I catch the Dalhousie train every morning at Chinook to get to SAIT. Every morning it is completely packed and sometimes I have to wait for 2 or 3 trains till I can get on a train. The city keeps on adding more and more stations at the end of the line, which is great because it is allowing the train to be more accessible to other people but it makes the train less accessible to existing users. Don’t believe me? Look at the two Stampede stations in the morning, maybe 5 people wait on those platforms during the morning. Most of the people I know at those stations say they walk downtown to catch the train after it unloads everyone.

So this dilemma got me thinking. How can we free up space on the C-Trains while increasing access to the trains? Some ideas that floated around my head were putting more trains on the track. The problem with this is that the trains already run 5 minutes apart during the morning, if they added anymore between it could be a safety concern. Another idea was to just add more cars to the train, but that would mean either extending the platform or having the train stop once then move up a bit and stop again. Not too realistic or practical.

Other ideas that raced through my head were overhead trains, express trains and express buses on bus only roads. All of them had their pros and cons. But none of these solutions really addressed the root problem we are facing here in Calgary. That root problem is urban sprawl. Why are we constantly expanding the borders of our city when there is plenty of room within the city to grow? This kind of city planning not only causes traffic problems in the morning on the roads and C-Train but it also affects the environment and our quality of life negatively. The farther we have to travel to work each day, the more green house gases that get emitted. Also the farther we travel to work each day, the more time we are spending commuting instead of doing many other more enjoyable and healthy activities. (Click on graphs to see more.)

So I stopped looking at solutions to fix the C-Train problem, for the time being. The problem still exists but I don’t believe it can truly be looked at until we start to fix the bigger issue, urban sprawl.

You may be asking what is urban sprawl and here is a definition that the Sierra Club (Chinook Chapter) provides:

“SPRAWL is a style of development that has been prevalent since the 1950’s. What we have come to know as suburbia, and where most of us in Calgary live, is based upon a SPRAWL pattern of growth and development. SPRAWL has three common characteristics:Car dependence Low density Segregation of various uses”

As you can probably tell by now, planning a city around sprawl is not a good idea. It causes so many problems that grow as time keeps ticking.

Some alternatives to sprawl can be seen in some Calgary communities, including Sunnyside. Whether you need to go to work, shop for groceries or go to school, walking is an actual option where in other communities it is not. If you would like to learn more about urban sprawl in Calgary, I would suggest you check out this website put out by the Sierra Club (Chinook Chapter): http://www.sierraclubchinook.org/UrbanSprawl/Sprawl.html

So back to the C-Train dilemma. How can addressing the urban sprawl problem in Calgary fix the crowded C-Trains? Simple, if communities are built in a way that work places, schools and shopping centres are near by, there will be less of a need to use the C-Train and vehicles. People will spend less times in their cars or on the trains, and instead they will be able to spend time with the family, enjoy recreational actives, and overall have more free time.

I will be writing more about urban sprawl and possible solutions in the next few weeks on this blog. I hope this will open up much needed discussion among Calgarians about this serious issue.