More people are riding Calgary Transit than before the COVID-19 pandemic, but the service is struggling to keep up with growth and is asking the city for more funding to get there.
Officials from Calgary Transit were at city hall Wednesday to provide an update to the city’s Infrastructure and Planning Committee on RouteAhead, a 30-year plan to significantly expand transit service across the city.
According to transit, ridership increased to over 101 million trips in 2024, an increase of 12 per cent over 2023 and on demand service was extended to 11 new neighbourhoods.
Frequency on the Red and Blue Line CTrains increased to at least every 10 minutes, 15 hours per day, seven days per week as well.
But transit officials noted costs to deliver the service are growing, including fuel, wages, and maintenance, with a request to council for $3 million in one-time funding from the city’s reserves to help with service pressures in 2025.
“We’re looking at all kinds of efficiencies and trying to improve the routes we have but we’re really tapped out,” said Calgary Transit director Sharon Fleming. “We need to get to a point where we’re truly investing in the lines in the primary transit network to provide the faster frequent service that Calgarians need.”
Currently, only 160,000 Calgarians or 10 per cent of the city’s population lives within 400 metres of the primary transit network, Fleming said.
Officials also asked the committee to prioritize funding for the RouteAhead strategy in upcoming budget deliberations, which envisions half of Calgarians, or nearly one million people, living within 400 metres of the primary transit network when it’s fully built out.
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But the 10-year plan to implement RouteAhead includes an annual $15 million increase to transit’s operating funding, an additional $45 million per year for new buses and trains, and a $500-million investment in a new fleet storage and maintenance facility.
That funding would get transit up to 10 minutes service on the primary transit network at least 15 hours a day, seven days a week by 2034, the report said.
“We want to serve Calgarians in the way they deserve to be served and we can’t because we don’t have the operating budget,” Fleming told reporters.
Ward 1 Coun. Sonya Sharp, who chairs the committee, said funding for increased transit service is necessary but wants to see a priority given to safety on the service; after a transit driver was assaulted Wednesday morning.
“I don’t have a problem with the recommendations that are in front of us today. What I will say is we have a bit of a gap on putting a little more money into safety on our transit,” she told reporters.
“You can put as much money as you want into transit but if people aren’t taking it because it’s not safe, then that is an issue.”
Calgary Mayor Jyoti Gondek said transit is an essential service and both safety and service must be considered.
“We get ourselves caught up in these conversations about what’s more important providing transit service or providing safety? They’re both important, they go hand in hand,” she said at a separate news conference.
However, experts note how to fund transit is becoming an issue across the country, with transit agencies across the country advocating the federal and provincial governments to pitch in on operating costs.
In Calgary, just 36 per cent of operating costs were covered by fare revenue last year.
“The funding model we have now of just fares and property taxes is completely broken,” said David Cooper, principal at Leading Mobility. “We’re not going to get people to realistically take transit unless we re-look at how we fund it and right now the model we have is completely broken.”
Calgary Transit projected a $33 million funding shortfall for 2025 in last year’s budget due to growing costs of the low-income transit pass program, which sold more than 537,000 passes in 2024, Fleming said.
Council stepped in during last year’s budget deliberations with one-time funding to fill the shortfall.
The $3 million funding request was approved by committee 7-1 with Ward 4 Coun. Sean Chu in opposition, and will now go to city council as a whole for a final decision.
Committee also approved the request to have administration prioritize RouteAhead during budget deliberations in November, with Ward 2 Coun. Jennifer Wyness the sole vote in opposition.
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