The possibility of a regional transit service pilot project to link the communities of Cochrane and Canmore with a Calgary C-Train station may be on the horizon.
Following last week’s pitch of a one or two-year pilot project to service commuters living in communities south of Calgary, the Eagle followed up to see if such a possibility may exist for communities west of the city.
The southern commuter pitch is awaiting the approval of respective councils and their partners of the participating communities — Black Diamond, Nanton, Turner Valley and Okotoks — as well as the results of a ‘sub regional feasibility study’.
“We recognize that (this groundwork) can be a daunting task for municipalities to do on their own,” explained Ettore Lannacito, regional transit program manager for the Calgary Regional Partnership (CRP).
Lannacito said that the CRP team is in the middle of the study and that these results would allow the CRP to develop a funding model (cost-sharing) that would be adopted by all participating municipalities.
“It’s all conversations right now, but we do want to understand more about it,” said Brooker, who sits on the CRP board and recently met with Lannacito and other board members.
The bulk of the expenses would be covered by provincial grant dollars; should the program become a success, the participating municipalities would take charge of the expenses following the end of the pilot.
The model could be duplicated, should a similar pilot project be examined west of Calgary — to connect Cochrane and Canmore with the city.
There is already a commuter transit system operating from Banff to Canmore, that has been operational for over a year and has been ‘wildly successful’, according to Canmore Mayor John Borrowman — who is also the chair of the transit steering committee for the CRP board.
Borrowman said that Canmore has had discussions with the Town of Banff about a possible commuter pilot project running into Calgary on existing CP Rail lines.
He added that he looks forward to further conversations with Brooker and the CRP board in the coming months to find a way to connect Canmore with Calgary — be it a commuter or passenger-type of service and that the possibility of a pilot project connecting Banff-Canmore through Cochrane and into Calgary (to C-Train stations) ‘would be of great benefit to all of the communities’.
Brooker said his preliminary ideas include a possible park and ride at the new aquatic centre/curling rink in the overflow parking lot on weekdays and a possible link-up with an internal transit service (buses to be purchased in 2017 using GreenTRIP grant monies and an internal transit system to be operational by 2018).
Should a regional transit system come to fruition, Brooker said it could alleviate some of the pressure off the congestion at the Hwy 22 and Hwy 1A intersection — as the buses would connect from Canmore through Hwy 22 and onto Griffin Road to travel through Cochrane.
‘I would love to have a regional service operational for at least a year before the internal service,” said Brooker.
Lannacito said the southern pilot project (which he is hopeful would run two years) could be launched as early as September 2016, making it ‘the first phase of a multi-community regional transit service’; the pilot project is marked for $500,000 (funded through a provincial collaboration grant).
The regional transit service would tender to private bus companies for operations.
