Copyint this quote from Wormius over from the YYC Politics thread as my replay is more suited to transit than politics:
"I don’t even think that is what is causing ridership lows. We have a system that is downtown weekday commuter focused. Ridership is low outside those periods because the service is reduced. 5 or so minutes between trains in the morning or afternoon rush is great. Outside those hours it’s less compelling especially when you have free parking after 6, why would you take transit at $7.20 per person for a roundtrip.
*if* somehow the result of the security presence is more ridership and it leads to better service then I’m all for that."
Great discussion on the radio the other day regarding transit in Calgary and it brought up Wormius' point. It was pointed out that Calgary has always focused transit on getting commuters into and out of the DT core as our city has one of the highest concentrations of DT workers of any major city. So that makes sense. But things have changed and if we want transit to grow we need to offer more of it to places people want to go at more times of the day. So basically modify the model so it's more like Toronto or Vancouver for example.
Edmonton overhauled their system a couple of years ago and ridership is now at 108% of pre-pandemic levels. Calgary is at 80%.
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