Residents of new Calgary communities struggling without easy transit access

The City of Calgary is rapidly growing with new communities popping up everywhere, like Ambleton in the northwest. But for residents in the new community, the closest bus stop is a major road and a community over, in Evanston.

“We need to walk for at least 15 to 20 minutes to take the bus,” one resident told CityNews.

Other people from Ambleton trying to catch the bus say the long walk to a stop isn’t uncommon.

One man says he walks eight to 10 blocks to the nearest bus stop.

But, the city says it has a plan to integrate transit into new communities in Calgary. 

“Everything has to be planned in advance and it does make it complicated when Calgary is growing fast, but we’re always planning for the growth of the city,” said Jonathan Lea, service planning team lead with Calgary Transit.

Before integrating full transit, the city has to make sure a variety of things are in place, including a road network.

“Our buses need to be able to efficiently drive around a community,” Lea explained. “The road network doesn’t need to be complete, but the route needs to be relatively complete.”

For the time being, Calgary Transit says there are other, more efficient ways to use city transportation.

“We have a new type of service called on demand. So it’s a dynamic and flexible service,” Lea said. “So, rather than set schedules and set routes customers can either call us or through an app book a trip, and then a vehicle is dispatched to them, picks them up, picks other customers up and drops them to a transit hub. 

The service is currently available in the northwest communities of Carrington and Livingston.