Calgary council voted Tuesday to get city hall moving on expanding the current 90-minute transit transfer window to two hours.

Council voted 11-4 in favour of the motion. Its supporters said the current window may not be sufficient for some riders due to increasingly long distances as the city grows, or in situations where riders face service delays, traffic congestion, poor weather, or accessibility and mobility challenges.

Ward 12 Coun. Mike Jamieson introduced the motion, saying the idea came from a constituent who often needed more than 90 minutes to commute to work, particularly when buses run behind schedule in the winter.

“In those cases, she risks being forced to pay a second fare, simply because of timing. That struck me as a fairness issue,” Jamieson said.

“We are a growing city. Commutes are longer. Routes involve more transfers. A 120-minute window better reflects the reality of how people move across the city today.”

Several councillors expressed support because the 90-minute window can be especially challenging in parts of Calgary that are further from the city’s core.

The change would put Calgary’s transit system in line with other cities like Toronto and Montreal, which each offer two-hour transfer windows.

Mayor Jeromy Farkas said he strongly supports the transfer expansion in hopes it will create a more equitable system. But he added there’s more work to be done to understand whether some transit rides that last two hours in the first place can be reduced.

“It’s not just extending the transfer window. We can’t do that and just call it a day,” Farkas said. 

“We need to be looking at some of the efficiency questions around routing, we need to continue to invest in the service.”

City administration will now prepare an amended fare policy for council by April 28, along with an assessment of the impact it will have on city finances and ridership, as well as any necessary bylaw amendments as a result.

Call to delay for more data fails

Ward 10 Coun. Andre Chabot brought a vote forward Tuesday to send the idea back to the city’s infrastructure and planning committee to get a more complete picture of the financial implications of making the proposed change before council votes on it.

He argued it was unusual for a regular council meeting to debate the idea without a more complete idea from administration about its financial implications and ridership effect.

Chabot implored other councillors to delay the motion, arguing that a series of seemingly small changes through the year could lead to a larger tax increase during budget talks in November.

“The idea of doing incremental budgeting is a scary one, because every member of council, whenever they hear a concern from residents, will likely want to bring something forward to council and say, ‘Oh, it’s nothing,’” Chabot said. 

“And come budget time in November when we start deliberating, administration is going to say, ‘Okay here you go, here’s what you asked for, it’s now a 12 per cent tax increase.’”

The vote to send the idea to committee first failed 8-7.

Councillors debate best way to improve ridership

Ward 8 Coun. Nathaniel Schmidt said he supports the transfer expansion in principle, but voted against it on Tuesday. He argued council was making a decision blindly before it had more data about the best way to best improve transit equity and ridership.

“We can’t bring these things to council without properly scoping and understanding the implications of what we’re doing, because we might be spending money on something that doesn’t provide a long-term benefit,” Schmidt said.

While Chabot argued council needed to know more about the potential financial hit of expanding the transfer window, Ward 7 Coun. Myke Atkinson said the system may currently lose riders who live centrally in Calgary, because they know they’ll need to pay for transit twice when making a round trip of more than 90 minutes.

He said more people living in his ward might choose to take transit if they know they can use the same ticket to get to their destination and return home in less than two hours.

“I don’t know that necessarily the doom and gloom of what it is going to have in terms of financial impacts won’t necessarily be offset by new riders and trips that are not currently taking place,” Atkinson said.