Calgary Transit unveils updated strategy, aiming for more frequent service – Calgary | 24CA News

An up to date technique to information how Calgary Transit delivers its service over the subsequent 30 years has cleared its first hurdle at City Hall, as transit officers change gears with a aim of to make the service extra frequent.

Transit officers had been at City Hall on Wednesday to ship the up to date strategic plan to the town’s infrastructure and planning committee.

Developed in 2012, ‘RouteAhead’ is a 30-year strategic plan that outlines working and capital investments and enhancements to riders’ expertise on Calgary Transit.

As a part of the 10-year updates, transit officers wish to shift the main focus to a extra frequency-based service to bolster the creation of what’s known as a major transit community.

“The biggest thing that we’re trying to do is build the primary transit network, which really gives Calgarians that fast, frequent transit that runs early in the morning and late and night with buses and trains coming more often,” Calgary Transit planner Jordan Zukowski advised Global News.

The frequency objectives specified by the up to date plan are a bus or a practice each 10 minutes, 15 hours per day and 7 days per week on the first transit community. This contains CTrains, Max Line buses, and buses alongside main routes.

When it involves native neighbourhood bus routes, the aim is each half-hour throughout the identical timeframe, with extra frequency when warranted.

However, transit officers word the change to a frequency-based community would require some route adjustments, and riders might have an extended stroll to a bus cease, however most should journey lower than 5 minutes to the cease.

That facet of the up to date technique raised issues with some metropolis councillors who’re anticipating some pushback from residents.

“There will be some pushback on some of those routes,” Ward 1 Coun. Sonya Sharp advised reporters. “People are comfortable with these routes, and walking an extra ten minutes to a more frequent bus zone, as long as we can maintain that frequency, then we are doing what we set out to do.”

Transit officers advised the committee that any route critiques, which might happen if the plan is carried out, can be data-driven.

“If there’s a bus stop that we see is very underutilized or not utilized at all, that’s maybe something that we would consider removing and that allows the bus to run a lot faster,” Zukowski stated. “If we’re thinking of where are these bus stops that people are using a lot, where are they getting on a lot, those are key destinations that we want to keep people linked to.”

David Cooper, previously a planner at Calgary Transit who now runs a consulting agency known as Leading Mobility, stated frequency based mostly programs are used throughout the nation and that it will with ridership on transit.

“Edmonton did this exercise in 2021 and their bus network has recovered 104 per cent of pre-pandemic ridership,” Cooper stated. “We have a commuter-based service in pre-pandemic shape.”

Impacts from the pandemic proceed to plague staffing at Calgary Transit, in response to the Amalgamated Transit Union Local 583.

The union’s president Mike Mahar stated a frequency-based service received’t be achievable till extra operators and mechanics are employed on, with present employees stretched skinny.

“Even if they’re working, eight or 10 hours, they’re in a uniform for over 14 hours,” Mahar advised Global News. “When buses are running late, or they’re not showing up. It’s the transit operator that’s the first forward-facing employee, so they hear the brunt of it from the customers.”

Calgary Transit director Sharon Fleming stated transit is engaged on hiring as much as 800 staff this 12 months to get again to pre-pandemic staffing ranges, with a aim of hiring extra if the up to date RouteAhead plan is carried out.

The plan nonetheless must go to council for a remaining approval.

Pending that approval, Calgary Transit officers will convey ahead an implementation plan with working and capital prices and proposed route adjustments for a call by council.

“It’ll be a journey,” Fleming stated. “This is an investment over time and we need to catch up with our infrastructure, our buses, our hiring, to go along with that frequency increase.”

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