An Integrated Approach to Managing Travel Demand in Downtown Calgary

This paper describes how the City of Calgary, Canada has experienced rapid growth over the last decade, and ever increasing demand on our transportation infrastructure. Located in the energy-rich province of Alberta, Canada, the oil and gas industry has quite literally fueled a dramatic increase in employment and population throughout the city. In fact, Calgary has just welcomed our one-millionth citizen, up from 750,000 people only ten years ago! One of the greatest success stories for Calgary has been the continued strength of the downtown in both job and population growth. This subject has attracted numerous corporate head offices, resulting in 20,000 more jobs than ten years ago. The total number of trips into the downtown has subsequently increased by 25%. The success story is that all of this growth has been accommodated without the construction of any new roads into the downtown. Managing the increased travel demand has required a strategic and integrated approach, including: (1) Expansion and increased service levels on our centrally focused Light Rail Transit (LRT) system, resulting in some of the highest ridership levels in North America; (2) Strategic downtown parking policies, including a cash-in-lieu policy; (3) Transportation demand initiatives that actively promote alternatives to single occupant vehicles; and (4) Maximizing the efficiency of existing infrastructure for both automobiles and transit. This paper provides examples of these and other initiatives, and highlight how they have worked in concert to accommodate the incredible growth that Calgary continues to experience.