Calgary city council is preparing for a key decision on the future of the first phase of the Green Line LRT to the southeast, but Alberta Premier Danielle Smith shared her thoughts on the second stage of the project — connecting the line with northern neighbourhoods.
The provincial government pulled its funding from the truncated first phase of the project last week after cost escalations, and announced its intention to find a new alignment for the southeast leg of the Green Line that extends to Seton and doesn’t tunnel under the downtown core.
“The second phase of that will see what will be the alignment to be able to serve north Calgary as well,” Smith said during a press conference Wednesday.
“It may be that using the Deerfoot Valley on the route to the airport and then further up to Airdrie, which is one of the things we want to do using the existing CP rail line, maybe that’s the best way to serve north Calgary.”
City council struck down the idea of an LRT alignment in Deerfoot Valley and Nose Creek 10 years ago, after a 2012 study found several disadvantages.
The study found the alignment is “capable” of providing a rapid transit connection between the downtown and north Calgary communities, and the city owns much of the right of way in the area.
However, the study found several disadvantages including that the area is “relatively isolated” with accessibility challenges for potential stations, and a lack of existing transit supportive infrastructure.
Although the study noted reduced costs if the line connected with the existing Blue Line tracks, it found that could create overcapacity issues on 7 Avenue downtown, a “service imbalance” due to the rotation of trains, and higher operating costs.
When asked about the premier’s comments, Calgary Mayor Jyoti Gondek equated the Green Line to the movie “Groundhog Day, where you wake up and the same thing happens over and over again.”
“The Nose Creek alignment was studied in great detail and it was determined it was not the appropriate alignment because no one lives there,” Gondek told reporters. “It’s an interesting concept to talk about commuter rail and the vision of going from the airport, up to Airdrie, into downtown along that Nose Creek corridor, but it’s certainly not a light rail transit project.”
The previous council instead opted to align the Green Line up Centre Street as part of the second stage of the project.
However, the second phase of the project is currently unfunded, and advocates are worried the Green Line won’t reach the north within their lifetimes.
“It’s been 10 years of advocacy going up in flames for the north,” said Andrew Yule, the north director for LRT on the Green. “We need to go through the core to get to the north and anything short of Eau Claire is not going to work for us up here.”
Currently, north Calgary transit users are served by a rapid bus route which travels from the downtown core and up Centre Street to a terminal in North Pointe.
“We are just over capacity on the Centre Street transit corridor and so we need the LRT to come up Centre Street,” Yule said.
Using $50 million in funding from the Green Line project, the city is currently upgrading stops along the rapid bus line.
However, city officials estimate another $500 million will be required for utility relocation work as well as the creation of bus-only lanes along the route.
The area representative, Ward 3 Coun. Jasmine Mian, said the transit improvements are important, but she isn’t prepared to “give up” on rail for north central communities.
“Buses are great, but you switch from buses to LRT when you have ridership as high as we have in the north,” Mian said. “I don’t think it’s something we should be giving up on just because of the comments coming from the premier.”
On Tuesday, city council will decide whether to wind down the first phase of the Green Line and transfer project management to the provincial government.