Have you had any trouble finding parking at a Calgary Transit LRT station lately?
Many Transit riders have reported experiencing overcrowding on buses and CTrains — or missing out on a parking spot at an LRT station these last few weeks.
You likely noticed a while ago there weren’t any four-car trains due to construction at the Haysboro Storage Facility, but Calgary Transit has been running more trains frequently.
It also freed up over 900 reserved parking spots in the summer of 2023, but spokesperson Amanda Bradley tells 660 NewsRadio there are no plans to free up any more anytime soon.
As for reserving a spot, it’s $87.50 per month, but for many, that — in addition to a Transit pass — is too tough to shoulder at more than $200 a month.
So how is Calgary Transit trying to handle the overcrowding?
Watch: Calgary students say overcrowding a major issue on city transit bus route
Bradley suggests finding a bus route that can take you to the station — and they’re making changes to make it easier.
“So typically, things kind of routes used to just be like a wheel spoke and they’d all go downtown. And so, if you weren’t at a train station, you’d have to make your way to a train station first, but we are trying to introduce more routes that go across town,” she said.
Bradley says the introduction of more routes, or extending routes in some cases, will help take people off busy routes.
She says those being introduced are going across the city instead of toward downtown.
“We’ve introduced routes, or extended routes, to actually take people off of other routes, because those other routes might be really busy,” Bradley explained.
“So for example, the Route 8 tends to be really busy, tends to be overcrowded, and so we’ve introduced some other routes that we’re hoping will take people from Route 8, just to reduce that crowding.”
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New Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) routes are one alternative. BRT routes are more direct and faster with fewer stops.
Bradley says there are plans in the works for more of those, with one at 114 Avenue North, which is at the public input stage right now.
If you need help, you can download the Calgary Transit app, which can plan a trip for you, call transit at 264-1000, or can use the “Plan a Trip” feature on the website.
Services changes for the fall season can be found online.