A section of the short term parking lot situated north of the Crowfoot LRT station remains cordoned off following Tuesday afternoon’s emergence of a sinkhole.
At approximately 4:30 p.m., taxi driver Syed Ali was among the first to notice something was amiss.
“I was parked over there and then I saw a big crack,” Ali told CTV on Wednesday after returning to the spot. “The parking lot was full. I called 311, just concerned, saying this is not a normal thing, a safety concern.”
By 5:30 p.m., the Calgary Fire Department had closed access to the lot where a sinkhole, roughly as long as three standard Calgary Transit buses and nearly as wide as a single bus, had appeared.
“It’s quite a fairly large area to cover and it all went at once,” said Steve Patrick of Calgary Transit Infrastructure. “We’ll see little pieces now and again but not usually something of that size.”
The majority of the vehicles in the lot, that has a maximum stay length of four hours, had departed prior to the arrival of the CFD, some at Ali’s insistence. “I talked to a couple people and said please move because my understanding is it does not feel safe.”
The owners of three cars discovered their vehicles were on the wrong side of the tape and late Wednesday evening, the vehicles were removed.
“They’ve been really, really good about it,” said Patrick. “They understand that public safety, as well as their personal safety, is very important.”
The sinkhole is located above a storm water catch basin and Calgary Transit is monitoring the structural integrity of the ground with robotic cameras.
As of Wednesday night, a 12 stall section of the parking lot remains closed to the public and Calgary Transit expects the area to remain off-limits for at least a few more days.
The sinkhole has not affected Calgary Transit service or pedestrian pathways in the area.
With files from CTV’s Alesia Fieldberg
