Absolutely worthless. 90% of the operators don't care in the slightest about their job and will actively go out of their way to ensure they leave people out In the cold. There are times you almost have to step in front of a bus to ensure it stops for you in -30. Trains will make a point to pull forward, despite having another 2 mintues to wait for the light to change, to ensure people transferring from a red line to blue line train, or vice versa. There is no complaint line (they'll claim you can call in complaints, but what good is a voicemail full of complaints that is never checked)? They can't even run a consistent schedule, nor can they even show proper train times, despite third party apps such as transitapp are generally quite accurate - as much as one can reasonably expect from a dynamic system. The fact most people feel the need to catch an earlier train to ensure they can catch their bus to work highlights how much a pathetic failure the entirety of Calgary Transit is to the point where I see no reason to pay for a service I do not receive. The fact we are approaching 2 million people and don't have sufficient transit access across the city, nor do we even have rudimentary 24/7 service for the uncountable number of people working late night service jobs. You'll be left the -30 by the last bus, just like anyone who's taken transit at night for more than a few months, simply because it's a tiny inconvenience for the driver, in a heated bus to stop for someone running for the bus. They'll come so early you'll have to ensure you're waiting 15 mintues early, despite literally any other job expecting a consistent schedule. You can't rely on the train times shown by Calgary Transit, they seem to think 1 mintue is 180 seconds and 7 minutes is 85 seconds. I have to either leave work mintues early, or wait in the cold for another 40 mintues for the next one. Then you get the post pandemic home highlighting how worthless transit officers are. I have had my ticket checked once in the last 3 years, while walking through Rundle station near daily, through the heroin crack and whatever they're smoking, blood on the ground, bear spray being waved around etc, yet I see transit cops harassing people for being passed out almost every week. I don't think it's a hot take to say I am much more concerned by drugs, first or second hand, blood, particularly towards the end of a pandemic highlighting the biohazard biological matter on the ground and walls is, then someone who is literally incapable to bothering people because they're literally asleep. Just last night I got off the train, with a drunk man threatening young girls, to enter the station to see cops harrassing a sleeping man.
So, in conclusion, Calgary Transit does not care about maintaining a clear and consistent schedule, it's operators do not care if you freeze to death because they left early or if you're late for work, because there is no complaint system that works in the slightest, so it's incredibly difficult to be fired, as you should in literally every other job, for not doing your job. If i showed up 3 minutes late every day, I'd be fired within the week. They don't care about your safety or comfort (don't forget, they tore down Ctrain station buildings - Chinook most notably, so homeless people couldn't sleep in a warm place. While I understand the problems therein, the fact is that they made life harder and less comfortable for working people just trying to get to work, to ensure homeless people don't have a place to warm up. They don't seem to understand how many people work outside of standard working hours, resulting in frequent waits of 15 mintues in -30 because you can't trust transit times and you have no shelter, that had already existed before. For a service that was paid for by our tax dollars, which we still pay to access a service we do not receive properly. I don't think it's too much to ask for a government service used by hundreds of thousands of people daily to operate on a consistent schedule that can be relied on, a complaint system that actually works to ensure the drivers who don't run their schedules properly don't screw over the people relying on them - their job isn't like most of ours, where the people primary affected by your work are your coworkers - they have hundreds of thousands of people weekly relying on them to get to their own jobs.
They take roughly 40% of our total income through taxes. Is it too much to ask for a half decent transit system over a joke of one, that we also pay to use?
Would you tip your Uber driver and give them 5 stars if they pulled away as you opened your front door, 10 seconds after arriving, making you late for work?
Don't forget their new screens, showing more ads than they do bus times - The City is profiting off this, as if it were a business. But you have no choice. You can either use the only option for public transit, or you can sink a disgusting amount of money into a vehicle. read more