Calgary council looking at closed transit security system

Calgary city council is looking to find better strategies to tackle safety issues at CTrain stations, including whether a closed transit system could be a solution.

Increased crime at Calgary LRT stations has prompted the city to try and find strategies to tackle safety issues — including a committee meeting Wednesday exploring implementing a closed system.

Recommendations from council are meant to be a first step to address the safety problem.

“We have a massive problem that needs to be addressed with creative thinking, that needs to address social issues, it needs to address infrastructure issues,” said Coun. Jennifer Wyness.

“Transit said let’s reduce our revenue by a hundred of thousands of dollars, and the next report is ‘I need millions of dollars more.'”

Watch: Calgarians feeling safer amid increased law enforcement on transit

Calgary Coun. Sonya Sharp says a closed system is a quick, short-term solution.

“In order to explore the other things we are hearing from our colleagues is long term, and to be honest, we don’t have time,” Sharp said.

“We don’t have five years to wait for those answers, we need to have some sort of solutions out there, today, tomorrow, in the next coming months.”

In addition to the recently increased number of peace officers, they’re also looking at fare gates.

However, Wyness challenged the use and the report.

“We’ve only studied gates from the perspective of fare evasion. No one has studied fare gates of whether or not it improves safety,” Wyness said.

“The studies that have been done with fare gate shows that there’s a high perception of safety on that system.”

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The preliminary study for a closed system anticipates a cost of $567 million, a budget Transit says it doesn’t have.

“This will pass, and we will move to council. There are things that need to be changed, we’ll do that then, but I will say that there are still some questions around the cost of a closed system,” Sharp said.

Meanwhile, Wyness says the root problem needs to be solved before more funds can be distributed.

“We have a massive problem that needs to be addressed with creative thinking, that needs to address social issues, it needs to address infrastructure issues, and until we start going, ‘what is the main problem we are trying to solve,’ all the money in the world would not fix this.”

The hope is to have a new plan ready by September, potentially in place for winter.