Calgary Transit outlines plans to bolster security as ridership increases

Calgary Transit will brief city council on Tuesday, laying out plans to restore rider confidence by boosting security measures.

The planing to address safety concernis includes bringing in 28 additional peace officers and hiring 31 transit security guards to patrol and provide customer assistance.

Doing so will cost an additional $5.9M annually and $370,000 in one-time expenditures.

That money will come from the unutilized growth funding, which was initially approved by council for 2020-2022 service investments.

Calgary Transit also plans to increase back-of-house resources to help support the increase of infield safety resources. Doing so includes bringing in additional Inspectors, sergeants and dispatch agents.

Rider safety on public transit has been a critical concern for many Calgarians over the past few months.

In early July, the Calgary Police Service partnered with Calgary Transit to crackdown on crime along transit lines.

Over four days, police executed 327 warrants, laid a total of 86 criminal charges, seized about 30-thousands dollars worth of hard drugs and prevented four overdoses.

The focus on rider safety comes as ridership is still catching up to pre-pandemic levels. Calgary Transit says ridership is currently sitting at about 70 per cent of normal, pre-pandemic traffic levels and expects the number of customers to continue trending upwards in the months ahead.

The plan is to have all new transit security officers on board over the next three to four months, and it will take about six months to hire and train the new peace officers.