News   Apr 03, 2020
Pastel Morning
 5.7K     1 
News   Apr 02, 2020
A Message to Our Readers
 7.4K     3 
News   Apr 02, 2020
Soon to be Gone
 4.4K     0 

Calgary Transit

Turnstiles won't do a thing.

The worst incident I saw one of the most recent times I took the train was someone who at City Hall yelled across from the south platform to someone (looked to me to be a random dude) on the north platform, then climbed down onto the tracks and walked across and climbed up onto the other platform to talk to them, then came back. This is not the first time I've seen someone climb down onto the tracks or back up onto the platform from the tracks. It's not common, but the people I've seen doing it seem to be some of the worst cases.

So how would a turnstile even prevent this? You can walk down the tracks 30 feet, and climb onto the platform and ignore them. (and they can also be jumped easily enough). Certainly that's not something very many people would do, but none of the other problems caused by people on C-train platforms are things that very many people do. Turnstiles can only theoretically work in situations where the only access to the platform is through the station, that is, not downtown Calgary. Until we bury the downtown LRT, we can't have restricted access to the platforms. We can spend millions on turnstiles and not have restricted access, or spend the money on service or policing or helping people and not have restricted access.
 
I doubt many shit-disturbers would think twice about jumping a turnstile...it would require human enforcement to be remotely effective.

Complex & systemic problem without easy answers. More peace officer presence would certainly help. I also wonder if there is a way to dangle more carrot as well as stick...obviously it's a resourcing issue, but how about some community outreach blitzes? We know that getting some of these folks to accept help is like catching lightning in a bottle and is rarely successful on the first attempt...many more attempts couldn't hurt (though I'm sure I'm being hopelessly optimistic)...
 
I think we need to ask why do they congregate at transit stations? I think the answer is because there's shelter.

Is there a way where a safe, small shelter can be provided that isn't at a transit station? Maybe an accessible pod that's monitored (something as simple as a camera that monitors when the pod is occupied). If some authority sees someone in a pod, they visit them, do a wellness check and see if they will accept help. They shouldn't be obligated to accept help if they want to use a pod but if you treat people with dignity, I think the chances go up.

I think that's part of an answer and it gets them 'in the system'. For me at least, help starts with safe shelter. Fully understanding undesirable things would happen in there but if they do then maybe you remove the person or people. If the space is respected by someone, maybe you offer them access to the next step in shelter, like a room in a building that has a common kitchen and bathroom (this is an expensive step).

IMO if they're at transit stations because there's shelter maybe there's relatively inexpensive pod-shelter that can be provided that isn't a formal shelter.

But I could also be completely misreading the situation.
 
Surrealplaces said:
Or the system in general is flawed. I'm not a criminal policing expert either, but I've heard from various people involved that it's usually the same people over and over when it comes to crime in the city. I heard recently, there was a guy in Kelowna (I think) who has been arrested something like 300 times in his life and is still out committing crimes. I've heard from people in Calgary who have said we have those same issues. People who have committed dozens and dozens of crimes but keep hitting the streets.
Click to expand...
Agreed. Crime is more of a general issue. If we had no LRT system or LRT stations, the crime would exist, but would be somewhere else.
 
Many problems compounded together to create the current issues, which aren’t confined to good weather west coast cities (though they would say otherwise) and aren’t confined to larger cities (though we would say otherwise) and aren’t confined to sizeable cities (though Red Deer and Lethbridge would say otherwise) and aren’t confined to small cities (though Hinton would say otherwise).

We have a system breakdown where we haven’t even reached the acceptance phase of acknowledging this is our problem, not someone else’s.

What to do? It is really 100 things all at once, to mitigate the effects of behaviours on the rest of society (reducing spillover/negative externalities of drug use as it happens today) and to ameliorate the situation as a whole.

We need to be smart about it so we don’t waste more time and resources. Unfortunately that means accepting some facts which offends middle class sensibilities including:
* there are plenty of people who use drugs and can’t stop who manage well enough for a long enough while being employed and housed (accepting as valid goal keeping those who use drugs housed, and productive—or at the very least not creating negative spillovers)
* a good portion of people who use drugs cannot stop and will return to using drugs no matter the interfention (around 65% is what I’ve read in academic journals), so we need to not require abstinence as an entry point to support
* the visible problems we see are only 10% or less of the potential group, so solutions have to be at a much larger scale to be effective

The tools we use while accepting the above very, but our system is set up right now in a way that believes the 50+ charge offender can rehabilitate themselves. Our capacity is set up to believe there isn’t a continual feed of new people who use drugs whose lives have collapsed to the point of being unhoused. We for example don’t need to house 3,000 people, we need to house 1,500 people a year!
 
This is a bit of a half-baked thought, but I'm honestly starting to wonder if 'exile' shouldn't be on the menu of possible options here (recidivist summary offenders getting their choice of prison vs treatment vs exile). What I imagine is pretty much just prison with way more freedom and a lot less authority, though there'd have to be a lot more nuance and it still wouldn't be cheap.

The thought experiment gets dystopian pretty quickly, but I'm not sure the status quo is particularly humane or compassionate either.
 
The transit blitz I mentioned in my post targets users, which create the demand for those that do supply. Stopping the supply, the 'war on drugs', didn't really solve anything. This blitz and the ones that are sure to come will repeatedly identify the same users so the answer seems to be in helping those users who demand the supply. Maybe you do take them 'away' like lemongrab says...

The visible minority of street users (10% or less of the group) was mentioned and unfortunately, as it pertains to Calgary Transit, that is the portion that matters when it comes to improving the transit experience and you can have an affect because they're there and you can see who you need to help.

The desired result for Calgary Transit is simple, these users no longer going to Transit infrastructure and damaging the already bruised transit perception. In my opinion you have to tackle the problem on a micro level because the macro issue is far too daunting and is likely a reason for government inaction on direct and dramatic drug and mental health intervention. So, like I said in another post, my answer is giving an alternate place to go that allows the proper help to intervene.

The breakdown of society to where we have open drug use at train stations and people on the street being brought back to life by drug effects reversing kits is a huge problem, but if you break it down to what solutions can be used to make transit infrastructure safer and go from there maybe you get somewhere with transit. Sure, it's pushing the problem around, but by doing that maybe you push the problem into a more controlled space (to sort of adapt lemongrab's idea).
 
FibHvMkacAAc79L.jpg


Budget Amendments so far have had some juice for Calgary Transit and those that use it...

Part 1.
a. Keeps fairs the same in 2023 as 2022, I'll take it.
b. Allows U12 to ride for free, probably more help for transit riding families than anything. But I'm sure it will help eliminate some barriers for pre-teens to access the system.
s. More money for bus shelters and benches, I know I walk a bit longer to a stop that has a shelter when it's cold out so I'll see if my stop gets a shelter now.
 
Last edited:
Duck Lightning said:
I hope the city puts money into redesigning the bus shelters so they aren't so easily vandalized. Pretty much all the shelters I've seen here in North central Calgary have all their glass shattered within a week of it installed and as such they don't even bother replacing it anymore.
Click to expand...
It's surprising they haven't gone to a plastic. You need to be able to see through them and have the elements somewhat blocked but there's a lot broken shelters around the city.
 
Duck Lightning said:
I hope the city puts money into redesigning the bus shelters so they aren't so easily vandalized. Pretty much all the shelters I've seen here in North central Calgary have all their glass shattered within a week of it installed and as such they don't even bother replacing it anymore.
Click to expand...
My questions:
  • what do other cities with better transit do?
  • Do they have the same/more/fewer shelters than us?
  • Are they vandalized more or less frequently?
  • Who typically pays for transit shelters?

In a round-about way, improving the frequency of service and having more development for TOD (with integration with weather-protected sidewalk) would negate the need for many shelters in the first place.

If you don't have to wait a long time in a cold, windy and dark place you don't need much of a shelter.
 
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/calgary-transit-bus-shelter-vandalism-1.6318308

Back in January the CBC wrote an article about how the issue of shattered glass at bus shelters in Calgary has gotten progressively worse since the start of the pandemic.​

"The five years of data shows a steady increase in vandalism complaints, then a steep uptick last year. From January to October, 1,214 panes were broken. That compares to 682 for all of 2020. The vandalism got so bad that at one point Calgary Transit decided to try just not fixing them."
 
CBBarnett said:
My questions:
  • what do other cities with better transit do?
  • Do they have the same/more/fewer shelters than us?
  • Are they vandalized more or less frequently?
  • Who typically pays for transit shelters?

In a round-about way, improving the frequency of service and having more development for TOD (with integration with weather-protected sidewalk) would negate the need for many shelters in the first place.

If you don't have to wait a long time in a cold, windy and dark place you don't need much of a shelter.
Click to expand...
From what I've seen in other cities like Edmonton and Winnipeg, they have the same issues. Here's an article from Winnipeg saying they've seen an increase in vandalism lately. Edmonton recently had 145 bus shelters vandalized in just one week! All cities across Canada seem to face this issue, even in busier cities like Vancouver and Toronto.
My own opinion is that it's a two part issue.
- Due to transit apps showing schedules and live bus movements, the shelters tend to be empty until 3 minutes before the bus arrives, so more frequent service might help that, but a lot of the vandalism seems to happen overnight when there is no service and nobody around.
- Our societal problem of vandalism in general, where there's no accountability even when the vandals are caught. You would never see this happen in a place like Singapore where vandalism is unacceptable. Not that I want us to necessarily be that strict, but currently we aren't dealing with the issue at all.
 
www.sprawlcalgary.com

Game over: How Calgary killed its primary transit network | The Sprawl

Will we try again—and get it right this time?
www.sprawlcalgary.com www.sprawlcalgary.com

Interesting article/podcast from the Sprawl, discussing what’s happening with Calgary transit. A lot of the discussion is around whether to have more frequents service covering less area vs more coverage and less frequencies.
 
Surrealplaces said:
www.sprawlcalgary.com

Game over: How Calgary killed its primary transit network | The Sprawl

Will we try again—and get it right this time?
www.sprawlcalgary.com www.sprawlcalgary.com

Interesting article/podcast from the Sprawl, discussing what’s happening with Calgary transit. A lot of the discussion is around whether to have more frequents service covering less area vs more coverage and less frequencies.
Click to expand...
Just listened to that today actually, gotta say I'm leaning towards the option of having better service and fewer routes, although I definitely get the draw backs I definitely avoid taking the bus solely due to the long waits
 
You must log in or register to post here.

Back
Top