Let’s face it Calgary Transit can’t make everyone happy!
Recently Calgary’s Avenue Magazine published an article titled “Calgary’s public transit system keeping the city from moving ahead” which focused on the shortfalls of Calgary Transit and how the city must improve transit if it wants to retain and attract young talent.
And Sprawl (an online Calgary news subscription service) has published numerous articles over the past few years about Calgary Transit being very downtown centric and doesn’t serve the needs for those who can’t afford or don’t want to own a car. Link: https://www.sprawlcalgary.com/calgary-transit-bus-commuters
In most cases the articles have focused on a couple of disgruntled transit riders or asking key transit champions how important is transit to the City’s future (which is like asking the Pope if believing in Jesus is important) without looking at the bigger picture of how Calgary Transit balances the need to serve as many Calgarians as possible, in the most cost-effective manner. And how complex and difficult it will be to change the habits of Calgarians when it comes to transportation choices.
Yes, complaining about city transit is a bit like complaining about the weather, every Canadian does it. FYI we also love to complain about the roads too.
What these articles and other criticism of Calgary Transit fail to recognize is transit in Calgary is probably better than most cities its size in North America. After doing some digging I found a 2017 (before COVID decimated transit ridership and changed everything) CBC Calgary story title “A Transit Report Card for Major Canadian Cities” that gave Calgary Transit an A+ ranking, tying it with Vancouver as the second best in Canada after Montreal.
Let’s look at some more data.
Ranking City Transit Systems Is Complicated
Recently Vancouver, Montreal and Toronto’s transit systems were ranked as some of the best in the world (Urban Mobility Readiness Index, Berkeley University, Dec 2022) based on connectivity, public transit, electrification, and automation. While you won’t find Calgary on any list of the top transit systems in the world, you might read Calgary has on one the highest LRT riderships per capita in North America or that most North America’s LRT systems are modelled after Calgary’s (which is the second oldest in North America).
There are several metrics that can be used to compare transit systems, but I am told by transit planners the best one is “trips per capita.” It is the best measure since it doesn’t matter the size of the city or what types of public transit are available - small or large buses, streetcar, above or underground rapid transit. Still, it has its limitations as it only measures service use, it doesn’t look at number of transfers, frequency of service, on-time service, revenue generation, or monthly or single fare costs. Depending on your bias, city ranking will change dramatically.
When it comes to “trips per capita” Calgary Transit was the second lowest of Canada’s major cities before COVID. It has hovered in the low 80s since 2016, dropping from a high of 93.5 in 2013 when Calgary’s downtown was booming, highlighting the significant role downtown commuters play in Calgary Transit’s total ridership.
Using just the “trips per capita” measurement Ottawa’s transit system would rank higher than Vancouver’s pre COVID. However, Ottawa’s LRT system is plagued with problems and citizens are not happy with its attempt to create an LRT system equivalent to Calgary’s.
More digging resulted in finding the “Canadian Transit Ridership Trends Study (2018)” by Miller, Shalaby, Diab, and Kasraian at University of Toronto’s Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering for the Canadian Urban Transit Association (CUTA). While this study of transit in major Canadian cities documented a strong link between transit ridership and density, there are several other factors influencing transit ridership.
For example, renters use transit more than homeowners, and apartment and row home dwellers use transit more than single family homeowners. Use of transit is also related to household income, with lower income more likely to use transit than higher income and higher income residents more likely to use rapid transit than buses. Higher automobile ownership means less use of transit as does lower gas prices.
Using this data is it no surprise Montreal is at the top of the list of transit ridership in Canada and Calgary at the lowest, as Montreal has not only the lowest household income of major Canadian cities, but the lowest home ownership rate, while Calgary’s are the highest.
As one might expect the study found students are frequent transit users. Montreal transit system benefits greatly from having 185,000 post-secondary students concentrated in their City Centre (Calgary’s downtown employee population in its heyday might have been 160,000), who depend on transit as their main mode of transportation seven days a week, daytime and weekends.
FYI: This study also found transit ridership peaked in 2014 for most major Canadian cities, not just Calgary.
Calgary Transit ridership peaked in the early 2010’s when the City and downtown was booming. Source: Calgary Transit
Transit Trump Roads in Calgary?
Calgary’s transit champions are always saying the city needs to invest more in transit and less in roads. I expect it would surprise many Calgary taxpayers to know in 2023 the City of Calgary’s operation budget for transit is $444M, more than twice that for roads and transit’s capital budget is $277M compared to $123M for roads.
Yes, the City of Calgary has been prioritizing transit development over roads for many years despite the fact 79% of Calgarians indicated that driving is their main mode of transportation and only 10% said transit is their main mode (September 2022, City of Calgary survey). It should also be noted as Western Canada’s major inland port and as a major distribution center having a good road network is important to Calgary’s economy and to transit service.
The question is not that Calgary needs to spend more money on transit, rather “are we getting the benefits of the increased investment in transit?” When I asked Calgary Transit if they had any current benchmarking data with other cities they said they didn’t, which surprised me.
Transit’s Golden Rule
One of the golden rules of transit is “to increase ridership you have to increase the frequency of service.” There is abundant research that says the ideal frequency is around 10 minutes. Unfortunately, most routes in Calgary do not achieve this ideal frequency. In fact, there are many routes that operate on 30+ minute intervals in evening and weekends and in some suburban communities all day.
Recently Calgary Transit announced it was going to focus less on trying to serve the entire city and focus on providing more frequent service along key routes linking key destinations. The goal is to have buses and trains run every 10 minutes from 6 a.m. to 9 p.m. on what they call the “primary transit network.” This means the routes with the most ridership will get more frequent service at the expense of less popular routes.
Calgary Transit is very commuter and weekday focused. Source: Calgary Transit
Calgary transit champions quickly pointed out the 10-minute frequency goal should be to 11 p.m. to accommodate the many workers and students whose day doesn’t end at 9 p.m.
Others complained that routes with the most ridership are the commuter routes to the downtown, but there is a need for more frequent cross-town service as only about 20% of Calgarians work in the City Centre and 5% live there.
There was also an uproar that many of the newer communities would end up with service so infrequent, why bother.
Here's an outrageous idea. I have often wondered if perhaps the City should just inform new community developers and buyers there will be no transit service to them. Seems to me Aidrie, Cochrane, Okotoks and Strathmore were attractive places to live for decades without any transit service (to Calgary or within their city-limits) so obviously there is a market for “no transit” communities. Yes I know transit advocates will think this is a regressive idea, but let’s face reality, it will take decades for Calgary to evolve from 80% of Calgarians using vehicles as their primary mode of transportation. And it will take decades to build a safe and efficient transit system that will allow more Calgarians to live without a car. We need to focus providing enhanced transit in key communities rather than inadequate transit everywhere.
Calgary isn’t the only city struggling to determine if transit should focus on providing frequency of service where you expect to get the biggest bang for your buck, or give everyone some service even if the frequency is way beyond the maximum wait times. When I was in Vancouver in January 2023, there were signs at several bus stops saying TransLink (their metro transit system) was also going to focus on providing more frequent service on routes with the highest ridership today and potential for higher ridership in the future.
FYI: There is a Walk/Transit Score website that will tell you how good transit service is for different communities in Calgary, so if you are intending to use transit as your main mode of transportation you would wise to use it as part of your house hunting research. Caution: Even within a community access to transit can be very different.
Link: Transit/Walk Score
Calgary Transit Recent Improvements
One of the biggest criticism of the LRT system is it is too downtown centric. While this is true, it makes sense given 20% of Calgarians work downtown and that most don’t need a car during the day so they are the perfect target for commuting by transit. To make public transit cost effective you need to have a large population all going to the same place around the same times e.g., downtowns, shopping centres, hospitals and post-secondary schools.
In fact, the City limited parking in the downtown as a means of encouraging transit ridership, which resulted in 50% of downtown commuters using transit at one point. Post-secondary students are also regular transit users so having LRT to three of Calgary’s four major post-secondary schools (University of Calgary, SAIT and Alberta University of the Arts) via the downtown is just cost-effective transit design.
To address the issue of transit being too downtown centric, Calgary transit added four BRT routes- North Crosstown, South Crosstown, 17th Ave SE and Southwest in 2018 and 2019. The routes were designed to link key employment and education centres to maximize perceived ridership, with 10-minute service during the peak morning and evening rush hours, with the promise to have 10-minute service 15 hours a day as ridership grows.
Unfortunately, ridership on these new routes were hampered by COVID, but in early 2023 ridership is rising on five of the seven routes. However, ridership is significantly lower that what was projected and will have to rise significantly to achieve the projected 2024 numbers.
*** no projected ridership Source: Calgary Transit
Calgary Transit next big service upgrade is to expand LRT service to North Central and Southeast communities i.e., Green Line. While the project is controversial for several reasons that is not unusual, almost every rapid transit project is controversial be it Vancouver, Toronto, Ottawa, Edmonton, Hamilton or even New York City.
In summary, Calgary Transit is constantly evolving its service to meet the changing and diversity of transit needs as the city grows and evolves. Unfortunately, it can’t meet the needs of everyone.
Safety Issues
The biggest issue facing Calgary Transit today is safety on and around LRT stations and in the train cars. The there is hardly a week goes by that there isn’t an incident at or near an LRT station that makes the news. We are constantly bombarded with images and information about transit safety, including the use of drugs and alcohol right on the trains themselves or people sleeping, shouting and using foul language on the trains. And yes violent behaviour. As I was working on this piece, here was an early morning double stabbing at a downtown LRT station and another stabbing on Lions Park LRT Station.
The 2022 survey by the City of Calgary found 86% of Calgarians feel safe riding a bus alone during the day, but only 65% would feel safe at night and when it comes to LRT, only 75% feel safe during the day and 47% at night.
Note these numbers are skewed as this was not a “transit user” survey but a “citizen wide” survey so many of the respondents aren’t regular transit users which means their response is more perceived than actual experience.
A February 2023 Calgary Transit User satisfaction survey found 75% of users are satisfied with their transit experience, however satisfaction ranged from a high of 84% in the southwest quadrant to just 50% in the southeast quadrant (i.e., no LRT service). There was also a large variance in satisfaction between LRT (71% satisfaction) and Bus (80% satisfaction).
The City has responded by hiring more Peace Officers (from 113 to 141) and increasing surveillance by Police. The Province of Alberta has also found funding for addition police focusing on transit security in Calgary and Edmonton.
However, the issue isn’t just better policing but better social services and housing. The wait time to get into drug and alcohol programs is a barrier to getting people dealing with addictions. The lack of housing for hard to house individuals (most shelters and agencies can’t accept individuals who are high, drunk or have history of violent behaviour) is also keeping people on the streets. And then there is the lack of places to go during the day for those who live in shelters, so the trains become their living room during the day.
FYI: Interestingly in January 2023, Calgary Transit Director, Sharon Fleming told CBC Calgary there was an 8% decrease in the calls related to social disorder between 2021 and 2022.
Calgary Transit Survey
So “How important is transit to Calgary’s future?”
While transit champions argue having a good transit system will attract and retain young talent, a City of Calgary Attitudes and Outlook Survey (Sept 2022) found the top reasons for leaving Calgary (from a pre-provided list of reasons) include ‘cost of living is too high’ (57%), ‘better job opportunities elsewhere’ (39%) and ‘family/friends live elsewhere’ (30%). For young adults aged 18-24 years, the top reasons for leaving include ‘better job opportunities elsewhere’ (61%), ‘educational opportunities elsewhere’ (46%) and ‘cost of living is too high’ (41%).
Insufficient transit system was identified by only 8% of the respondents as the reason for leaving the city. Of the 18 to 24 age cohort, 24% indicated poor transit was a factor, but still was way below other reasons for leaving.
When asked “What would make Calgary more a more vibrant place?” the top three suggestions were ‘reduce cost of living’ (42%), ‘reduce taxes’ (30%) and ‘lower housing costs for all’ (26%). Among young adults, the top three suggestions are ‘reduce cost of living’ (39%), ‘lower housing costs for all’ (25%) and ‘address poverty and homelessness’ (24%).
Facing Reality
We must face the reality Calgary Transit will always have an uphill battle to create a robust transit system. Why? Because Calgary’s high household incomes, results in a high percentage of citizens being homeowners, in single family homes and high car ownership all of which favour the use of the automobile over transit.
Yes, there is also the “climate change reality” that says Calgarians need (must) to drive less and take transit, cycle and walk more. However, until the City can provide a transit system that is safe and convenient, the vast majority of Calgarians will continue to drive.
In the case of city building, you can never make everyone happy – it is always too fast or too much for some and too slow and too little for others. Calgary’s transition from the automobile to transit will take several decades, you don’t change human behaviours quickly even if they know it is good for them and the planet.
Last Word
Let’s face it; it is an impossible task for Calgary Transit to provide adequate, accessible and affordable transit for everyone. City building is always a compromise when it comes to meeting the plethora of different needs and wants of its citizens. I find it encouraging the City is now actively trying to address the safety issue as best it can and Calgary Transit is continually looking for ways to provide better service.
I think it would be fair to say Calgary’s transit is better than most transit systems for cities with a population under 2 million people in North America. While Calgary might not be the best at anything, it is good at a lot of things, which is why it is often ranked as North American’s “most liveable city.”
Learn more:
Canada’s top 10 largest transit projects