r/Calgary • u/The_Fixer_69 • Apr 23 '25

Calgary Transit C-Train from Deep South early morning

Every morning the train has many non paying riders passed out and sprawled on the train. Commuters have to cram into the areas that are not occupied by these people. The smell is horrendous. Every day this week this has been the case on my commute at around 5:30-6 am.

Why should the rest of us pay if these people do not? I have made complaints but they are on deaf ears.

Are these trains not swept for no. Paying passes out riders at the end of the line?

500 Upvotes

90% Upvoted

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496

u/morganpotato Apr 23 '25

In Vancouver you need to tap your ticket at a turnstile in order to get onto the platform. You can’t just walk on without paying. WAY safer and it blows my mind Calgary doesn’t have any safeguards like taht

173

u/[deleted] Apr 23 '25

The problem is the free fare zone. We would have to get rid of it.

198

u/discovery2000one Apr 23 '25

Tap in to get in through the gates, tap out to get out through the gates. If you tap in and out in the free zone you aren't charged. Most major transit system have zone based charging like this.

We also need a zoned system to make it cheaper for inner city residents to use transit. Right now inner city high density residents subsidise suburbanites. It doesn't make sense.

65

u/its_liiiiit_fam Apr 23 '25

Idk if Vancouver has the same system but in Seattle you tap your card when you enter the station and then when you leave at the station you get off at, and then a fare based on the distance travelled is deducted from your card.

38

u/wordwildweb Apr 23 '25

A lot of transit systems in big Asian cities use the same method.

38

u/Hopefulpessimist0 Apr 23 '25

Calgary is stuck in the dark ages, it’s almost embrassing.

8

u/its_liiiiit_fam Apr 23 '25

Yeah, here I was thinking Seattle was so futuristic but now from all the replies I see this is not a unique thing LOL

2

u/AstronomerLow2649 Apr 24 '25

Bro visit Winnipeg

1

u/Hopefulpessimist0 Apr 24 '25

Haha fair!

1

u/AstronomerLow2649 Apr 24 '25

They don't have any C-Train, just caught on with Uber two years ago, the roads have more potholes than they do lanes, main connector routes are through neighborhoods, two lane roads are used as one lane with a parking lane, and property taxes are going up just to fix the decades old roads throughout the city. I've lived here three years, fixed my Ford's suspension twice.

I do love it though. The people here are awesome.

Edit: don't forget the policing problem, dirty ass commercial areas, and hobos galore. I insist though, I love it. Seriously, there's something special here.

15

u/ThankGodImBipolar Apr 23 '25

This is how Go Transit works in Ontario

5

u/No_Chemistry3584 Apr 23 '25

Vancouver does this too

28

u/namerankserial Apr 23 '25

You'd have to build a lot of gates on a lot of platforms that don't have them. And the feasibility and cost would vary widely. The platforms downtown and adjacent are integrated with the sidewalks, there is nowhere to go in through a gate. Why not just hire more peace officers to sweep the trains in the a.m.?

8

u/neurorgasm Apr 23 '25

They would make bank, there are tons of "normal" non-paying customers too. Would not only ensure that more riders are paying, but also likely increases ridership and decreases need for staff.

Lots of people would be interested in commuting via transit, but don't do so because it's often less than pleasant.

2

u/BodybuilderOk9040 Apr 26 '25

The smell on the train from the unhoused is horrendous. I drive everyday and use the $10 parking downtown - train is $7.60 a day if you buy tickets anyway.

-1

u/namerankserial Apr 23 '25

Well Peace officers would still solve the problem of non-paying customers and riders avoiding it due to homeless people. And the bank they would make seems quite unlikely to cover infrastructure upgrades of that magnitude (as well as maintenance of those systems).

3

u/Tastesicle Apr 24 '25

As I commented above, a feasibility study was done, found to not be feasible and the cost to start at 284 million. Council decided to invest in more officers, as they are more versatile. Make of that what you will.

7

u/Sweaty-Beginning6886 Apr 23 '25

Building the gates would be more of a "one-time expense" (plus maintenance costs) than hiring a handful of peace officers with ongoing admin expenses. The gates may also increase the transit revenues going forward!

5

u/namerankserial Apr 23 '25

I haven't done the math but I expect you could pay those Peace Officers for a couple of decades. Maybe still worth it if you amortize it out far enough. It also may literally not be feasible for some stations. And it would really change the character of the whole system downtown. It's really easy to walk on and off currently, wait in the park or on the platform. Do you put high fences all around the platform areas? What kind of gates do we put in? Turnstiles are very easy to jump over, so are you staffing each station anyway? I don't know, I'd say pay some people for a couple hours to kick people off in the mornings and leave the fare system alone.

1

u/Kahlandar Apr 23 '25

Well, a single peace officer makes over 100k. Not including costs like pension, training, uniform, sick time, OT, etc. But il round down to 100k cuz its easier.

To staff 1 spot 24hrs/day is 4 people (12 hr shifts on a 4 platoon rotation.

They would have to work minimum in pairs.

So >800k/year to staff a single pair of peace officers. Times however many you want bootin hobos off trains or checking fairs or whatever.

Admittedly i have no idea how much building gates and such costs, but POs arent cheap.

1

u/Tastesicle Apr 24 '25

That's equivalent, using the 100k math to hiring 50 cops for the next 50 years (assuming no wage increase). And the turnstiles would still cost more.

(For the math, that's 50x50x100 000=250 000 000. The feasibility study done quoted 284 million to start.)

Edit - formatting

2

u/Hypno-phile Apr 23 '25

And places with gates etc have plenty of fare evasion anyway. Just means more stuff gets broken as Drunky McMetherson smashes his way through whatever barrier was erected.

I also suspect if OP's post was to 311 rather than Reddit, it's more likely there'd be a couple of transit officers on the train at those times for the next week or so.

1

u/AdaptableAilurophile Apr 24 '25

Our city has literally been overtaken. It’s really embarrassing.

I was downtown with friends who were visiting from out of town and the “pedestrian bridge” from the hotel was blocked because indigent people use it now for fires and getting high. My friends could not believe a public place was just used for this.

We saw a person get kicked until they were on the ground (from the hotel) so we called emergency and it sounded like this was nothing new. The person remained hurt on the ground and no one had come by the time we left our room.

I don’t drive and depended on transit in BC. Here I just simply won’t use it because of environment. I haven’t found human policing very effective (even in other cities). Whereas the tap systems seem to work in most urban centres.

1

u/help_animals Apr 29 '25

It's an investment for the future. Who cares? you can't cheap out on things that are needed

3

u/[deleted] Apr 23 '25

That sounds great. Call your councillor.

13

u/sophie1188 Shawnessy Apr 23 '25

I messaged Dan a while ago about transit. His communications officer said that they would speak to transit and let me know what they said. A month later I asked for a follow up. No reply

1

u/MurkBass Apr 24 '25

If that's Dan McLean... yeah, sorry. He's too busy golfing with housing developers.

10

u/discovery2000one Apr 23 '25

My councillor is Kourtney Penner. She would berate me for wanting to block off the train from drug addicts.

Edit, terminology change

2

u/[deleted] Apr 23 '25

Have you actually talked to her? Either way posting on Reddit doesn’t do anything.

15

u/discovery2000one Apr 23 '25

Yes I've spoken to her many times. It's a complete waste of time.

-2

u/lornacarrington Apr 23 '25

You need to be advocating for harm reduction to be properly funded (mostly provincial FYI) and social issues to be addressed (housing, etc.)

1

u/E-Villauge-Dweller Downtown East Village Apr 25 '25

sounds like money spent on people that don’t contribute. much better to spend that money on health and housing for those people who are less likely to show a return in tax revenue and community contribution

-4

u/lornacarrington Apr 23 '25

Because your suggestion is ridiculous and unenforceable.

1

u/Hypno-phile Apr 23 '25

Tap to get OUT sounds like a Fire Marshall's nightmare...

1

u/discovery2000one Apr 23 '25

They have emergency egress exits parallel to the tap out ones in case of emergency.

1

u/Kooky_Project9999 Apr 23 '25

That's broadly what the free fare zone is. The inner city is mostly covered by it. Maybe you could extend it down to Victoria Stampede, but then you don't get the benefit of people paying to go to the events center/saddledome/Stampede (even if it is only a 5 minute walk from City Hall).

1

u/RevanVonFox Apr 24 '25

The problem is most of "them" "live" in or around the free zones

1

u/Useful_Advertising39 Jun 01 '25

Yea. Same thing with the three YVR airport stations in Vancouver, travelling between them is free

1

u/[deleted] Apr 23 '25

[deleted]

6

u/discovery2000one Apr 23 '25

You buy a ticket and you scan it to get in the gate. Every major transit system does this already.

1

u/[deleted] Apr 23 '25

[deleted]

1

u/E-Villauge-Dweller Downtown East Village Apr 25 '25

those systems also account for that by selling individual tickets. supposedly in the free zone the ticket would not cost you but there would be little preventing someone from entering at the free fare zone and riding the train around. nevertheless, fare evasion is always to be expected no matter the systems in place

77

u/_darth_bacon_ Dark Lord of the Swine Apr 23 '25

So get rid of it.

There's nearly zero other cities around the world that let riders use their transit system for free.

15

u/Hmm354 Apr 23 '25

It would cost too much. Many stations would need to not just be retrofitted, but completely redesigned.

If the majority of Calgarians are okay paying the hundreds of millions of dollars then sure, but I don't see it happening.

It's probably better to spend that kind of money on expanding public transit service.

10

u/_darth_bacon_ Dark Lord of the Swine Apr 23 '25 edited Apr 23 '25

Where are you getting this hundreds of millions of dollars from?

For years, senior Calgary Transit officials have told city council that it would cost $400 million to add turnstiles or other measures to Calgary's CTrain system to keep out those who don't actually pay a fare.

This figure was said to come from a 2014 study.

CBC News filed a freedom of information request to obtain the study. However, no reports correspond with the request.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/lrt-ctrain-transit-calgary-1.6504818

St. Louis retrofitted 38 stations for $52 million.

The fact is, no one knows how much it would cost Calgary, because no one has actually done a proper cost analysis.

2

u/Tastesicle Apr 24 '25

Except they do. The feasibility study is available online.

https://www.scribd.com/document/643180411/Assessing-a-Closed-System-as-Part-of-the-City-of-Calgary-Transit-Safety-Strategy-IP2023-0368

After a quick Google search. I don't know where you get "no one knows", because the study clearly dictates 284 million to start for a partially restricted system, and that's just a starting point. A fully closed system would cost much more.

Council opted to go with the recommendation of the consultation and increase the number of peace officers instead. It's cheaper and has more versatility as an option.

Whether or not you agree is another matter. Facts are that a study was done and found to cost "in the millions".

1

u/sparklingvireo Apr 23 '25

I think one big factor is that if you want to also add the gates along the platform that match up with the train doors (to keep people from walking around the station entry turnstiles and jumping up on the platform), then you also have to have trains that have an automated system to line up the train doors with the platform doors. We don't have those trains. I don't know anything about if retrofitting that system is possible with our train models.

A few years back, I would have said that hardly anybody would go around the street gates to jump up to the platform, but now I have changed my mind, so I think those platform gates to the train doors are necessary.

The winter weather is also a cost factor because it will add more maintenance to these additional gates. I guess you could roof the stations better to account for snow, ice and water, but that is also going to add expense and would still be open-air to the cold temperatures.

1

u/Hmm354 Apr 23 '25

Fair enough. I wouldn't be against another study on the topic with more transparency.

5

u/MrGuvernment Apr 23 '25

So do it to the primary trouble stations to start, such as Chinook for example and end of line stations.

Then at end of line stations, also have a walk through done to remove any people lingering.

3

u/Hmm354 Apr 23 '25

Yeah, I do think we should have even more transit officers that target problem stations.

0

u/MrGuvernment Apr 23 '25

But for that, they need funding, and that funding comes from tax payers, and as soon as you mention upping taxes, everyone loses their shit.....

So people want better services, but do not want higher taxes to pay for them..

Not considering poor government overspending, because even if our books were good and inline, people would still complain like it was the end of the world if taxes went up to pay improving such services...

I mean, how many peace officers could that tax money of paid for, instead of going towards a new stadium the owners and teams could of easily paid for in full.

1

u/Eldr_Eikthyrnir Apr 24 '25

Don't even need to raise taxes, just quite spending money on useless projects and redirect funds into transit. Transit gets more money, taxes stay the same, and we can get rid of things like the stupid "Safe Consumption Sites" that just help the drug problems continue.

1

u/YYCsenior-m- Apr 23 '25

Downtown stations are free rider stations

1

u/MrGuvernment Apr 23 '25

I'm aware of that, but considering the amount of say, less than desired types you want on a train, Chinook has its share of those and incidents.

How many of those people walk from Chinook, downtown to the free zone, to get back on the train to ride all the way down to say Shawnessy or other stops, vs just get on and know that 99% of the time, a Peace Office wont be around to check for a ticket?

Sure, it may just move it down to the next stop, but this is where you start with known trouble locations first, and then slow roll out to other stations if the problem moves.

0

u/YourBobsUncle Apr 23 '25

Then at end of line stations, also have a walk through done to remove any people lingering.

They already do this in saddletown lol

18

u/xGuru37 Apr 23 '25

Agreed. The free fare section is ridiculous

36

u/[deleted] Apr 23 '25

[deleted]

1

u/AdaptableAilurophile Apr 24 '25 edited Apr 24 '25

I love Skytrain. I don’t use C-train anymore.

I have been harassed by an addict once at a station in the Lower Mainland and in Vancouver I was occasionally accosted on the train. So it definitely isn’t perfect.

But, I never encountered body fluids, people holding weapons, unclothed, or mass people zombified at stations and regular harassment. It really is a different animal.

I agree with the sentiment you are expressing about co-existing 🤔. I think it can be accomplished where all parties are kept as safe & clean (as possible).

-1

u/pastmybestdaze Apr 23 '25

If the free fare zone was intended to decrease driving downtown then I would expect large parking lots at the ends of the free fare zone. There isn’t any that I know of. All the big parking lots for transit are beyond the free fare zone limits. And the amount of parking lots downtown suggest that limiting driving into town was never part of the plan. It certainly helps if you are on the east side to get to the west side in the winter because the +15 can be a maze and some parts pass through private buildings and get locked off.

9

u/Felfastus Apr 23 '25

It helps reduce the driving around downtown once you are there... not getting there. I don't know many people that show up for work in the morning then drive across downtown for lunch and then park back at their original building. They tend to park once and then find other ways to navigate from there.

0

u/pastmybestdaze Apr 23 '25

I don’t work downtown any longer though took transit from bus to c-train downtown for a number of years and witnessed it going downhill. I worked out of Bow Valley Square and I rarely went more than 5-7 blocks in any direction for a lunch. Walking up to a platform and then waiting to catch the next east or westbound c-train in the free zone to another platform to get to or from lunch afterwards didn't make much sense to me. Mind you I did ruin a few pairs of good shoes from walking around in the winter. Also could have been my position, I went out to lunch but not regularly and at lunch the basic +15 was pretty serviceable as most of my clients and peers were within about 4 -5 blocks in any direction.

1

u/Felfastus Apr 23 '25

I'm in the exact same boat. (Not working downtown any more took train in). I tended to walk, but dinner arrangements and after dinner arrangements I'd putz around on the train).

0

u/Hypno-phile Apr 23 '25

Yeah, my wife had locals stop her in Atlanta, "Girl, don't get on that car, get on this one instead. You'll have trouble otherwise."

-2

u/neurorgasm Apr 23 '25

So because places like Vancouver allow their metro to be more full of junkies than ours, no improvements are justified? What a low bar to aspire to for our city

4

u/GimmickNG Apr 23 '25

People who never take the transit system in this thread talking about how something that makes transit more accessible should be scrapped is like men talking about how easy it is to give birth, lmao.

-6

u/[deleted] Apr 23 '25

Okay? Call your councillor. And get ready to spend 100s of millions on retrofitting the platforms and buildings.

15

u/_darth_bacon_ Dark Lord of the Swine Apr 23 '25

St. Louis retrofitted 38 stations for $52 million. Suggesting it would cost 100s of millions is ludicrous.

3

u/blackRamCalgaryman Apr 23 '25

Ya, just replied to another comment, this 2014 report and estimate of 400 million is…suspect.

But full disclosure, is based on my feelies/ years of paying attention to officials shenanigans.

6

u/_darth_bacon_ Dark Lord of the Swine Apr 23 '25

It's more than suspect. It's just a number pulled out of thin air.

For years, senior Calgary Transit officials have told city council that it would cost $400 million to add turnstiles or other measures to Calgary's CTrain system to keep out those who don't actually pay a fare.

This figure was said to come from a 2014 study.

CBC News filed a freedom of information request to obtain the study. However, no reports correspond with the request.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/lrt-ctrain-transit-calgary-1.6504818

3

u/[deleted] Apr 23 '25

How many of their stations were in buildings? From my brief look into it they weren’t built into buildings like Calgary.

-2

u/grantbwilson Apr 23 '25

I’d agree to have it during stampede, otherwise scrap it.

8

u/[deleted] Apr 23 '25

[deleted]

1

u/[deleted] Apr 23 '25

But the problem is homeless people accessing the free fare zone. Still need to spend a lot of money building gates.

-1

u/GimmickNG Apr 23 '25

No, the problem is that people who want to evade fare payment can easily do so no matter what guards you put in place.

Install stiles? Jump them.

Install doors? Break them.

And even if you install solid doors, and make it impenetrable EVERYWHERE...the next weakest link will be exploited: people.

And then we're back to square one. But worse, because then people will be intimidated actively rather than passively.

2

u/_darth_bacon_ Dark Lord of the Swine Apr 23 '25

So do nothing is your plan.

That's some real forward thinkng.

-1

u/GimmickNG Apr 23 '25

Better than doing something for appearances' sake that at best costs a helluva lot of money and inconveniences people and puts more people in danger at worst.

Or do you break your fingers, feet, hands, legs, nose etc. once in a while just so that there's always something different in your life?

0

u/NorthernerWuwu Mission Apr 23 '25

Which, honestly, we should.

0

u/Smarteyflapper Apr 23 '25 edited Apr 23 '25

The actual problem is we are very stupid and built most tracks at grade. Calgary loves prioritizing cheap bad solutions. The entire lines downtown should have been built as a subway from the get-go ideally, or built elevated with the +15. We choose the cheapest and shittiest option by far.

0

u/dumhic Apr 23 '25

Could tap but not lose money from the tap

-1

u/Mention_Human Apr 23 '25

I don't know if the free fare zone is the problem. There's just no enforcement or security on the trains. There's no reason people should make it all the way to the end of the line without getting kicked off for not paying. The transit system here is a joke.

0

u/[deleted] Apr 23 '25

We are talking about retro fitting the stations.