-Routes 402, 406, 8 all just started up this september.

- Crowfoot station will open sometime this spring. All bus routes like 421,58,158,143,137,37,43 will all be changing to make them more efficient. After Crowfoot opens, there will be construction starting on the Tuscany/Rockyridge station in conjunction with the Stoney Trail/Crowchild interchange.

-The Oliver Bowen garage for c-trains will open sometime before that. That will mean that CT can start up train service earlier and and end it later on the NE line.

- More and more 8000 (8066+) series buses are slowly making their way into service. There are only about 30 or so single-stroke engine - GMC (a.k.a. Fishbowl) buses (800,900,1000,1100) left in service. Most of those buses go back to the mid-1970s. Within 2 years they will all be gone and replaced by newer 8000 series which drive better and are more comfortable for customers.

- LRT will be coming to Saddleridge and Martindale by 2010. Bus routes in the NE will be re-done once those 2 stations open. An interchange is already under construction at Metis Trail and 64 Ave N.E. This extension along with other extensions to Tuscany and even the West LRT will mean more LRV cars being purchased and put into service. The money has already been arranged for that.

- More and more 6000 series articulated buses will be coming into service. On December 22, 2008 - the 305 Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) route will start up running most of the length of the route 1, but will not goto either of the 2 loops and using 14st instead of 10 st to speed things up W.B. with LIMITED stops. This will improve service on the route 1 overall.

-There is also the approved West LRT line, which will begin construction probably in the next year to 2 years and will take at least 5 years to construct.

- A BRT route will be starting up Sept 2009 to run similarly to how the SELRT willl eventually run usually articulated buses.

-Hours of service will increase for buses overall and with Crowfoot opening, there will be a slight increase in headway on the NW-S line.

Today, I punched my ticket in the Northwest at 4:06, got off the train at 8th St., walked ten blocks (round-trip), shopped briefly, caught a NW train to the end of the line, and was at home before an hour had gone by–on one ticket. That keeps my car at home, despite the chilly weather.

So, amid all the venom, CT is working out great for me. Some of you have shared experiences with awful and nasty drivers, but that hasn’t been my experience. Here’s an anonymous thank you to the drivers who have made it so easy and convenient for me to get to school!

a) the operator working right until the end of the night has the car stowed at the garage, where he or she finishes.
b) the operator doing good service by taking the car to the garage will help the finishing operator, saving this driver time, not having to take Calgary Transit.

Personally, I wouldn’t suggest stoping along a major street to do this. Perhaps this was the only time to do it (?). Often there is stress, and in these situations people will do what it takes to get a job done. That minor inconvienice to traffic and customers could have saved both drivers up to 45 minuites with no reprocussions, as long as the drivers were both in bus zones. (45 to 80 minuites vs 15 minuites).

I would be interested to know if people believe their OWN transit experience has improved, deteriorated, or stayed the same, relative to one year ago.

That key is issued to each and every shuttle and bus/c-train operator. It is a key that opens the lock to all lunch rooms and washrooms at various transit bus loops and stations. It also is the key used to open bus trap gates such as the one at Sarcee between Dalhousie and Ranchlands. Most buses (the all-day ones) are issued a remote control gate to open the gate. The problem is with so many rush hour extras and some buses that will only go through the gate once a day, it is not feasable to give every driver a remote gate opener. So as a backup, the gate can be operated with the washroom key in case the operator doesn’t have a gate opener. The catch is that the driver would have to park the bus a bit back of gate and get out and turn the key.

Why someone would not carry such an important key with them on the job is beyond me. For nothing else, if they have to goto the washroom and let’s say no one else is around, they won’t be able to access any transit washrooms.

My 137 stopped cold in the right lane of Dalhousie Drive, in the middle of the block, and our driver hopped out to to have a conversation with another driver who had raced across the busy street from his bus. The exchange went on for about a minute and a half, and seemed to have something to do with a key that my driver had been taking off her key ring at the previous light. Buses and cars pulled out and around our bus, creeping by and trying to figure out what was going on.

My only guess is that this had something to do with the gate at the bus underpass at Sarcee Trail, where I often see buses backed up while a driver goes up to the gate to activate it manually.

All drivers are given each and every route map booklet when they start and they have one big blue binder which all drivers are supposed to carry. That binder has all maps in it of all routes and every few months CT issues updates (ie pages to add or remove). It has detours for buses when cars are stuck inside a bus traps , what radio channel to use, restricted roads for buses, express bus stops, maps of all bus loops so that they know where to park inside that loop, and there is also section that gives info on frequencies of all routes during various times of the week and day.

The fact that too many drivers are lazy to carry this binder along with a Clearview or Sherlock map book is the reason why you saw what you saw. A good map book with the blue binder should be enough for any good bus driver to never get lost and always know where their route is supposed to go. That is assuming that all drivers that they hired recently can actually can speak and comphrend English verbally and orally, read maps or follow written directions. In the past one could not get hired as a CT driver if you didn’t have such skills. Nowadays they are just concerned about ramming people through the training program.

Why would there not be a spiral-bound booklet of route maps in the bus for the driver’s use?

Construction monkeys have been given free reign to close whatever lane whenever they want. Sometimes there are no viable detours. Sometimes certain routes have 3 dif detours (like route 7 this past week) and on top of that there is a detour for one of the detours. How does one maintain a schedule with so many detours? Most of these detours are onto narrow streets with parked cars on both sides and not really suitable for full sized buses.

Sometimes they run out of manpower, but that should not be an excuse anymore. There are 500 more bus drivers now then this time last year and trainees graduating every other Monday.

Buses breakdown. That is a fact. Usually getting a replacement bus to a place like Dalhousie or Brentwood takes them an hour or more. If they wanted to, they could improve this time by having buses with change-off drivers on standby at Brentwood and Dalhousie ready to change off any bus with mechanical problems that cause to be pulled out of service.

Take routes 421, 58/158, 143/43 for example. Construction at Crowfoot station, on Crowchild Tr (between 53 St and Nose Hill), in Crowfoot shopping centre, at Stoney Trail and Crowchild, and even inside Tuscany have Rockyridge have killed whatever ‘layover’ or ‘recovery time’ the driver had on that route. If you have 3 to 5 trips on the route and even after leaving on time after the 1st trip, you are guaranteed to run late with no recovery time until your last trip, would you really care for the schedule anymore? Management will just say ‘carry on and book your overtime accordingly Controller # xx’. The scheduling department has refused to add any more time because most of these routes will be ‘deleted’ or altered once the new Crowfoot station opens. I guess they expect drivers to just ‘hold it’ and not goto the washroom. The ATU 583 union has this to say on that topic:

from: http://www.atu583.com/content/blogsection/1/31/
—

“We have a number of people complaining about the schedules that we have to follow, that there is no time to take breaks or use the washroom. There is nothing more important than insuring that you are comfortable while you are operating your bus. If you need to use the washroom, stop your bus and use it. Management at Calgary Transit does not schedule recovery time in to the runs. I guess they think you will simply hold it until your shift is over. This is unacceptable, you are entitled to use whatever facilities you may require.

When you are running late, let Management know that you are late. Do not try to make up your time by taking short cuts or exceeding the speed limit. If you are speeding and get caught no one will say, “oh you were trying to keep your bus on time, we understand”. No, they will say, “you got a ticket, pay it”, and we will keep track of how many you get and then we will call you back in to talk to you about it. If you are a probationary employee you will be counseled about it and told that you need to improve your work performance or you will be deemed to be unsuccessful in your probationary period. What that means is you will be fired. So again, take the most responsible approach you can. Do not speed, do not take short cuts. If you get late, inform Radio Control, make it Management’s problem not yours. You will not get in trouble if you are late due to not enough time on the run. In fact, passengers will start to complain. Then and only then will Calgary Transit address the scheduling concerns.”

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At the end of the day, Calgary Transit knows what is wrong with the system and the different routes but chooses not to fix anything.

If you could count on CT to explain to you what is going on, before or after the fact, you might be able to accept some of its shortcomings. But Calgary Transit is an information-poor environment, from start to finish. Until they change that they will have few friends in the community.

Okay so one bus is a little late fine, in my case I have an alternate route. When one bus doesn’t show up — okay fine — that’s not common so I’ll take the alternate route. When 2 buses don’t show up you start to wonder if you missed the memo. Check the website from my iPhone and no notice of any problems. When over the course of 45 minutes 3 buses don’t show you start to think what the f*@k is wrong with this picture. Yes, Calgary Transit sucks.

Calgary isn’t Seattle (where a Bill Gates can contribute $25 million to the expansion of the Seattle Art Musuem,) but I now have a better handle on what it’s like to be in a city that is obliged to take transit very seriously.

screwcalgarytransit.com

At Marlborough, I believe the smell you are referring to is the smell of urine. Its at other stations like City Hall and many bus stops in the downtown core as well.

The 21 and 55 are the same routes but run in opposite ways. The reasoning for it is if you live along Castlridge Dr., it is much faster for you to catch the 55 then 21. Similarly, its faster to catch the 21 if you live along Falconridge Dr. It is the same for anyone that lives in the middle of the routes. They were not thinking of the person for whom either one of those buses will be the same amount of time.

You see this problem at McKnight a lot where buses are scheduled to leave the time that the trains still crossing over and not even into the platform. Partially its due to the poor design of the station, partially due to the tight schedule of the train. Drivers used to have 10 minutes to kill each trip at Whitehorn. Now there are ‘3 minute turn-arounds’. Similarly, buses have tight schedules too. If they wait for all the people that are going to come off of a particular train, they will be down 5 or more minutes not be able to make it up. It is the same thing every trip. Within a couple trips of leaving the station late, the bus can be like 10 minutes late. Not a great thing for anyone that is waiting at a bus stop elsewhere route.

Wheelchair has the #1 priority on buses. The driver didn’t do his job. If anyone is in the front seats, they are supposed to move and make way for a wheelchair. The only time a wheelchair is supposed to be left behind is if the bus does not have a ramp and does not kneel or if there are already 2 wheelchairs abroad it. Strollers, seniors, anyone else out there has to give priority to wheelchairs on buses.

What time was it that you’d see 2 73’s?. The rush hour extra buses all go out of service at either Chinook, Whitehorn, or Brentwood. The extra buses are the reason why there is 15 min service on that route during AM and PM rush hours (6:00 AM to 9:00 AM and 3:00 PM to 6:00 PM). When its either 9:01 AM or 6:01 PM, there will be extra buses going out of service and heading back to the garage. The service then becomes 30 minute service again.

Trains going to the NW have to do partially with giving U of C and SAIT students a direct train in both rush hours, and also partially to do with parking of trains. 3 trains get parked at Dalhousie at the end of each rush hour from the NE line. They are used again for PM rush hour or the next day. All trains come from either the South or NW as there are no trains stored in the NE at this time.