New Green Line LRT alignment expected from province in coming weeks

The province's new, above-ground plan for Calgary's Green Line LRT will be ready in a matter of weeks, Minister of Transportation and Economic Corridors Devin Dreeshen said Friday.

The Alberta government hired infrastructure consulting firm AECOM to create a new downtown alignment for the transit expansion project by the end of the year.

This came after a tumultuous saga that saw the province and the City of Calgary engaged in a war of words, incited by the Alberta government's decision to withdraw its portion of funding for the city's alignment in September.

Calgary city council voted to wind-down its plan for the Green Line weeks later, announcing the board that oversaw the project would be dissolved.

After some talks, the province and city announced a portion of the Green Line project would be moving forward while the province awaited AECOM's new alignment. Green Line CEO Darshpreet Bhatti left the project at the end of October.

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Dreeshen said he met with Calgary Mayor Jyoti Gondek, the Calgary Downtown Association and members of the construction industry about the Green Line on Friday. 

"Our hope is to go to Shepard and hopefully even farther south to the hospital, to Seton," Dreeshen told reporters at a passenger rail engagement forum in Calgary Friday.

"But we'll see when that new alignment comes out in the coming weeks."

He said he received direct feedback from Calgary businesses about the transit project at that meeting.

"It was good. It was a really positive meeting to know that the province is serious about building the Green Line," he said, adding that the new downtown alignment, which is expected to be at-grade or elevated, will bring change to the area.

"But they stress that even with elevated, it's still — you want to have a good street level experience in the downtown core."

Dreeshen once again emphasized the province's desire to see the Green Line forgo tunneling through Calgary's downtown in favour of an above-ground track that links to a transit hub at the city's new event centre, which is currently being built.

Premier Danielle Smith indicated that her vision for the transit hub would be a multi-tiered building that resembles Toronto's Union Station.

At the same passenger rail forum Friday, she said that she imagined the station would be at least partially underground and would be able to accommodate different types of trains and buses.

"One of the things that I remember from my visit [to Toronto] is that there's different floors for different types of rail. Because remember, light rail is different than heavy rail, and so those are going to be different tracks," Smith said.

"If you go to Metrolinx, you'll see that they actually have bays where the buses are able to go in as well.... You can enter into the station from multiple different points and be underground and covered, which is really important in our cold weather."

She added that she doesn't want to rule out other possibilities for what form the transit hub could take, but appeared optimistic that having one place where various train and bus lines come together would work.

Smith will meet with Gondek and city officials on Monday to chat more about the Green Line. Gondek said Friday she had no comment about the transit project.

The premier said she hopes she and Gondek will be able to see eye-to-eye on an above-ground alignment for Calgary's new train line to reduce the cost of the project.

"One of the things that AECOM had told us is that Austin [Texas] went through a very similar process of trying to tunnel and it became so expensive that they brought them in to reimagine how it could be done," Smith said. 

She added it will cost about $1 billion per kilometre of track to build underground, about $300 million per kilometre for an elevated line and about $100 million per kilometre to build at-grade.

"So it just stands to reason, if we can find a way to do above-ground elevated or above-ground at-grade, we'll be able to build longer for the same budget.... I hope we have a meeting of the minds on that."