I’ve lived in Calgary all my life and have been fascinated with the city’s layout ever since I can remember. I love the absurdity of the morning commute and the endless lines of vehicles. I’m bemused by the never-ending wall of complaints regarding parking rates and inexplicably absent spots (I guess it’s a supply and demand thing). Of course, these problems exist in most major cities, but most major cities have many times the population of Calgary, and have thoroughly amazing mass-transit services. Calgary lacks the latter because of poor planning and even poorer execution.

Calgary Transit currently connects three cars per train, and they pass platforms roughly once every five minutes during peak hours. The plan is to adapt current platforms to fit four, and possibly five cars per train. In my infinite curiosity, I questioned this choice. “Wouldn’t it make more sense,” I pondered as I tugged at my bare chin, “to continue to use three-car trains, but run them more frequently?” And thus began the planning for this post. If trains were the same size but ran every two minutes during peak hours, train congestion problems would be solved and more people would use the train. All the city planning problems would be solved! And then, as I continued my pattern of thought, I hit a snag.

There lies a common thread between Paris, Washington DC, New York, Tokyo and London’s public transit services which Calgary is conspicuously absent of. In the aforementioned cities, the metro rail runs underground in the city centre, and only rises to be at-grade once cleared of the densest areas. Calgary’s C-Train runs at-grade practically everywhere, only dipping underground when a high-rise building or a highway gets in the way. The city had the opportunity to place the train underground when the transit system was being planned in the late 1970′s, but they realized that they’d only be able to build the stretch on 7th avenue. Or, for around the same amount of money, they could have a few additional stations. In their infinite pre-1980′s wisdom, they chose the latter option. Since there are multiple at-grade train crossings along the downtown route, Calgary Transit has limited themselves to running the trains less frequently, in order to accommodate other traffic.

By contrast, the inner-city trains in any of the major cities listed above can be run pretty much as often as they feel like. There are no (or very few) at-grade crossings, meaning the train runs independently of the rest of the commuter traffic. As a result, train ridership is among the highest in the world, and people aren’t paying upwards of $300/mo. merely for parking (let alone fuel, auto insurance and related expenses).

The best solution would be to suck up the cost and run the train underground in the city centre. It’s an afterthought, it’s too late and it’s expensive, but it’s also necessary if the population of Calgary keeps rising (and that’s almost a certainty). Luckily, the planning for this has been around since the 1980′s (sometimes city hall does think ahead). The building restrictions on 8th avenue have been required to leave the ground under the street free of sewage and structure. Meaning, cost be damned, construction could start immediately. Both lines could be re-routed to the underground stations on 8th once construction has completed. However, as the platforms on 7th avenue have just been rebuilt and renovated, this possibility is a remote one. Damn.

The other option would be the opposite: instead of running the train below-ground, the roads could be sunk below grade. Ideally every level crossing along the train route would be modified to ensure both cars and trains can move freely, without impeding either’s flow. This would also enable the investment into the modified platforms to be preserved. Though it isn’t as thorough as placing the train below ground, this seems to be the best solution under the circumstances. Do it.