Calgary Life Blog  RSS News Feed  What's This? Select a topic from the list below. Topics are ordered by date with the eight most recent at the top. Show All Articles July 12th 2010
Calgary Stampede
The Calgary Stampede is on again. It's an old, tired show that badly needs some new ideas and new attractions to bring more visitors to this great city of ours. July 2nd 2009
Tsuu T'ina Vote Down Ring Road Proposal
The Tsuu T'ina nation have decisively voted down the very generous proposal from the city to acquire land to build the western end of the Calgary ring road. Good! Let's now get on and make a more sensible proposal. June 29th 2009
Newspapers Are Dying
Newspapers will die out unless they stop complaining and face the new reality that is the internet. December 16th 2007
Canada Helps Wreck Climate Deal
Canada sided with the US and a few other countries in order to ensure that the Bali climate conference ended with a toothless agreement and a commitment to do nothing significant. Why are Canadians so complacent in the face of a problem that isn't that hard to solve. October 8th 2007
Alberta's Oil Revenues
It has been proposed that Alberta needs to increase the royalties it charges on oil extracted from the tar sands. This proposal has been widely condemned as being short sighted and heavy handed. Alberta needs to reconsider its proposals and come up with a bolder suggestion. October 6th 2007
More On Pollution
After a recent visit to China, I am becoming increasingly concerned about air pollution and the Canadian government's head-in-the-sand attitude to it. It is past time to take some serious and significant action. June 3rd 2007
Calgary's Property Boom
The price of housing in Calgary continues its inexorable rise, although not at quite the hectic pace of the past couple of years. The economics of the situation are proceeding along well understood lines so now is the time you should consider cashing in and moving away. May 10th 2007
More On Affordable Housing
Alberta's legislature is discussing the imposition of rent controls to try and regulate a booming rental market. Is this really the answer to the problem of the lack of affordable housing? |
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MORE LONG HAUL FLIGHTS INTO CALGARY |
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British Airways recently restarted direct flights into Calgary from London. After just a couple of weeks they were so pleased with the response that they increased the service. Willie Walsh, chief executive of British Airways celebrates what he is calling the most fantastic route start he's ever seen. Typically, when one major airline takes an interest in a new route, others move in too so expect to see yet more flights and an expansion of Calgary as a major international hub. This is good news for Calgary’s business community, and very good news for West Jet who are ideally poised to distribute some of these incoming passengers around western Canada.
 But what about the visitors who are actually trying to get to downtown Calgary itself? Their only options are to take a cab or to rent a car. I have long been surprised that the C Train doesn’t go to the airport. The nearest station is not that far away and an extension would be simple to achieve and very effective in terms of integrating Calgary’s transport system. Yet if you look at the expansion plans for the C Train, you will see that the proposed northern extension carefully skirts round the airport on the west which is the wrong side for the passenger terminal! The north east extension veers away from the terminal to serve only the local communities to the east of the airport. The development plan itself doesn’t even mention the airport and this is supposed to represent what is going to happen to the system for the next twenty years. A response to the plan from The Calgary Airport authority dated June 28 2005 contains the statement: “LRT extension to the airport. We have planned for this to the extent that we can; but cannot do it in isolation”. It further comments: “We think that it is worth having yet further discussion regarding the extension of the LRT to the airport. As part of our Master Plan Update, City Transit has stated that it has no long term plans to do this – and that rapid bus service is the likely solution. If one is to take a long term view, however, and look at other airports that are of a size that we project to be in 20 years (Vancouver is an example), we would find that they are moving forward with projects which connect the airport to their light rail systems”. This all implies not only a high level of frustration with city planners but that some person or organization is determined to block this most obvious requirement.
One has to wonder who or what this might be? This investigation will continue…
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