The Director of Calgary Transit told city councillors that there’s no additional growth planned for 2025 and that the proposed budget merely protects current service levels.

Sharon Fleming answered councillor questions about Calgary Transit on Wednesday, as transportation was a focus for the morning session of the mid-cycle budget adjustments.

Calgary city councillors approved a revised Route Ahead strategy in 2023 that put the focus on increasing the frequency of Calgary Transit service along a Primary Transit Network. It was to be boosted to 10-to-15-minute service for at least 15 hours a day, seven days a week.

Fleming said there has been increased frequency, noting that they’re seeing more connected trips, which demonstrates that more trips are available. Still, they won’t be able to expand beyond that with the current budget.

“We’re seeing more frequency, but we’re not going to be seeing the amount of increased frequency that we originally wanted to see by now,” Fleming told reporters.

“I mean, we’re really looking forward to expanding our coverage of the primary transit network. We’d like to see more investment in that area and hope that in the future years, we do see that investment.”

Right now, Fleming said that Calgary Transit is experiencing a $33 million shortfall, due mostly to an increased demand for the Low Income Transit Pass ($19 million) and a transit revenue shortfall ($13 million) driven by a change in the transit usage patterns.

Without planned funding for those items, she said service levels would have to be reduced or fares increased more than the planned boost to $3.80 for an adult fare.

“If we don’t get that funding, we’ll have to look at a variety of different options,” Fleming said.

“One might be service reductions. It could also include increases to fares, and finally, maybe changes to some of the services we’re used to having.”

Low-income transit pass

Earlier in the week, several members of the public stepped forward to speak about the importance of maintaining the city’s low-income transit pass.

Jakob Fushtey, chair of the advocacy group Calgary Transit Riders said that the first transit priority should be the low-income pass.

“While we agree, work must be done with other levels of government for sustainable funding, we cannot abandon our most vulnerable neighbours,” he said.

“In the meantime, this program isn’t just about transportation. It’s about economic opportunity. When someone can afford to take transit to a job interview, to work, or to school, we’re investing in our city’s future workforce and reducing long-term social support costs.”

Earlier this year, the province backed out of their portion of the income-support measure, before backlash saw them reverse course. Later, the City of Calgary said more people were signing up for the pass than ever before, creating a significant gap between the cost and amount of funding allocated for the program’s delivery.

The low-income transit pass has been an ongoing sore spot, with many on council believing it falls to the province as a function of income support. Ward 10 Andre Chabot has long said the province should be cover this cost, but also said the federal government should be tapped for cash.

“Ultimately, immigration and adding more people to our city is contributing to our deficiency in our in our transit funding, specifically on low income transit passes,” he said.

“Absolutely we should be going to the federal government to see if we can get some additional support for the additional costs that we’ve incurred.”

Mayor Jyoti Gondek said that it will require a deeper conversation with Calgary Transit to understand how they can deal with the perennial revenue shortfalls.

“We can see that more people are taking transit than they were a couple of years ago. So that’s really good, that ridership is up,” she said.

“But the other thing is that we need to continue investing and making sure that everyone has equal access to transit. So, these are some of the tough conversations we will need to have, and we also need partnerships with the federal and provincial governments.

“The deal was that municipalities would take care of core services, but that we would do it in partnership with the other two orders of government who are enjoying the amount of income tax that they’re collecting from our city.”

Budget deliberations will continue Thursday as council will get into amendments and debate and potentially a final approved 2025 budget. Friday has also been reserved for budget.