Calgary Transit is the public transit agency which is owned and operated by the city of Calgary, Alberta, Canada. In 2019, an estimated 106.5 million passengers boarded approximately 1,155 Calgary Transit vehicles. It operates light metro (LRT), urban tramway (in the downtown free-fare zone), bus rapid transit (BRT), para-transit, and regular bus services. In , the system had a ridership of , or about per weekday as of . History What would eventually become Calgary Transit began as the Calgary Street Railway on July 5, 1909, with twelve electric streetcars serving what was at the time a city of 30,000. This streetcar service expanded throughout the next thirty years (including the Depression) until 1946, when the company was renamed to Calgary Transit System as electric trolleybus vehicles began replacing the local streetcars. Eventually the electric trolley lines were phased out together — to be replaced by diesel buses. In 1972, CTS assumed its current name of Calgary Transit. Between the early 1970s and 2000, Calgary Transit had a three tier bus service. Standard bus routes were identified with white bus stop signs. Blue Arrow bus routes, marked by blue signs, provided limited stops, and all day service to suburban neighborhoods from the city centre. Express service was indicated with red signs and provided extremely limited bus service to the far reaches of the city during peak hours only. These tiers have been slowly phased out, since Calgary Transit began expanding CTrain lines and capacity and implementing BRT service. The last Blue Arrow route was cancelled in December, 2019. Express routes now appear side by side on the same signs as regular routes. MAX routes appear on a separate white and grey sign, while non-MAX BRT lines (routes 300, 301, 302, and 305) appear on red and white signs. In 2012 Calgary Transit planners presented mayor Naheed Nenshi's council with a tentative 30-year plan 'RouteAhead' to enhance the capacities of Calgary Transit. On December 13, 2012, Craig Hardy, became the one hundred millionth rider of the year. He received free transit for a year and was celebrated by mayor Nenshi. CTrain light rail system On May 25, 1981, Calgary Transit became one of the first transit systems in North America (behind Edmonton LRT which opened in 1978) to operate a light rail system — the CTrain, on which construction had begun in 1978. The original line (referred to internally as the