Calgary Transit

[Gsgeek540]

1 hour ago, downbeat said:

I notice on Transit55 there are a few Novas on the road today. Would it be safe to assume some those vehicles have been moved to Spring Garden for the duration of the current schedule?

Could be a few things.

The most unlikely is that service commitment couldn’t be met at Spring Gardens, Victoria Park and or Anderson, resulting in buses being moved to supplement fleet at any of those facilities.

Could be a nova that for what ever reason ended up at a different garage other then Stoney last week (change off, road change off, off site work, etc).

Could be an operator with vehicle restrictions, such as ergonomic restrictions, and for what ever reason can only drive a nova bus, which may have resulted in some garage shuffling.

[R. Meu]

Not sure where to post this so here would probably make the most sense. I just saw a couple of PO vehicles parked in front of 8241 (on the 4) by Edmonton trail and 16th ave NE just now.... looks like 2 POs inside dealing with a passenger of some sort.

[yvarushin]

PO?

[thager]

7 minutes ago, yvarushin said:

PO?

Peace officers 

[TimmyC62]

Some mighty big icicles at Brentwood! Told CT about it on Twitter and they acknowledged, but still there after four hours.

[downbeat]

… and the last of the express buses are being removed from the stop at EB 5th Street x 1st Street S.W.

 

 

[Blake M]

39 minutes ago, downbeat said:

… and the last of the express buses are being removed from the stop at EB 5th Street x 1st Street S.W.

 

 

Aren't the 117 and 151 still going to stop there?

[downbeat]

1 hour ago, Blake M said:

Aren't the 117 and 151 still going to stop there?

Oops … you might be right.  I thought they were removed at the spring service change, but that’s not the case. 

[downbeat]

Two more routes removed from that same corner.

 

 

[Nick B]

As of late, for whatever reason, all Route 3 buses have been displaying the “ROUTE 3” echo code.

[TechSpotlight]

41 minutes ago, Nick B said:

As of late, for whatever reason, all Route 3 buses have been displaying the “ROUTE 3” echo code.

I believe the CAD is having issues with vehicles on Route 3, and as a result of that, the signs don't change on their own.  At that point, it's likely the operator who is setting the 'E' code manually.  Half the time, buses on the 3 don't even display properly on T55, mostly displaying as OFF.  Even today, all buses on Route 3 never were tracking properly until well after they started service for the day.

[Jon Calon]

On 3/26/2020 at 12:47 PM, armorand said:

I doubt it was let like that from the garages lol, but the backdoor boarding lately along with non-enforcement of payment, have definitely made it easier for certain peoples to vehemently abuse public transit. Honestly too, I've yet to see any fare enforcement lately either. No checks for fare on the buses, no ripped tickets or transfers, I haven't even seen a fare check on the trains in months... let alone the past couple weeks. No one's been checking, from what I've seen, since this all started.

Towards the end of March, I was definitely seeing a serious uptick in the number of homeless people riding the trains, and with the lack of any sort of fare checks, the system is definitely being abused.  I made mention of this to one of the people managing the building I work in, and she said she doesn't want me riding transit during the Covid-19 thing.  Shortly after that (like 3 days into April) I was given a free parking stall in the parkade of the building and told to drive to work.  I haven't been on transit since.  (admittedly, at the beginning, the commutes into downtown were pretty sweet.  These days, I'm definitely noticing an uptick in the amount of traffic...)

[Blake M]

2 hours ago, Jon Calon said:

Towards the end of March, I was definitely seeing a serious uptick in the number of homeless people riding the trains, and with the lack of any sort of fare checks, the system is definitely being abused.  I made mention of this to one of the people managing the building I work in, and she said she doesn't want me riding transit during the Covid-19 thing.  Shortly after that (like 3 days into April) I was given a free parking stall in the parkade of the building and told to drive to work.  I haven't been on transit since.  (admittedly, at the beginning, the commutes into downtown were pretty sweet.  These days, I'm definitely noticing an uptick in the amount of traffic...)

If it makes you feel any better, the "fare enforcement" at City Hall and 7th Streets really seems be working; I had to take a single trip from Saddletowne to 1st Street last week and the train car I was on was the cleanest I'd seen in a long time, and the only, ahem, vagrants that boarded only went from Bridgeland to 1st Street. Was quite a peaceful journey actually.

[armorand]

5 hours ago, Blake M said:

If it makes you feel any better, the "fare enforcement" at City Hall and 7th Streets really seems be working; I had to take a single trip from Saddletowne to 1st Street last week and the train car I was on was the cleanest I'd seen in a long time, and the only, ahem, vagrants that boarded only went from Bridgeland to 1st Street. Was quite a peaceful journey actually.

I got moved to a new work location on 130th Ave, haven't been on the trains in almost a month. 302 and 23, some vagrants on-board transferring at McKenzie usually, but definitely not as bad as it was in March. They've mostly retreated to urban Calgary, and the lack of places open has literally reduced it to the inner city as well...

Quick question though: since Calgary Transit now knows what services are still attracting ridership - and which routes still have any sort of ridership left - will they possibly use this as a new data set, and maybe change up the routes a bit, to ensure the routes actually go where people want and need to go? Because at the 22 passengers per hour breakeven point  surprisingly (if artics weren't on them), the 23 still has ridership, along with the 302, and the industrial routes as well. Will there be more changes coming, to fix some of the non-performers?

[downbeat]

I suspect changes will be released shortly: There are no longer any schedules visible on the Calgary Transit website beyond Sunday, May 24. Until recently, the current schedule extended well into the summer.

However, rather than a reaction to how ridership has been, I imagine the coming adjustment will account for the planned reopening of services and businesses in the coming weeks. (The mayor made mention of something like this during the city's COVID-19 update on Tuesday.)

Well, it sounds like I was wrong there. Layoffs on the way, says this news report.

https://calgary.ctvnews.ca/calgary-transit-to-lay-off-nearly-450-workers-as-covid-19-dramatically-decreases-ridership-union-1.4927453

Quote

"Calgary Transit is cutting 17,000 hours of service per week effective May 25. That is about 1/3 of CTrain service and will come from conventional, community shuttle and LRT service," read the note from union president Mike Mahar. 

"In total there will be almost 450 jobs lost. […]"

[…] The union noted that will result in the elimination of 23 runs that include routes on late night and mid-day service. 

 

[downbeat]

Some more information from the union in a different news story:

https://globalnews.ca/news/6913899/coronavirus-calgary-transit-ridership-layoffs/

Quote

The ATU memo said changes are also being made to Calgary Transit’s operations and maintenance, including a closure of the bus side of the Anderson Garage and closure of the Stoney Trail facility for operations and maintenance. Instead, operations and maintenance will be based out of the Victoria Park and Spring Gardens facilities until ridership starts to bounce back.

 

[downbeat]

Calgary's transportation director with public announcement just now during the City of Calgary's live-streamed COVID-19 update: 430 layoffs at Calgary Transit, 25 routes temporarily suspended, 40 routes with shorter service spans, reduced frequencies for some routes. The City manager also said the City is ready to ramp service back up as needed to accommodate ridership, as the economy reopens.

The Mayor and others said ridership is down as much as 90% in some places — but there are still about 100,000 riders boardings a day on the system.

The adjusted schedules are not yet visible on the Calgary Transit website, but if you have the patience to scroll in the Transit/Calgary Transit app all the way down past May 24, the new schedules are there.

[yvarushin]

Info should be up next week according to transit director 

[downbeat]

Worth adding: There doesn't appear to be an official list yet of cancelled routes, but the mayor and transportation director both mentioned the 25 temporarily suspended routes have duplicate service nearby or they are loop routes that have an equivalent service operating in the clockwise/counter-clockwise direction.

[downbeat]

P.S. To any transit employees who may frequent this board: I hope you were not affected by the news today — and if you were, I hope these changes are short-lived. Thank you for what you do!

[R. Meu]

So it seems the temporarily suspended routes starting May 25 are: 27, 62, 64, 69, 70, 89, 95, 102, 103, 109, 110, 116, 117, 125, 133, 134, 142, 146, 151, 164, 174, 178, 305, 430, and to make it a total of 25 routes the 526 is probably the other route being suspended. (I spent some time on the app checking all the schedules along with a few other members on this board.)

[yvarushin]

Nice! I’m surprised the 11 isn’t being canceled or one of the 167/168. What’s 526?

[Nick B]

That list excludes a lot of loop routes. I'm sure it'll work out to be several more than 25.

[downbeat]

I don’t think they said they would cancel all the loop routes — only that some of the cancelled routes were loops, so in those cases there would still be coverage in those areas.

[R. Meu]

3 hours ago, yvarushin said:

Nice! I’m surprised the 11 isn’t being canceled or one of the 167/168. What’s 526?

526 is a employee only shuttle that goes around Manchester Yards.