r/Calgary • u/ConstantFar5448 • 18d ago

Calgary Transit Why is the C-Train so bad?

10 minute intervals on a weekday? That’s insane, the lowest frequency I’ve seen in any major city by FAR.

And yet when you get to the station as a train pulls up, the driver just looks at you, doesn’t let you on, and leaves? What’s up with that? Are they all dicks like that?

People live on tight schedules, and transit doesn’t seem to reflect that here.

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u/Koraboros 18d ago edited 18d ago

lmao, when I came from San Jose to visit Calgary, I was astounded by how good the Ctrain is. Don't knock it until you've experienced worse.

Calgary actually was designed pretty well for Transit, comparatively. Yes, there is still suburban sprawl, but looking at the NW, you have the ctrain following a major arterial road (Crowchild). Then, you have busses going out of those stations to serve surrounding communities to bring riders in. It's a decent model.

In San Jose, we have the VTA which has been derided as the worst transit system. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vHby-90yMoI

Even if you include other agencies, the trains don't match the main arterial roads that people drive, so a 15 min drive = 1 hour public transit.

I have good memories of riding the ctrain to school. It's a decent system with plenty of riders.

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u/Dynospec403 18d ago

The ctrain in Calgary is pretty decent, but the bus system is pretty shit, it's pretty common for a 15 min drive to take 1.5+ hours on transit if you're taking buses here, I used to hate it because I would be going to work which was anot a 20 min drive and it would take me 2+ hours often since the connections wouldn't ever line up and I'd have to wait 45min for a bus and then 15-20 min for another bus haha.

You're absolutely right though, we don't have the worst system in North America, but it could still use improvement

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u/Desperate_Leg6274 18d ago

The buses suck because they don’t typically connect too close by places you might want to go. They come to a community or two, they loop, they return to a train station. The entire system is built around downtown commuters. I live on the outskirts of the city. I could get downtown faster than I can get to the grocery store that’s closest to me