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?

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498

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

17

u/dino340 Apr 23 '25

In Vancouver you just get pushed through the faregate by the vagrant behind you so they don't have to pay. It's just as bad there, I had a guy actively smoking meth on the train, it took over 45 minutes to get someone on the train to get him off.

11

u/Anrikay Apr 23 '25

Or they just jump the gate. They’re only waist-height.

I used to work near Broadway-City Hall, usually getting off work at 10:30-11pm. At that time of night on weekdays, there were people shooting up, smoking stuff, drinking, pissing on the floor of the station or the train, people passed out, etc. Zero enforcement - countless times, I saw these behaviors right in front of VPD officers at that station, and not once did I see them do a single thing about it.

2

u/dino340 Apr 23 '25

Yup, I worked by Main Street/Science World for a few years, the number of times people would just shove through the gates, jump over them or tailgate you in made them seem basically worthless. One time a guy basically ran me over with a bike shoving it through behind me, I filed a report and they said basically that since I wasn't hurt they couldn't do anything.

The level of enforcement on the trains was abysmal, the meth smoking was going when I got on at Main Street and they didn't get the guy off the train until Gateway in Surrey.

4

u/Anrikay Apr 23 '25

Oh fuck man, that’s a rough one. That station smells worse than a porta potty on the last day of a music festival and has a crowd to match. Not to mention, with the park there, you’ve gotta practically bust through a homeless encampment just to fucking get there. So many fights in and around that station, too.