Let's Talk about the Calgary Police Service

[TorqueDog]

Probably more that one person's anecdotal experience is not enough to condemn the state of the city as 'seedy'.

[GGG]

Originally Posted by CliffFletcher

You’re right. My friend must have been lying. I wonder what his game is?

Not lying,

It’s just not a relevant anecdote that his bike didn’t get stolen in Europe and got stolen here. I have a cousin whose scooter got stolen in London but she’s never had one stolen here. Neither story says anything about the relative crime rates of jurisdictions.

Also his perception of seediness likely goes back to the ridership problem. If you have 1/100 people in the station who are “Seedy” that’s going to create a different perception than 1/20. Dilution is a huge factor.

[GirlySports]

Originally Posted by Wormius

But what does that have to do with the free fare zone? People do gross stuff and litter departing from other stations.

Making all stations off limits which would mean no free fare zone.

[CliffFletcher]

Originally Posted by GGG

Not lying,

It’s just not a relevant anecdote that his bike didn’t get stolen in Europe and got stolen here. I have a cousin whose scooter got stolen in London but she’s never had one stolen here. Neither story says anything about the relative crime rates of jurisdictions.

Also his perception of seediness likely goes back to the ridership problem. If you have 1/100 people in the station who are “Seedy” that’s going to create a different perception than 1/20. Dilution is a huge factor.

Alternatively, the public perception of Calgary transit and other public spaces being less safe than in the past are accurate. Stats seem to bear bear out those perceptions.

[FormerPresJamesTaylor]

Originally Posted by GirlySports

Making all stations off limits which would mean no free fare zone.

The stations downtown are literally sidewalks

[GGG]

Originally Posted by CliffFletcher

Alternatively, the public perception of Calgary transit and other public spaces being less safe than in the past are accurate. Stats seem to bear bear out those perceptions.

Do you have links to those particular stats?

The key here in my opinion is just to get foot traffic back up and then you push the crime elsewhere or at least back to the same levels as previous.

[bizaro86]

Originally Posted by GGG

Do you have links to those particular stats?

The key here in my opinion is just to get foot traffic back up and then you push the crime elsewhere or at least back to the same levels as previous.

That's a chicken/egg issue though. A number of downtown office workers I'm acquainted with who used to take the train (pre-covid) have switched to driving on return to the office because of the safety issues. If the perception is transit is unsafe you'll never get enough people to use it to dilute the issues.

[Weitz]

I’ve never felt unsafe on the train but it sure is disgusting these days.

[CliffFletcher]

Originally Posted by GGG

Do you have links to those particular stats?

The key here in my opinion is just to get foot traffic back up and then you push the crime elsewhere or at least back to the same levels as previous.

Calgary Transit data shows increased disturbances.

Data provided to Postmedia shows the number of disturbance calls on the Calgary Transit system and the number of reports received through a dedicated text line have been high over the winter months. There were 3,332 disturbance cases around transit stations last July and 2,933 in August. Several months later in November, there were 3,771 cases and 3,551 in December. Last month, there were 3,247 cases.

There were 1,708 conversations last July through Calgary Transit’s text line that led to 187 new cases. In December, there were 2,814 text conversations that led to 419 new cases. In that timeframe, the number of reports that officers were already responding to jumped to 216 from 39.

Calgary Transit spokesman Stephen Tauro said those numbers are high. Disorder can include anything from a violent assault to a call regarding teenagers loitering at a bus stop.

“Most times it never really turns into anything serious” and it’s a dispersing of people, said Tauro. ”There’s no doubt that there’s an increase in disorder. So increase in gatherings, increase in drug use, those things for sure. But how do you quantify that in terms of serious incidents?”

https://calgaryherald.com/news/local...turbance-calls

[Captain Otto]

Originally Posted by Weitz

I’ve never felt unsafe on the train but it sure is disgusting these days.

I only feel disgusted when I ride it with someone in Oilers swag.

Sent from my Pixel 6 Pro using Tapatalk

[GGG]

Originally Posted by bizaro86

That's a chicken/egg issue though. A number of downtown office workers I'm acquainted with who used to take the train (pre-covid) have switched to driving on return to the office because of the safety issues. If the perception is transit is unsafe you'll never get enough people to use it to dilute the issues.

Yep, they definitely need to invest in security to move the problem elsewhere to get ridership back. Also parking prices need to come back up to get that Delta higher. Gas prices will help as well.

[bizaro86]

Originally Posted by GGG

Yep, they definitely need to invest in security to move the problem elsewhere to get ridership back. Also parking prices need to come back up to get that Delta higher. Gas prices will help as well.

I think flexible working is also a factor. The monthly pass is $112, and a return trip purchased individually is $7.20/day. So the monthly pass is only cheaper if you're using 16 days per month. For those working from home a couple days per week it doesn't make sense to buy the pass, so then it becomes a day-to-day decision on how to commute, and the convenience and increased pleasantness of a private vehicle has a chance to win every day.

[Weitz]

Originally Posted by GGG

Yep, they definitely need to invest in security to move the problem elsewhere to get ridership back. Also parking prices need to come back up to get that Delta higher. Gas prices will help as well.

Parking prices aren’t going to move when there is no waiting lists to get in.

[powderjunkie]

Originally Posted by Weitz

Parking prices aren’t going to move when there is no waiting lists to get in.

Which is why we shouldn't have gobs of surface parking ruining the public realm downtown and generally stifling development or more creative uses of land.

[bizaro86]

Originally Posted by powderjunkie

Which is why we shouldn't have gobs of surface parking ruining the public realm downtown and generally stifling development or more creative uses of land.

What specific development do you think is getting stifled in downtown Calgary? Tons of empty office space right now, and condo development is likely to remain in the beltline/east village...

[Lubicon]

Originally Posted by GirlySports

With the lack of manpower, I think it's time to get rid of the free fare zone and you need a ticket to enter the station like 90% of trains/subways around the world.

Originally Posted by GirlySports

You'd have to overhaul the ticketing system and go with loaded cards which subtract station to station. Most regular users have bus passes and otherwise you'd have a loaded card on your phone.

We've taken the subway in big cities. Without a pass, you cant even go underground. Why is our CTrain becoming a moving landfill?

IT's not just Calgary, Edmonton is experiencing similar issues (their system is similar to Calgary with station access). Would be interesting to see if cites like Vancouver have seen similar issues?

I think the lack of ridership in the past few years has been a major factor, it will be interesting to see if things change as ridership begins to increase, the trains are running much fuller (bad grammer!) lately.

[powderjunkie]

Originally Posted by bizaro86

What specific development do you think is getting stifled in downtown Calgary? Tons of empty office space right now, and condo development is likely to remain in the beltline/east village...

I said generally for a reason, but if you want a specific example I'll point to the surface lots between 9 ave and the CP tracks. While it may not be the preferred kind of development, we at least see some automotive services, office space, Staples, and a gentleman's establishment on the western side of this strip (where surface parking would be less viable based on proximity - ie. cheaper rates). These places employ people and create at least a little bit of human movement throughout the day.

Or look across the tracks at 10th which has a decent little retail stretch despite the same inherent drawbacks of backing onto heavy-rail. 10 ave from 4th-8th has been generally under-utilized (MEC+old Alberta Boot+a few small commercial buildings), but we've finally seen some towers go up recently. It turns out a bottle-depot is a more desirable neighbour than a waste-land of parking lots.

If you can turn a tidy profit with parking and billboards, it dramatically decreases any incentive to build something with more societal benefits.

The other point that deserves a thesis in itself is the fact that the city is a direct competitor in the parking market - all citizens/taxpayers are essentially shareholders of Calgary Parking Authority. We harm our own business interests with ever-increasing parking supply - and more importantly our control over a powerful lever (parking supply/rates) to influence behaviour.

To be fair, it would be hard to exert much change over those lots since they've been exactly the same since about 1970 - probably including the abysmal sidewalks (looks like railway ops/unpaved parking before that). But it's also a cautionary tale of why we should be very very careful about approving 'temporary' surface parking.

[timun]

powderjunkie, I think you're kinda talking at cross-purposes here. You say that the parking lots on 9th Ave are "stifling" development, in that "if you can turn a tidy profit with parking it dramatically decreases incentive to build something", and you note that the City controls the "powerful lever" of parking supply, but...

... how else do you disincentivize that land remaining parking other than reducing the profitability of parking by increasing the supply? If you decrease the supply of parking the price goes up and there's all the incentive in the world to just leave those parcels as parking lots forever and ever.

I'm supportive of your position that ideally that land is used for something other than some crappy parking lots, but I think you're mischaracterizing the situation as 'we' (the City) having "ruined the public realm" there. As you say, it has been nothing but parking lots for 50+ years, and before that was rail yards. It has literally never, ever been anything else since 1883.

What do you think we do to incentivize develop of lands like that, or disincentivize keeping them the way they are? I honestly don't really have an answer, short of expropriation and the City/CMLC developing the land. To bizaro86's point though, it's not as thought there isn't already a crapload of vacant space downtown, so I'm not sure what you would develop there instead...? At this point it doesn't seem economically viable.

[GGG]

The city should heavily tax parking lots taking the vast majority of the revenue either through best use property tax or just a 75% tax (or whatever number essentially makes holding parking lots not desirable).

Essentially you would like vacant land to be almost zero value and developed land to be valuable.

[DownInFlames]

In the same vein, single-family homes should be taxed higher than multi-story condos. I doubt that would ever happen though.