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.