New transit snow route gets cold response in northwest Calgary community

Changes to a snow detour in the northwest Calgary community of Panorama Hills are getting a frosty response from residents in the area.

The No. 8 route, which runs from North Pointe Terminal to Foothills Medical Centre, had its snow detour route changed earlier this year, rerouting the bus around the community when the snow routes are in effect.

Mohamed Aly, who lives along the bus route in Panorama Hills, said the new alignment is much further away than the previous snow route in the community.

“They took the bus out of the community altogether on snow days,” Aly told Global News. “Our kids in university and high school will be walking 30 minutes on snow days to get the bus.”

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According to Calgary Transit, the detours are implemented when “the accumulation of snow on the roadway will pose a challenge for our buses.”

Forty-five bus routes in the Calgary Transit network have snow detours.

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“These planned detours are based on historic stuck bus data and ensure the least amount of customers are impacted,” a transit spokesperson said in a statement.

In an email sent to Aly, transit officials noted 29 buses got stuck in Panorama Hills over the past two winters, while another 21 buses were stuck in Hanson Ranch, which also falls along the No. 8 route.

“If a decision was made not to detour Route 8 during snow events, or travel further into the community, there would not be service in your community,” transit officials said in an email. “Operators would get stuck in the snow or slide on icy conditions and service would stop.”

However, Aly contends there are other routes Calgary Transit could take in Panorama Hills that don’t require buses to avoid the neighbourhood entirely.

“They are very fixated on the one metric of the number of buses getting stuck,” Aly said. “It seems like the thousands of people who use this bus for their daily commute are an afterthought.”

Aly raised the concerns with his area councillor, Ward 3 Coun. Jasmine Mian, who said she has been looking into the issue with city administration.

Mian told Global News the snow detours also need to consider “system performance.”

“If we get buses stuck in one part of the neighbourhood, then they don’t connect to another part and the whole system starts to have failures, we have to see how it plays out,” Mian said. “I know some residents would prefer not to see snow routes but I also hear a lot from residents when we have buses stuck back to back to back on hills.”

Aly said he hopes Calgary Transit reconsiders the detoured route so bus access can be maintained in the neighbourhood.

“It’s very important, it connects a lot of northwest communities to the university and at least three high schools on this route,” he said. “A lot of kids in our community rely on this bus as part of their daily commute.”

Calgary Transit said riders will get advance notice when a snow detour is implemented to “help plan their trip,” and is advising riders to stay up to date with service changes on its website.