Written by Forrest Bulger
A couple weeks ago, my dad and I had the chance to drive down to Calgary to see one of our favorite musicians. After surviving the QE2 and the Deerfoot, we got to our hotel which was pleasantly right across the street from the Banff Trail train station. The station itself is on the red line, northwest of downtown, and just one stop south of the University of Calgary. This was my first time taking the CTrain so I was excited to see how it would stack up to my beloved Edmonton LRT. I didn’t get to check out a lot of the network, as I only rode from Banff Trail to 3rd Street and back. Regardless, it was still interesting and I definitely had some takeaways from my experience.
I’ll start with the positives. I enjoyed the hop-on hop-off feel of the CTrain. The stations generally have open designs (perhaps not great in the winter), and they reminded me more of the Valley Line stations than those of the Capital or Metro lines. The free-fare zone, which covers a stretch of downtown, is an amazing feature of this network and adds to the hop-on, hop-off effect, especially due to the fact that it’s entirely at-grade. I saw a decent amount of people getting on for just one or two stops while in that area, which is great to see. It genuinely surprised me that a prairie city would have free rail like this. Unfortunately, the future of the free-fare zone is a bit tumultuous, as the city council has been debating whether or not it's worth keeping. A council committee even voted to get rid of it at one point, but the full council ended up voting to defer the decision to early 2027, so I guess we’ll see. As for the trains themselves, I found them to be more or less standard and nice. I was lucky enough to get both an older and newer model (Siemens SD-160 and S200, respectively, for my train nerds out there). They both had plastic seats, which is a must for me (looking at you Valley Line).
Although my experience was generally positive, there were a couple things I was not so pleased with. As you can tell by the title, I was disappointed by the lack of direct tap-to-pay on the CTrain. The ticket machines at each station do accept tap, but I think every transit system should give the option to directly tap a debit/credit card or at least a transit card like we have in Edmonton with the Arc card. Maybe I’m too spoiled with how we have it here, but buying a paper ticket in 2026 feels slow and dated. Calgary’s My Fare app is not great either. I attempted to set it up before arriving, but it was clunky and wouldn’t work, so I gave up and bought my tickets in person. Not only is this fare payment system slow and inefficient, but it’s also a genuine barrier to transit use. For example, Calgarians who use transit semi-regularly have to calculate whether or not the $126 monthly pass is worth it compared to paying for each trip individually. In Edmonton we don’t have this issue, as people simply tap on and off without having to worry about any passes. The Calgary Transit monthly pass is cheaper than paying individually when riding at least 32 times a month, but Edmonton is actually still better here as we have a fare cap of $102 per month (rides are free for the rest of the month after this amount is spent). In terms of base fare price Calgary also falls short to its northern neighbour, with it being $4 to Edmonton’s $3 (or $3.75 cash). While there is the free-fare zone supplementing this higher cost, only 10.7% of CTrain boardings remain inside the zone (City of Calgary, 2026), meaning it likely doesn’t lower transit costs for many people.
Overall, I had a great first time riding the Calgary CTrain, and I hope to have time to explore the rest of the network next time I’m there. The CTrain’s open-designed, at-grade stations and downtown free fare zone could be a great inspiration for Edmonton’s LRT going forward, specifically Valley Line West. Although I do have my qualms with the fare paying system and pricing, It was interesting to see how noticeable the lack of a transit card/tap payment was after becoming so accustomed to the Arc card system. In my opinion Calgarians should be proud of their CTrain, and with a third line, the Green Line, on the way (we see you copying our third-line colour scheme, Calgary), it’s showing no sign of slowing down.
Written by Forrest Bulger
Sources:
Free fare zone data: Calgary Transit Free Fare Zone review (May 2026)
CTrain map: https://www.calgarytransit.com/rider-information/lrt-and-bus-station-maps.html
Cover photo taken by me