Valley Line LRT | TransEd/Marigold | City of Edmonton

^I'm not. The trains are too slow. Plain and simple. I did a contest, recently. Head to Ice District. I took the car and my wife took the train. I arrived 10 minutes quicker. The VL is nothing more but a bus on rails, with finite capacity and frequency.
 
superelevation said:
Surprised its so low though, less than half of what the Waterloo ION is doing after 5 years despite using trains which are ~3x as big

Performance measures

Ridership and on-time performance graphs for the past 12 months of service.
www.grt.ca www.grt.ca
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Honestly not as surprised tbh. It'll probably continue to grow at a decent pace over the next year or two. It's becoming a much nicer and comfortable journey than dealing with the 66 St traffic during rush hour, from my experiences.

It doesn't help that it also opened on November too lol. Ridership will probably double by September than what it is right now.
 
whattheheck said:
^I'm not. The trains are too slow. Plain and simple. I did a contest, recently. Head to Ice District. I took the car and my wife took the train. I arrived 10 minutes quicker. The VL is nothing more but a bus on rails, with finite capacity and frequency.
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If speed is the only criterion, then you are right.
 
The Valley Line LRT isn't for everybody. Carpooling downtown might be less expensive. LRT isn't the greatest if you have errands.

During rush hour, LRT or transit is very effective. Parking is also expensive.
 
I live in Bonnie Doon, and have gone through a couple of stages with the Valley Line.

At first I loved having it so close to my house, and was really excited for a quick way to get Downtown right on my doorstep. It's part of why I chose to move to Bonnie Doon in the first place.

Then I started thinking about the cost compared to driving, plus the fact that it's slower than driving - especially when you factor in walk time on either end. It just didn't make sense to me to use it and I stopped for a while.

A couple of months ago, though, I gave it another try on my way to an Oilers game and it's just so much more pleasant than driving. I haven't driven to get Downtown since - it's just my default way to get Downtown now. I don't think I'll ever go back to driving to get Downtown.

All this to say, while the Valley Line might not be the fastest or cheapest way to get Downtown, it's often the most pleasant, and that's worth something. Would I change some things about it? For sure! But I think it's still a big value-add in it's current form, especially if you live in a neighbourhood that's already close to Downtown.
 
YegMark said:
Then I started thinking about the cost compared to driving, plus the fact that it's slower than driving - especially when you factor in walk time on either end. It just didn't make sense to me to use it and I stopped for a while.
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This is a problem with our transit system generally. The cost to driving is very poor for occasional users, especially when you have multiple people. My wife and I moved near Stadium station intending to use the train, but we don't need to commute. To go downtown for an activity would cost us $11 to go one stop to Churchill, when we can usually find free/$2 parking. And for that extra cost you have to deal with other people, don't have control over your own schedule, and have a harder time going to multiple destinations. End result, we live near the train but rarely use it (maybe once a month?). ETS really needs to work on its cost to value for people who are using it for reasons other than commuting from the burbs.

When we move next, I doubt we will consider location near a train as a positive.
 
SarcasticMarmot said:
This is a problem with our transit system generally. The cost to driving is very poor for occasional users, especially when you have multiple people. My wife and I moved near Stadium station intending to use the train, but we don't need to commute. To go downtown for an activity would cost us $11 to go one stop to Churchill, when we can usually find free/$2 parking. And for that extra cost you have to deal with other people, don't have control over your own schedule, and have a harder time going to multiple destinations. End result, we live near the train but rarely use it (maybe once a month?). ETS really needs to work on its cost to value for people who are using it for reasons other than commuting from the burbs.

When we move next, I doubt we will consider location near a train as a positive.
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This, 100%. Unless you are commuting for work/school at least 3x a week, the costs just don’t work for “choice users”.

We will continue to have transit primarily used by “captured riders”, who rely on it due to income/vehicle costs, inability to drive for physical/mental/legal reasons, and those over or under legal driving ages.

To capture 20-70 year olds who already can afford a car and likely own one, we need different strategies. Honestly, parking/traffic is the most realistic deterrent. Trains/stations need to be spotless and beautiful. Safe and comfortable.

What else can we do though? We’ve made our trains slow and roads fast/not super congested.
 
thommyjo said:
This, 100%. Unless you are commuting for work/school at least 3x a week, the costs just don’t work for “choice users”.

We will continue to have transit primarily used by “captured riders”, who rely on it due to income/vehicle costs, inability to drive for physical/mental/legal reasons, and those over or under legal driving ages.

To capture 20-70 year olds who already can afford a car and likely own one, we need different strategies. Honestly, parking/traffic is the most realistic deterrent. Trains/stations need to be spotless and beautiful. Safe and comfortable.

What else can we do though? We’ve made our trains slow and roads fast/not super congested.
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I don't think you can make parking cost realistically high enough to force change. People have enough choice that if you made downtown parking high enough to match ETS cost, then people will just go elsewhere. Unless you work there.

My opinion, is we need pay for distance fares (common in many parts of the world for well over a decade). Make one stop cost 50 cents, two 75 cents, etc. Its quite simple to do with tap on/tap off tech. Single Fare and Fare Zones are lazy, 20th century level thinking at this point.
 
SarcasticMarmot said:
I don't think you can make parking cost realistically high enough to force change. People have enough choice that if you made downtown parking high enough to match ETS cost, then people will just go elsewhere. Unless you work there.

My opinion, is we need pay for distance fares (common in many parts of the world for well over a decade). Make one stop cost 50 cents, two 75 cents, etc. Its quite simple to do with tap on/tap off tech. Single Fare and Fare Zones are lazy, 20th century level thinking at this point.
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If you make going downtown more expensive and difficult, then you get more of what we have been dealing with over the last few years, a struggling downtown and more companies will just move their offices to suburban areas where parking is cheaper, more available and it is easier to get to.

In the short term it is perhaps easier to treat people like bad children and punish them to get them to do what you want. This will not work and will probably provoke both resentment and serious backlash.

In the long run the real solution is to improve ETS.
 
The_Cat said:
The real cost of operating a car is more than gas. It's insurance, depreciation, maintenance, oil changes and so forth. It's more like 30 cents per kilometre, and that's a modest estimate.
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Yes, but that's basically all sunk cost that almost all Edmontonians already have. You don't have to convince me, I lived without a car in Vancouver/Asia for a number of years and it was glorious and saved so much money. But there are precisely zero things the city can over the next 10 years that will make it realistic for me to live car free. ETS has to give options that make it worth leaving my car in the garage if we have any hope of changing things.
 
I'll admit, I take transit when there is frequent service (major routes or LRT), or when there are major events. When it comes to locations with less frequent service, it becomes more difficult to justify the use of transit. Right now, transit has more benefits for those living or working near an LRT line.
 
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