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| - I was pretty shocked by the public transit system in Calgary after arriving almost 4 years ago. Not having a car, I relied on the transit system to get anywhere outside of the core for over 2 years. And while the system has a few positives, it is appalling when compared to the systems you can find in smaller cities.
Let's talk about the good things first. I have always found the buses and trains to be clean on most of my visits. This in general is a tough thing to accomplish. And when a bus or train isn't clean, I don't tend to blame that on Calgary Transit, as they weren't responsible for making it dirty in the first place. But either way, they make a pretty good effort to keep everything looking nice. Additionally, the drivers tend to be pretty friendly and knowledgeable.
But, some of the drivers also tend to be dangerous. I've been on buses and near buses that were being driven by former race car drivers. Sure, I'm in a rush to get to work, or get home, but I also want to be alive when I get there. I have sat in buses while drivers have pushed the bus over 70 km/h in a 50 zone. Scary, and not right.
The schedule and destinations for Calgary Transit is where it really fails. I completely understand that they want to limit empty buses, but the problem there is that people won't learn to use it if it's not readily available. They will just drive instead. My fiance drives 10 minutes to a bus stop closer to the core and rides from there. Why? Because taking the bus stop closest to our house would take almost 1.5 hours to travel the same distance. In fact, getting downtown from our house, a trip in the car lasting no more than 20 minutes, will take just over 2 hours by Calgary Transit. You can cut that down by 10 minutes taking the train.
Taking public transportation should be convenient if it's going to be popular. If it takes me 20 minutes to drive downtown, it should take me no more than 35-40 minutes using public transportation. But that's not the city we live in. And until it is, they will need to build and pile on more ring roads.
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