Calgary Transit

[Surrealplaces]

Transit continues to post strong numbers, 21% increase over 2023 Q1 and a new all-time C-Train record, ~8.8 million boardings on the LRT in March 2024. Awesome to see.

https://newsroom.calgary.ca/record-breaking-ridership-marks-calgary-transits-success-in-q1-2024/

This is great to see especially considering so many downtown workers are hybrid, or work from home completely these days. It would interesting to see where the travel patterns to/from are. If less people are working downtown, is the system trending away from being mainly a downtown commuter rail system, or more of a general rail system.

Also a question for those in the know. Do these numbers estimate those who are riding the free fare zone, as well as those who use the system without paying, or are these paid ticket numbers only?

 

[whatchyyc]

I believe the number is all inclusive
Free Fare Zone ridership is trending ~850k per month so about 10% of the CTrain ridership

 

[CBBarnett]

I believe the number is all inclusive
Free Fare Zone ridership is trending ~850k per month so about 10% of the CTrain ridership

On that how do they know this exactly? Do they just have sensors on doors that just count how many people enter a train? Taking this a step further, do we know which stations are the busiest in the system in March 2024?

 

[darwink]

Do they just have sensors on doors that just count how many people enter a train?

Yes.

Your other question, they probably do. but it has been almost 20 years since they dropped station by station numbers iirc.

 

[AJX]

Transit continues to post strong numbers, 21% increase over 2023 Q1 and a new all-time C-Train record, ~8.8 million boardings on the LRT in March 2024. Awesome to see.

https://newsroom.calgary.ca/record-breaking-ridership-marks-calgary-transits-success-in-q1-2024/

Great news, though the article wording is a bit confusing. It talks about 8.7 million Ctrain boardings in March but mentions ‘transit’ had 25 million boardings for the quarter. I’m assuming the 25 million for the quarter is for ctrain?
Does anyone know the numbers for all transit (busses and ctrain)?

 

[whatchyyc]

Great news, though the article wording is a bit confusing. It talks about 8.7 million Ctrain boardings in March but mentions ‘transit’ had 25 million boardings for the quarter. I’m assuming the 25 million for the quarter is for ctrain?
Does anyone know the numbers for all transit (busses and ctrain)?

41.4 million boardings but 25.5 million estimated actual ridership (trips?) for bus and CTrain combined in Q1. I don't know how they figure out ridership from the boardings but it might be connected to ticketing.

Monthly Ridership By Year | Open Calgary

Transit ridership including system-level ridership, sub groups, and by fare product. Sub groups include adult, youth, seniors, low income, free fare zone, and internal recoveries. Fare products include single ride fares, monthly passes, daily passes, annual passes, semester passes (U-Pass)...

data.calgary.ca

 

[ByeByeBaby]

Great news, though the article wording is a bit confusing. It talks about 8.7 million Ctrain boardings in March but mentions ‘transit’ had 25 million boardings for the quarter. I’m assuming the 25 million for the quarter is for ctrain?
Does anyone know the numbers for all transit (busses and ctrain)?

It's a bit confusing because in Q1 there were:

• 24.7M LRT boardings
• 16.7M Bus boardings, for a combined total of
• 41.4M total boardings. But there was also:
• 25.5M total ridership.

The first two are long-standing metrics, because it's easy to count how many people board vehicles using electric eye type sensors; automatic people counters (APCs). But some real trips -- e.g. someone going from home to work downtown - involve multiple boardings; maybe a boarding of a feeder bus, then a second boarding onto an LRT train, even though the person is trying to make one trip. The ridership estimate is a measure of people actually making trips. I'm guessing it's enabled by the increased use of app-based fares, which would give CT more information about who gets on where.

The link whatchyyc posted above has more data; both more detail for the last few years and the long term trend.

Note that over this time frame, the city added probably 400,000 or so more people, so it would be shocking if - sans pandemic at least - we weren't setting records.

Here's the trend line for total boardings (rather than splitting it by vehicle type), but adjusted for changes in (CMA level) population and employment; note they start in lockstep but the 2015-16 bust means that ridership drops relative to (stable) population more than it does to (declining) employment.

 

[Surrealplaces]

41.4 million boardings but 25.5 million estimated actual ridership (trips?) for bus and CTrain combined in Q1. I don't know how they figure out ridership from the boardings but it might be connected to ticketing.

Monthly Ridership By Year | Open Calgary

Transit ridership including system-level ridership, sub groups, and by fare product. Sub groups include adult, youth, seniors, low income, free fare zone, and internal recoveries. Fare products include single ride fares, monthly passes, daily passes, annual passes, semester passes (U-Pass)...

data.calgary.ca

Agreed, it must be connected to ticketing somehow, but the only way I can think of to connect one rider to more than one boarding is via the app. If a person paid cash or bought from a ticket machine I don't know how it connect to a rider. Maybe the vast majority are now paying by app? I know when I've taken the bus, every single person I've ever seen has paid using the app and scan code.

 

[Beltline_B]

If less people are working downtown, is the system trending away from being mainly a downtown commuter rail system, or more of a general rail system.

100% it’s changing from a suburban commuter train system. I’ve been regular user of the trains for 30 years and I’ve seen it changing, specially over the last 10 years give or take.
Station numbers would probably back this up, but my observations are two things in particular.
- 30 years ago the trains were mostly empty during non-peak hours and were exceptionally busy during rush-hour. Whereas today they are busy all day long and even into the evenings.
- Far more people are getting off and on at closer in stations like Sunnyside, Bridgeland, Chinook or Lyons Park, etc. back in the early 90s, the blue line train would be packed full of people from the north east and would stop at Bridgland and maybe one person gets on the train. Today those stations are always busy. I’d like to see Chinnook’s numbers, I bet it rivals the busyness of some of the downtown stations.

 

[Roaring Flames]

Victoria Park/Stampede LRT Station to close over the May long weekend - LiveWire Calgary

The final push is on to complete work on the Victoria Park/Stampede LRT Station. Starting at 2 a.m. on Saturday, May 18 and running through Tuesday, May 21 at 4 a.m., that station will be closed as major construction work is completed ahead of the opening of the BMO Centre in June. Emma Stevens...

livewirecalgary.com

"Starting at 2 a.m. on Saturday, May 18 and running through Tuesday, May 21 at 4 a.m., that station will be closed as major construction work is completed ahead of the opening of the BMO Centre in June."

 

[Reecemartin]

100% it’s changing from a suburban commuter train system. I’ve been regular user of the trains for 30 years and I’ve seen it changing, specially over the last 10 years give or take.
Station numbers would probably back this up, but my observations are two things in particular.
- 30 years ago the trains were mostly empty during non-peak hours and were exceptionally busy during rush-hour. Whereas today they are busy all day long and even into the evenings.
- Far more people are getting off and on at closer in stations like Sunnyside, Bridgeland, Chinook or Lyons Park, etc. back in the early 90s, the blue line train would be packed full of people from the north east and would stop at Bridgland and maybe one person gets on the train. Today those stations are always busy. I’d like to see Chinnook’s numbers, I bet it rivals the busyness of some of the downtown stations.

This is very nice to hear. What would really kick things up a notch would be TOD on the Chinook centres parking lots - I remember seeing stuff about that years ago, but I assume it has gone nowhere.

A couple CF malls in Toronto have started to get the treatment (which I would say kicked off with malls like Brentwood and CF Richmond Centre in Metro Vancouver), which is really an urban win win win. CF gets lots of new shoppers, the residents get convenient transit access and lots of easy shopping option, and transit ridership goes up.

CF Markville (Markham Ontario - GO Train line on the north side)

CF Fairview Mall (Toronto Ontario - Subway Connection on the left of the image)

CF Richmond Centre (Richmond BC - SkyTrain on far side)

It's a good model which you can build a bit of a polycentric city around.

 

[John Wick]

Yes, development of the lots between Chinook station and Chinook mall would be great and could be a game changer for the whole area, for Calgary's attempts at TOD, etc.
It's baffling that nobody has developed any of those blocks for decades. Does anyone know who owns these blocks?

 

[Surrealplaces]

Yes, development of the lots between Chinook station and Chinook mall would be great and could be a game changer for the whole area, for Calgary's attempts at TOD, etc.
It's baffling that nobody has developed any of those blocks for decades. Does anyone know who owns these blocks?

It's been discussed before and if I recall, the consensus was the retail businesses on those lots were bringing in good revenue, which is a shame because as far as dense residential development goes, those lots would be a100 times better location than the area proposed for Midtown.

 

[Surrealplaces]

100% it’s changing from a suburban commuter train system. I’ve been regular user of the trains for 30 years and I’ve seen it changing, specially over the last 10 years give or take.
Station numbers would probably back this up, but my observations are two things in particular.
- 30 years ago the trains were mostly empty during non-peak hours and were exceptionally busy during rush-hour. Whereas today they are busy all day long and even into the evenings.
- Far more people are getting off and on at closer in stations like Sunnyside, Bridgeland, Chinook or Lyons Park, etc. back in the early 90s, the blue line train would be packed full of people from the north east and would stop at Bridgland and maybe one person gets on the train. Today those stations are always busy. I’d like to see Chinnook’s numbers, I bet it rivals the busyness of some of the downtown stations.

I use Lions Park and Brentwood Stations sometimes and they are busy all day long. Outside of peak hours they as busy as most downtown stations with exception of City Hall (Because of Bow Valley College) and Centre Street which seem endlessly busy.

Chinook I've used a couple of times in the past year and yeah, it has to be one the busiest stations in the system (when averaged out over all hours). I had heard Marlborough was the busiest, but that was some time ago. The last couple of times I took it was around 2:00pm on a week day and around 2:00pm on a Saturday. Both times the train was jam packed when it arrived, with 80% of the people leaving the train, only to be jam packed again with people getting on.

 

[Beltline_B]

Unfortunately this is the closest we have to stats for stations, unless someone has newer info somewhere. From 20 years ago, but at least it gives somewhat an idea of which stations are the busiest, but that will have changed for some stations over the past 20 years.​

NE LINE STATION TOTAL CUSTOMERS​ Whitehorn 17,400​ Rundle 11,600​ Marlborough 19,600​ Franklin 4,700​ Barlow 1,600​ Zoo 1,100​ Bridgeland 1,300​

NW LINE STATION TOTAL CUSTOMERS​ Dalhousie 15,100​ Brentwood 9,900​ University 8,200​ Banff Trail 2,900​ Lion's Park 3,900​ SAIT 7,500​ Sunnyside 5,700​

DOWNTOWN PLATFORM STATION TOTAL CUSTOMERS​ 3 Street E 3,400​ City Hall 9,700​ Olympic Plaza 11,800​ Centre Street 11,200​ 1 Street W 19,000​ 3 Street W 16,300​ 4 Street W 11,100​ 6 Street W 7,900​ 7 Street W 12,400​ 8 Street W 12,600​ 10 Street W 4,100​

SOUTH LINE STATION TOTAL CUSTOMERS​ Somerset/Bridlewood- 10,100​ Shawnessy- 3,900​ Fish Creek Lacombe 6,200​ Canyon Meadows 5,800​ Anderson 11,300​ Southland 10,500​ Heritage 13,600​ Chinook 12,400​ 39th Avenue 3,600​ Erlton 1,700​ Stampede 3,200​