does for Heathrow. Heathrow is on the end of a branch line so isn't as well connected.
At Heathrow, I would like to see the line extended to the South Western Railway network at Staines, this has been a proposal for a long time that hasn't gone anywhere.
I would also modify Airport Junction on the Great Western line to allow trains to head west, and I would upgrade the currently freight-only link between the Great Western line and the Overground network to allow it to take electric passenger trains.
I would get rid of the Heathrow Express, and replace those train paths with Overground service that run onto the Mildmay Line. It would be possible to route trains so that you have a direct Heathrow to Gatwick rail service, though I'm not sure if the demand would be sufficient to do that vs having people change at Clapham Junction.
The thing is that Heathrow isn't just an airport for people visiting London, it is also an airport for people who live in all parts of London plus south-central England to work there and visit other places in the world.
I've only flown in and out of Gatwick (because direct flights from Calgary) and it was surprisingly painless. I also found Edinburgh to be rather simple to get to (opted for the buses in that case).
Don't know if this still a thing but years ago (if you were flying BA from Gatwick) you could check your bags at Victoria.
@@robertcox1835 I don't think so. Also you can no longer check in at Paddington for Heathrow.
In any case, I arrive at Gatwick from one of the other directions, not from Victoria.
Thank u for making this 😭🙏
It is quite the auto ride from YEG to Edmonton down town. The last time I went to Sherwood Park, it was over $80 for a cab each way. Pretty much what's shown at 4:22.
Platform screen doors mentioned. Everyone take a drink!
The city with the biggest need for airport rail in my opinion is Halifax. It is insanely far out of the city and connectivity to the city is pretty wonting.
First, the NS gov't needs to fix that bloody highway ramp between the 101 SE bound and 102 NE bound. I can't believe that this 50-metre long deathtrap exists in a so-called "First World" country!
Is it just because you live there and would like something spent on you? The times I've been to Stanfield International, there haven't been enough people there to justify more than a couple of minivans, much less a whole railway.
@@lesliemacmillan9932 No, I live in Toronto. And my experience going through Stanfield has been very different. I've found it very busy at times and difficult to rent a car, or get a bus into the city, so stuck taking a taxi which due to the distance is very expensive.
Yes, Ottawa is finally building a train to the airport (as part of Phase 2 of the LRT) but Phase 1 breaks down and has so many issues that if I'm rushing to catch a plain, I'd think twice about taking the train
This is why I love flying into Burbank airport in Southern California, Metrolink has two stations next to the airport. One on Ventura county line and the Antelope Valley line.
Actually, I found bus connection to LAX from Union station pretty efficient as well
In the early 90's I took part in Calgary transit planning initiative. Their eventual plans were for a set of three lines going out from downtown to serve the northwest, northeast and north central and comparable areas of the city's south side. Then there would be a single line connecting all three end points of these lines at the city's top and bottom. I don't remember any plans for an airport line. You do know the green line has not yet been built, right?
I live across the street from an LRT station in Edmonton and have been using the 747 for years. The hourly schedule is very annoying especially as there's no shelter at the bus stops on either end. Good thing Edmonton has such mild weather. In my experience the majority of riders are airport and outlet mall employees. Air travelers just don't seem to embrace the service. Perhaps a more frequent schedule would change that.
Indeed, 747 is never crowded, it seems. Shelters - there are ones like 15 meters from a stop - in a LRT station on one end, and airport arrival hall on the other, no ?
@@dmitripogosian5084 At the Century Park LRT station there are bus parking slots right beside the shelter. Because the 747 is the only bus that passengers are likely to have cumbersome bags, it would make sense to use an adjacent slot for the airport bus. The city doesn't do this. They've decided to place the 747 bus stop as far away from the shelter door as possible. It's far enough away that I wouldn't consider waiting in the shelter and dashing with my bags when the bus arrives. The issue at the airport end is similar. There is an airport door somewhat near where the bus stops however the interior space near the airport door is not set up to wait and watch for an arriving bus. When the bus arrives, you need to dash across a busy road with your bags. The city pays so little attention to this service that it's reasonable to conclude that it's at the very bottom of their priority list and they are uninterested in doing what is needed to make the 747 appealing to a wide swath of air travelers.
A great analysis. I heard somewhere that Edmonton has been looking into a commuter rail connection to the airport? Either way, light rail would be a much better bang for the buck.
I would also mention the Twin Cities Blue Line as a US example of an LRT line built, which directly serves both MSP airport terminals and through runs past the airport to Mall of America. There is an internal airport shuttle that's 340 meters long, the HubTram, which brings you between the LRT station and the baggage claim area, but I think it still counts as direct enough.
The problem that Calgary has and by extention Edmonton are the railway companies. The railway companies are only interested in frieght and view passenger transportation as a nusiance to be avoided. You only have to look at pitful Edmonton railway station that is not even on the main line to realise how little consideration it gets. The tracks are already there but no service.
I don't think that Prince Edward Island has any rail transport.The northern provinces/territories have nothing although technically the Yukon has the White Pass Railway incoming from Skagway, Alaska but I don't think that the Canadian section sees much,if any,use?
They didn't put a trackbed on the bridge to PEI, because, frankly, it wouldn't pay for itself, with any freight leaving the island.
The pandemic caused the WP&YR so much grief. Prior to the 2020 season, the railway was regularly running trains to Carcross, Yukon. North of Carcross, the railway is in the trees and much slower than the parallel highway to Whitehorse. There's very little chance of the WP&YR returning to Whitehorse, but Carcross is definitely going to continue being the northern end of the railway.
Actually if the airport is far from the city, you need a rail connection even more. Narita Airport is very far from Tokyo, but it has a good rail connection. With a good rail connection the airport could even be VERY far from the city. Imagine there was a Maglev like in Shanghai. That would allow you to have an airport 100 kilometres from the city and you could still reach the city in 20 minutes. That would even allow two cities to share a single airport. Like Ottawa and Montreal or even Calgary and Edmonton. You could also connect all airports of a city with trains and make them work like a single large airport.
Sydney Airport technically has a rail connection, but the train stations at the airport are owned by the airport and they take a high fee for just walking through the gate. So many people take the bus to the next station "Mascot" and take the train from there.
I really love city air terminals that allow you to check in and get rid of your luggage. In Kuala Lumpur that works great. It allows you to go to the airport much later. Hong Kong also has that option.
If a city does not have a train from he airport to the city, I will less likely visit that city.
The only thing I would change is instead of extending the green line to the airport, I would make a new line that runs West from the airport, intersects with the green line, and continues on to the Uni, Foothills hospital, Bowness, and ends at COP
You could have it extend as far as Springbank and Calloway park
On a tangent, US-Canada border crossings should get a video as well. I know you focus on rail, but it has been well over a decade since Canada/Quebec couldn't even hold up their end of the bargain to join the A35 to I89 in Vermont. Same goes for extending Amtrak all the way to Montréal, which abruptly ends at St Albans, near the Canadian border. There is so much inter-country gridlock in just that small area, it baffles me.
Why should it baffle you? It's a question of money. My usual answer if I can't figure something out, that "makes no sense", I usually figure the answer is that somebody who had the money didn't want to pay for it, and somebody who didn't have the money wanted someone else to pay for it. Easy peasy.
1) Why is it Canada's job to help Québec build another autoroute to the U.S. border? You already have A15 to I-87 on the other side of Lake Champlain. Build another one yourselves if you want to pay for it. If it's only "nice to have but we don't want to pay for it ourselves", tough luck.
2) Amtrak's Montréaler used to go to Montréal for many many years, way back long before Amtrak (along with the Adirondack which still does.) It's a less direct route, going through Boston down the Connecticut River to Boston then on to New York and Washington. Before Amtrak it was a joint venture between CN, Central Vermont (subsidiary of CN), Boston & Maine, and I don't know who else farther south. Anyway, just north of St. Albans there is a long timber trestle that crosses the narrows between Lake Champlain and Baie Missiquoi. You can see it from Vt -78 on Google Maps between East Alburg and West Swanton. Amtrak declared that trestle unsafe at least 25 years ago and no one wanted to pay to restore it or whatever it needed. Presumably the Montréaler was losing too much money to justify repairing it just for passenger service. It's still there but I don't know if freight trains use it. Anyway, that's why Amtrak ends at St. Albans and the train is now called the Vermonter. I would think the likelihood that it will ever be extended to Montréal again is very remote. Montréal is a city in decline as far as the need for passenger rail connections with the States is concerned.
Another great video Reece, were you aware of Auckland Airports current expansion plans and the appalling lack of any rail integration what so ever? It would be interesting for you to investigate that! Keep up the good work
Hi RM I think you got something wrong about Frankfurt Main Airport, it has actually 2 train stations in it 1 for regional trains and 1 for long haul trains. The GFernbahnhof as it is called in German even is the bussiest train station in an airport in Germany. From the Fernbahnhof exists a people mover to terminal 2 of the airport, but that is needed because the autobahn and part of the runway would otherwise be in the way. Also the Fernbahnhof was an addition to the older and now only for regional trains used first train station which reached capacity with a few million passengers per year.
I don't think I've seen RM talk about airport connections before. Probably the best connected in Europe are Frankfurt and Amsterdam. Fly into Frankfurt and you can get the S Bahn in to the city - or suburbs - or hop onto the Regio or DB train to get pretty much anywhere in western Germany.
I went on a work 'jolly' many years ago. We flew to Schiphol and were due to get a short flight to Maastricht for Carnival. I forget why, but the plane was cancelled, so we hopped on a fast train and were in Maastricht within an hour. Of course we were drinking throughout this time, so were no way capable of driving anywhere. I suspect it's down to the puritan history of North America that is down to this idea that to get around you should drive yourself - you're expected to be sober!
The Alberta government keep saying they are funding a Calgary rail-airport connection but CalgaryTransit has no such plans so I don't actually know what they are supposedly funding.
Honestly, as a Calgarian I think getting people direct train access to the airport isn't a super high priority, because of the urban sprawl. There are so many communities in the Calgary metro (Belvedere, Seaton, Aridrie, Chestermere...etc.) aren't connected to the city via any meaningful transit hubs. Transit in the city has always served as a main artery to connect people from the suburbs to downtown and the various industrial area's dotting the city, while also funneling tourists to Stampede park. There are so many transit deserts in the Calgary metro, that something like the proposed max line connecting the blue and green lines together via the airport makes a lot more sense.
shoutout to my city whose airport is only 4km from the city center, it has rails in front of the terminal, yet the "airport shuttle" is a shitty 9€ bus
I lived in Edmonton Downtown in the late 8o's and I remember taking a plane to From downtown airport
To yyc for connecting flight to TO . I also took a Train from a downtown train station to Vancouver .
awesome stuff, are there any more transit explained videos planned?🙏
I mean this would be awesome for Calgary. And, given the molasses slow pace of the green line even getting shovels in the ground… I’ll surprised if anyone in power even openly considers the idea in my lifetime 🥲.
I lived in downtown Calgary for about 8 years and used the 300 airport shuttle exactly zero times. I considered it many times, only to confront the inconvenience of it and opt for an Uber instead. Now in midtown Toronto, I’ve used the UP Express more times than I can remember, because it’s actually pretty convenient and, IMO, a more pleasant experience than sitting in the back of an aggressively driven Uber engaged in vehicular battle on the 401.
As someone who lives on the eastern region of the GTA and does not drive, I LOVE the airport train (UP Express). I can get from my home to the Airport in under 3 hours with only 2 transfers. There is also no traffic, and it is easier to travel with luggage. This is all for a fraction of the cost of an airport taxi, which is about 4X as much. This was a good investment other cities should consider.
These are lrt cities - get it done!
Living in Alberta my entire life,no seems to remember that back in the 60's and 70's we used to have a day liner that ran between Edmonton and Calgary on the railway because back then it wasn't that busy.
You had flight service from City Center airport to Calgary which operated almost like a bus ( you get in, take a seat, and flight attendant collects fares and off you go :) )
I was there for the last big talk to put a train station at the calgary airport. It was seen as a government appropriation of the businesses of taxi services. One of the arguments against it was that they'd need to give the taxi companies a ton of money to compensate them for lost business.
RM Transit: "25 km from a city center is pretty far for airport"
Meanwhile in Moscow: 40 km between Domodedovo airport and the Kremlin. I don't know how people here lived before the rail link but now we have it.
Theres nothing in-between the last lrt stop in edmonton and the airport
Domodedovo always had rail link since back in deep Soviet times from Paveletskaja station. Sheremetievo did not have one until not that long ago.
Regarding public transit, how to make a transit sistem (metro, buses...) safer from criminals (like pickpocketers) for its users? Given that the New York Subway and the Milan Metro have this problem and are used by many people each day ( the Milan metro has mostly pickpocketers as its main problem). And how to make them safer late at night with fewer users?
And how to make them safer during rush hours? Like in a busy metro train a thief decides to use a small knife to ripp somebody else pockets to steal while they are distracted?
I would argue that's more of an issue of a societal one that should be addressed more than the transit themselves. They can only be soo protective without being obstructive. If you start having things like metal detectors or something people would stop using the system due to inconvenience. It would also dramatically increase the cost to run those things. I'd say the best way to try and combat that is to figure out WHY people are mugging others and address those issues. Is it food? are they hungry and they need the money to eat? Are they just a bunch of career criminals who do it for a rush? Maybe it's addiction and they're doing it to get their next fix. If you know the root of that issue you can start to address it. It often falls to lack of support for people in their lowest times. MOST people don't want to rob steal or hurt others to get by, and only do so out of desperation. Remove the desperation and those occurrences generally go away, short for the much less common person who just gets a rush out of being a degenerate.
This is a social issue that must be dealt with on a larger scale. Not by Transit agencies beyond incident response, lots of glass and lighting for visibility and CCTV.
Pickpocket in Milan is mainly a media bubble with political speculations.
Which doesn't mean it doesn't exist, but it's not worse than 20 or 30 years ago. And not as bad as media are trying to draw, like being in a jungle or something.
Before you're asking, I use Milan's metro everyday. Since many decades
@@planefan082and security guards!
Unfortunately at Chicago O'Hare, you can't hop on the CTA Blue line directly from Terminal 5 (international terminal). The other terminals can walk directly to the blue line, but Terminal 5 is further away and requires hopping on the people mover.
Air train at JFK and EWR have poor connections, especially in late evening. (I have waited 40 minutes for an A train at midnight at JFK). Also, relatively expensive for service provided. Predictable trip time to Manhattan is bad, even as compared with airports more distant from downtowns.
The nearest airport to me is Rzeszow, and I can tell you that for the longest time I avoided it like the plague. It takes me about an hour to get to Rzeszow on the train, then I'd have to walk to the grottiest bus station in Europe and wait for ages for one of the two buses or so a day that served the airport... which took ages. Or take a taxi. It was just easier and quicker to stay an extra hour on the train and go to Krakow, which has a rail link from the station to the airport. Now they actually opened a rail link last year, about 5 months ago. And I haven't had the need to fly anywhere this year... but I might actually consider using that airport next time.
After a recent trip to New Orleans, where the airport bus runs every 90 minutes, anything better feels like paradise.