'Why did this happen to me?' Calgarians caught up in transit violence

A shooting on a moving bus, stabbings on CTrain platforms and a flare gun attack engulfing a man in flames inside a station are just some of the violent attacks on Calgary Transit making people feel unsafe.

Whether you take transit or not, people are paying attention because the trouble goes beyond the tracks.

Jose Alvarez is home after weeks in the hospital following an attack on a CTrain platform.

"His daily life changed a lot, because he was very independent before now," said his daughter Tarin.

He was waiting for the train at Marlborough station just before 10 a.m. on March 30, on his way to a doctor's appointment.

As the 73 year-old stood on the platform, a woman smashed a glass bottle across his face and a man struck him in the back.

No bystanders intervened.

Police called it a brutal and unpredictable attack.

"Random violence," said Tarin. "She just wanted to hit someone, looks like, and it happened to be him."

The jagged glass cut through Alvarez's saliva gland and into his mouth.

After a series of operations, he was sent home with gauze covering a hole in his cheek.

"He gets anxious about it and starts crying, telling me, 'Why did this happen to me?'"

Alvarez is not the only one.

In October 2020, an 81-year-old man was pushed to his death off the Sunnyside CTrain platform by a man who thought his portable speaker had been stolen.

In April 2023, a man was stabbed on a city bus after a dispute over a teen playing music too loudly.

In November 2022, an afternoon brawl at the Marlborough CTrain station saw attacks with pipes and one man set on fire with a flare gun.

"We've seen surges, I think, or increases in violence in public spaces, including transit. But this is sort of different, it's more sustained," said Calgary Police Chief Mark Neufeld.

Calgary Police Service experienced a considerable increase in calls for service at LRT stations since the end of 2021.

Between Jan. 1 and May 31, calls for service increased from about 3,800 in 2022 to more than 5,700 in 2023.

While calls from the public increased slightly, 70 per cent of the calls are from officers:

2023 (Jan. 1 to May 31)

• Total Calls for Service: 5,767;
• Officer Generated Calls for Service: 4,100;
• Public Generated Calls for Service: 1,657; and
• Criminal charges laid in LRT incidents 1,804.

2022 (Jan. 1 to May 31)

• Total Calls for Service: 3,801;
• Officer Generated Calls for Service: 1,990;
• Public Generated Calls for Service: 1,808; and
• Criminal charges laid in LRT incidents 1,675.

"This is a huge problem. Transit infrastructure is very important infrastructure in big cities and so there isn't a world where we can allow this to proliferate like this," said Neufeld.

For more on this story, watch Derailed: Calgary's Transit Safety Crisis.