Commuters who take the daily Calgary Transit Bus 777 aren’t so lucky as the service is being canceled in upcoming service changes.

That’s riled a group of students and their families who attend Henry Wise Wood High School in southwest Calgary, and they started a petition and campaign to Save Bus 777.

The Calgary Transit 777 route does a loop in the Evergreen community, traveling east along Fish Creek Blvd SW, south on James McKevitt Road, and then west and north on Everridge Drive Southwest. It then picks up on Stoney Trail to Anderson Road eastbound and then up 14th Street Southwest to Heritage Drive before finally hitting Elbow Drive and Henry Wise Wood High School.

That route will no longer exist come fall 2025 due to service changes. According to Calgary Transit, the route will end Sept. 1, 2025.

Fifteen-year-old Arian Hussaini, a Grade 10 International Baccalaureate student at Henry Wise Wood, said the solution offered by Calgary Transit is to take Bus 766 (which does a similar loop in the Evergreen area). That route terminates at Dr. EP Scarlett High School in Canyon Meadows. It does make a stop at the Fish Creek – Lacombe LRT station and school riders must transfer from the bus, ride to Heritage and then either bus or walk to the high school.

“With the bus being cancelled, we’d be forced to use a one-hour alternative route that would increase our time to get to school by 45 minutes, which is already concerning enough for a student, since commute time does affect our mental health,” he told LWC.

Hussaini said he’s frustrated students weren’t consulted, or that other accommodations couldn’t have been made. Especially because the already crowded buses will be even more packed with students from two large Calgary high schools and potentially other commuters.

“Our second concern is that Calgary Transit. We’ve talked to them, and we’ve tried to have a one-on-one chat with them many times, but they wouldn’t give us… the clear reason on why they’re going to be cancelling the bus. We have talked indirectly, but they still won’t reveal the reason why they will be cancelling the bus, and that’s a giant frustration for us students,” he said.

Several factors in route changes: Calgary Transit

Calgary Transit, in an emailed statement, said while the route would be officially cancelled in Sept. 2025 service changes, the bus service will stop at the end of June when school is finished.

“When we make decisions to change, add, or remove any of our routes, we consider the route’s performance, ridership, and demand; whether there are other routes serving an area; and the overall resources we have available to ensure service throughout the city,” they wrote.

“We aim to balance the needs of all our customers with the service we are able to provide.”

Calgary Transit said they’re giving as much advanced notice as possible so commuters can plan alternatives to get to school in the fall.

700-series buses are run like regular public routes but have a termination point at a Calgary high school. Calgary Transit said they don’t run designated school routes for every community or every school.  

The high school catchment area for Evergreen is the Dr. EP Scarlett High School, Calgary Transit said. Express service from Evergreen will continue to be provided to that school. They said that when the 777 Wise Wood route was first established in 2018/19 it had enough riders to warrant a 60-foot articulated bus. Now, that number is 35 kids per trip and only requires a 40-foot bus, Calgary Transit said.

Hussaini acknowledged that it would be a difficult choice for Calgary Transit. There are fewer riders than in previous years and it may seem like a small number of students for the route.

“Relative to other bus routes, we have a lower bus rate. But that doesn’t affect the fact that there are still 30 to 40 students would be left out,” he said.

His transportation options are limited, too. With working parents and no licence, his only choice is this option, or to transfer to Dr. EP Scarlett. That high school does have an advanced placement program.

Good news, bad news: Coun. Penner

Ward 11 Coun. Kourtney Penner whose area covers Henry Wise Wood, but not the Evergreen community, said this current route serves a specialized program and ridership numbers have gone down.

With the City of Calgary growing at a rapid pace and limited resources needed around the city, difficult choices must be made.

“Right now, we are at a moment in transit where, between population growth and increased ridership, transit doesn’t have enough assets, like physical assets, ie: buses to serve all routes through regular ridership and specialized route ridership through transit,” she said.

She said it’s not even about a desire to fulfill Calgary Transit’s Primary Transit Network goals. It’s about putting the buses they have in the right places to ensure a quality rider experience across the board.

“When we have other busses that are well exceeding 50, 60, 70, 80, riders, we need more busses,” she said.  

“So, it’s not necessarily just about 10-minute service. It is really about just like other routes that are at capacity.”

Willem Klumpenhower with Calgary Transit Riders said any new barrier, even a small one, can deter riders from using the system. It’s especially significant if youth develop commuting habits that take them away from using public transit.

“If people try transit, and they maybe try it for a year, and then they realize it doesn’t work for them, they’re just going to assume it doesn’t work for them in any case,” he said.

“That’s bad for everybody. It’s bad for transit, it’s bad for road congestion, it’s bad for everything.”

Klumpenhower believes it’s important to build a culture of transit being useful to get you where you want to go.

“One of the things about these routes is it introduces the benefits of transit to kids really early, like in school,” he said.

Penner said they’re open to ongoing evaluation and discussion of routes, and looking at school projections for the upcoming year.

“Ultimately, at the end of the day, operationally, transit has to make the decision that work best for them, because they’re responsible to all riders and all Calgarians about spending and using resources wisely,” she said.

The Save 777 petition has 318 signatures as of Friday afternoon, with a goal of 500 signatures.