Expansion of Calgary Transit’s transfer window to 120 minutes would result in a loss of at least $2 million annually in revenue, according to a city analysis of the plan.

Despite this, city administration still recommends extending the transfer time from 90 to 120 minutes and including a request for an additional $2 million in operating funds in the 2027-2030 Calgary budget deliberations.

The item will come to the April 28 Regular Meeting of Calgary city council.

The city admin report showed that in assessing the impact of the extension, they gathered data from Calgary Transit’s My Fare mobile ticketing app.

“The data shows that fewer than two per cent of customers who use tickets purchase a second ticket within 120 minutes of a previous purchase,” their cover report read.

“In addition, just over one per cent of customers activate a second ticket between 120 and 150 minutes after the first activation.”

It represents roughly 500,000 trips that could be impacted as a result of the potential extension of the transfer window.  The data showed that 98 per cent of customers complete their transfers within 90 minutes.

Ward 3 Coun. Andrew Yule was among the eight councillors who initially put forward the Notice of Motion asking for Calgary Transit to review the current 90-minute transfer window.

He told LWC that the entire goal is to help make the Calgary Transit service better.

“I would say it would be a reasonable expense to get people using more often,” Yule said.

According to the city admin report, they examined 19 major transit agencies in Canada, and 11 provided transfers of 120 minutes. They pointed out that six of those agencies received Ontario government funding for the program.

“Extending the transfer window from 90 to 120 minutes is a practical improvement that enhances the customer experience and perception of fare value,” the report read.

“However, customer demand for this change is low, and the foregone fare revenue will increase in future years.”

More people using Calgary Transit?

Ward 7 Coun. Myke Atkinson said that he was happy to see that the decision presented to city council was from city data.

“It’s grounded in something; you’re never going to have the exact right result, but that seems to be grounded in the reality of riders in our transit network,” Atkinson told LWC.

Alex Williams with Calgary Transit Riders, a transit advocacy group in the city, wanted more data on transfer window use in Calgary. His group, along with former Ward 3 Coun. Jasmine Mian, had asked for this to be considered back in 2025.

“The tricky thing is that, because Calgary is such a large city and we don’t have as many work centers and as many shopping centers and amenities as spread out as we probably should for our size, a lot of people tend to spend a lot more time on transit,” he told LWC, back in February.

Atkinson agreed.

“There’s riders right now who maybe need to travel for more than 90 minutes in a single direction… so we would likely see more of those trips,” he said.

“We would also, I think, see more of these short trips around, out and back to the grocery store or going to your doctor’s office, these kinds of trips happening on transit, which overall is a great thing having people use transit for those local trips.”

Ward 9 Coun. Harrison Clark said, considering the exorbitant amount he was told it would cost to do this, $2 million is a bargain. He said that he’s proud to be able to improve the lives of the people taking the 500,000 trips that require an extended window.

He, too, said there’s more to measure if it is approved.

“It’ll be interesting to measure (if) we see an uptick in use,” he said.

“What is not often accounted in this risk of expense is the potential upside.”

Ward 10 Coun. Andre Chabot said that the consequence of the extended transfer window would obviously be a reduction in revenue.

He said it’s not necessary.

“We’re doing this to accommodate what just a select few people who happen to require more time for their transfer when there’s a solution down the road and in the very near future that would eliminate the need to even do this,” he said.

Chabot chastised the newer councillors for being reactive and not taking the time to look at the whole transit picture.

“They don’t even know what they don’t know yet,” he said.  

“There’s so much stuff that’s happening right now at the city that if they knew all of the background stuff of everything that was happening, they wouldn’t be quick to jump into solutions.

“If they just took the time to learn more about the entire organization before doing these knee-jerk reactions to complaints from citizens, they might find that there’s a bigger picture plan that’s already in the works.”