[PRCo] a different sort of Library streetcar

Wed Apr 10 11:22:18 EDT 2013

Thanks for the mobile library film, Derrick.

What I find astonishing is how those Canadian prairie cities have grown while ours remain marginal at best.   Much of it is their oil boom.   A lot of it was simply Canadians hunting cheaper homes than they could have in metro Toronto … they were escaping.   The Canadians also seem to accept living in smaller homes close together and riding transit more willingly than we do.   As a result, even though they live farther north than we do, and there are a lot more degree days that require oil or gas to heat their homes, their per capita oil consumption is only 12.8 oz higher per day than us … and it is all for heating, not driving.   Our car ownership, per capita, is 36% higher than the Canadians.  I was astonished on on my my trips there a few years ago to see crowds waiting for city buses in the rush hour in Victoria, BC, a city of then of about 75,000.   In a city of that size in the USA, the buses might have three or four people on them at five o'clock, not six or seven people boarding at every street corner. 

The library trolley film that Derrick sent tells us Edmonton, the capital city of Alberta, had 92,000 people when the flick was produced in 1942.   Wikipedia tells us that the current population is 812,000.   A little farther to the south is Calgary, which had around 100,000 in the war years and now has a city population of 1.1 million and is the center of a metro area of 1.215 million.  Amazing isn't that last number … the city is 90% of the metro area, not 25% of the metro area like a lot of our big cities.   The people of Calgary live in Calgary, not 40 miles away in the suburbs.

And because of living in the city, they have amazing transit utilization up in the middle of no where.  The stunning thing is that Calgary claims the second highest weekday number of light rail riders for any system in the US and Canada and that was before the new West Line opened in Calgary!  It's 260,000 a day was about the same as PATH riders going into Manhattan.   Number one is Toronto with about 310,000 weekday streetcar riders.  Boston has 227,000 light rail riders a day.   Philadelphia's light rail, where numbers are open to speculation, claims 114,000 a day and San Francisco municipal publishes 162,000 plus another 20,000 on the cables.   Pittsburgh?   Isn't even on the radar (28,000).     Edmonton … why they get about 73,000 riders a day … a little more than Denver or Dallas.   

So you you want to see some really heavy transit riding … go to Montana and turn right.   Up there in what we think is the middle of no where are a couple of humongous cities out in Alberta.  Guys, it's worth a trip to look at it if you have not.   I admit I need to go back … have not been there since the West Line opened.  I have seen the new southern extension in Edmonton.  

There are tons of videos on line for your entertainment.   I just pulled out a couple from Edmonton and Calgary.

The first video is amazing … we would shut down a whole system to work on a line.   Edmonton is using the old approach.   Just run against the current of traffic but keep trains moving.

     http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0zuRdJrVbFk

And one from Calgary

     http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I1upzSFycSo

By the way, that screwy little ALRT system in Vancouver that Bombardier created not for real mass transit but for airports and Vancouver decided to use for its local mass transit system ….  The last count I could find for rail passengers for Vancouver was 383,000 a day.   It is also one of the more cosmopolitan cities in North America.   A place where you can easily be the only person of European ancestry in a middle eastern, Indian or Chinese restaurant and get some really fantastic food.   I remember one grocery store that had one aisle just for Chinese specialties, another aisle for the Indian customers, and Talapia swimming in tanks because the Asians wanted their fish fresh.   I think I could live there!!!   

For those asking what the metal bar down the middle of the track is … this is a linear induction system.   It is part of the motor.  It is amazing how fast those cars accelerate up grades.

     http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AiPk5rYXorY

Canada line is considered light rail … third rail … conventional motors … goes to the airport.   Part of the territory served was on BCE's last interurban that quit running those old wooden arks in 1958.

     http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GCn3jQafkFs

If you do go to Calgary … one of my favorite eating places is the restaurant in the basement of the Chinese Cultural Centre.   Great dim sum.   The duck tongues were outstanding.   Real Chinese … not fake.   

     http://www.culturalcentre.ca/index.php?page=dr-henry-fok-culture-hall   

     http://foodequalslife.wordpress.com/2011/03/19/dine-out-calgary-cultural-centre-restaurant-中華大酒樓/  

On Apr 9, 2013, at 9:31 PM, Herb Brannon wrote:

> Interesting film. It would also be interesting to know how the library car
> was scheduled so as not to block regular service cars.
> 
> 
> On Tue, Apr 9, 2013 at 9:20 PM, Derrick Brashear <shadow at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
>> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s-bTPDcxRqA&feature=youtu.be
>> 
>> --
>> Derrick
>> 
>> 
>> 
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