The higher capital costs of rail are usually balanced or exceeded by savings in the operation and maintenance of equivalent bus services and other, additional, benefits associated with the rail installation. If investment in individual transit facilities, such as rail, can be disparaged - then, by the same measure, so could major investments in roadway facilities.

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Data continues to confirm that rail transit is an extremely safe way to travel compared with private motor vehicles on roads and highways, and by far the safest way to travel in urban areas.

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The idea is not to compete with the C-Train lines, but to compliment them. The primary purpose is to facilitate the movement of people who live in the out-lying communities of Calgary (Airdrie, Cochrane, Okotoks) easier access to Calgary, hence where possible there should be interconnections with C-Train stations (Somerset, Sunalta), this should provide a truly integrated transport network. Ultimately the idea would be a commuter service to downtown Calgary, so all services will pass through and stop at the Central station.

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Calgary has the clout and ability to attract new industries and pan-national, pan-continental, and multi-national companies. The out-lying communities can only rely on being bedroom communities to Calgary, but with good access to Calgary these bedroom communities will provide an attraction for people to come and work in Calgary, not everybody wants to live in a big city.

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-Until Airdrie, Okotoks or Cochrane are the size of Brampton, it just doesn't make sense.-

GO Transit was started in 1967 with the Lakeshore East and Lakeshore West lines, the Georgetown line through Brampton was established in 1974. In 1971 the population of Brampton was 41,211, by 1981 the population had exploded to 149,030.
The population of Airdrie is 61,581 (2016), and from AADT analysis I calculate there are 46,420 vehicles per day travelling between Airdrie and Calgary (2015). Residents commuting to Calgary represent a significant proportion of Airdrie Transit's market, 47.5%. According to the 2015 Municipal Census 45.2% of workers commute to Calgary daily, the primary destination in Calgary for commuters is the downtown core. In my opinion Airdrie is ready for commuter rail, and also the Okotoks/High River/Turner Valley/Black Diamond/De Winton area, starting with peak hours commuter operation only, and over time extending and expanding to a regional rail system with a more regular service and additional destinations.

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The capacity of a transit mode refers to how many passengers per hour a mode can be expected to carry at its operating speed. A gridlocked highway will have more cars per unit area than one at free flow, but this is does not mean that the gridlock represents the capacity of the highway, because a highway is not designed to operate at a state of gridlock. Per lane capacity of a highway can be estimated at 1,700 passenger cars per hour, but not all the vehicles on a highway are passenger cars, and capacity is also related to the speed of the vehicles.
A BiLevel coach can carry up to 360 passengers, GO Transit operates greater than 10 coach trains, moving over 3,600 passengers per train. Therefore 1 GO Transit type train per hour has a greater capacity than a 2 lane highway.