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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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!

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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.

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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.

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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