Green Line (Calgary)

Though the alignment and general design of future expansions have been approved by city council, the timeline and funding of future extensions has not yet been determined. Construction stage one builds the most complex and the most expensive segment of the line first - allowing incremental, relatively simple expansion of the line as funding becomes available. The full build-out of the line is estimated to require an additional CA$2–3 billion. In 2019, several potential stage two build-outs were evaluated for variable amounts of potential future funding. These were:[22]

• CA$250–400 million:
  • South to McKenzie Towne
• CA$400–700 million:
  • North to 40 Avenue N or
  • South to Auburn Bay/Mahogany
• CA$700 million – $1 billion:
  • North to 64 Avenue N or
  • South to Seton or
  • North to 40 Avenue N and south to Auburn Bay/Mahogany

When completed, stage one of the Green Line will feature:

• 40–45 low floor light rail trains, each 40 metres long
• 20 kilometres of track
• 15 stations (9 at-grade, 4 underground, 2 elevated)
• 3 park and ride facilities with a total of 1,800 – 1,900 stalls (Lynnwood/Millican, Douglas Glen, and Shepard)
• 1 kilometre of elevated track between Ramsay/Inglewood to 26 Avenue SE stations
• 1 light rail vehicle (LRV) maintenance and storage facility, north of Shepard Station

When the full line is complete, it will also feature 12 bridges, 10 park and ride facilities (with 5,000 to 6,000 parking stalls), 10 tunnels (including the 4 km (2.5 mi)-long centre city tunnel from 2 St SW in Eau Claire to Olympic Way SE in Victoria Park, a bridge connecting Eau Claire to Centre Street North, and 2 LRV maintenance and storage facilities (at Shepard and 96 Avenue N).[23][12]

Trams ran on the surface of Centre Street for 41 years, from 1909 to 1950.[28] The Green Line will restore the historic alignment of Calgary’s trams, running trains on the surface of Centre Street as well.

The Green Line was first envisioned in 1983, two years after Calgary’s first LRT line opened.[29] As early as 1986, the communities of McKenzie Towne, New Brighton and Copperfield had set aside land along 52 Street SE for the future line. In 1987, the city then conducted the Southeast Mass Transit Corridor Study and concluded that southeast Calgary would one day require a dedicated light rail line.[30]

In 2010, the city anticipated that the Green Line would be required before Calgary’s population reached 1.25 million, though the city surpassed that population just 5 years later.[31] Chronic congestion on Deerfoot Trail is partly attributed to the failure to construct the Green Line before the 1.25 million population target.[32] In 2011, the city began considering three possible alignments for the north-central leg of the Green Line: along Nose Creek adjacent to Deerfoot Trail, on Edmonton Trail, or on Centre Street. After engagement with the public, the city selected Centre Street as the preferred alignment.[33] In 2012, the Green Line was proposed as two separate new lines — one from downtown to north central and one from downtown to the southeast.[34] The division of the line was rejected by council.[35] Through 2016, $101 million had been spent on right-of-way acquisition and preliminary studies.[36] In May 2017, the city revealed the line's suggested alignment and announced it would be built in stages due to the unexpectedly high costs of certain design choices.[37] Although the original estimate for the entire 28-station Green Line was $4.5 billion,[38] the cost of stage one alone, including the $1.95 billion cost of the centre city tunnel,[39] is estimated at $4.65 billion.[37]

In early 2019, Alberta’s NDP provincial government committed $1.5 billion in funding paid for by the provincial carbon tax.[40] In late 2019, the newly elected United Conservative provincial government cut the Green Line’s budget by 86%[41] and passed a bill allowing their government to terminate remaining funding “without cause” and with only 90 days notice.[42] On May 12, 2020, the City of Calgary announced changes to the alignment of the line to keep the project within budget. The changes included the addition of 9 Avenue N Station in Crescent Heights, increasing the number of stations in stage one of construction to 15, and bringing the total number of stations to 29. The revised alignment replaced the deep-earth tunnel under the Bow River with an elevated guideway over the east end of Prince's Island Park, and has brought the line to the surface between 9 Avenue N and 16 Avenue N, running along the two centre lanes of Centre Street. The Green Line north of 16 Avenue N has been planned as a surface running train since the city’s 2017 recommendations. 2 Avenue SW Station and 4 Street SE Station were moved from being at-grade to underground and the Beltline section of the line was moved one block north to run under 11 Avenue South, rather than under 12 Avenue South as initially recommended. The plan for a tunnel under the intersection of Barlow Trail and 114 Avenue SE was scrapped in favour of an elevated guideway over the intersection, and the park and ride at Shepard station was revised from a parkade to a surface parking lot.[43][44]

As the megaproject's approval was looming in early 2020, a group of wealthy oil industry and business executives, all with ties to the United Conservative Party,[45] organized an invite only event at the Calgary Petroleum Club with city officials.[46] Despite speculation that the group's objective was to cancel the project,[47][48] some attendees insisted otherwise.[49] One of the participants, oil industry executive Jim Gray, suggested the group was not opposed to the line but instead wanted to "de-risk" it.[49] The group called for replacing half of the rail line with a bus, cancelling the downtown subway, and for the use of high-floor trains.[50] In December 2020, the United Conservative Minister of Transportation, Ric McIver, rebuked the Green Line's alignment saying in a statement that the train is a "line to nowhere”[9] and the city does not have "any credible plan".[51]

On June 16, 2020, council voted 14 to 1 to approve construction stage one of the Green Line, rejecting the group's demands to suppress the project.[8] A poll conducted that same month found 68.7% of Calgarians in support of the project with its updated 2020 alignment.[52] The CA$4.6 billion cost of Stage 1 will be shared in roughly equal portions between the federal government, provincial government, and the City of Calgary.[53]

The City of Calgary began preparing for construction in 2017 with five utility relocation and environmental redemption projects along the alignment of the line and spent over $500 million.[54] The city states the project is "shovel ready".[9] Construction of stage one is expected to begin in 2021 and will be completed in 2027.[8] On December 17, 2020 the City of Calgary "paused" construction procurement after the United Conservative provincial government failed to transfer their contribution of the line's funding that was committed in 2015.[10] That same day, the spokesman for the party's Minister of Transportation, Ric McIver, stated that the train is a "line to nowhere”[9] despite the project's popular support,[52] an overdue lack of adequate rapid transit in Calgary's north-central and southeastern communities,[31] and a projected daily ridership of 140,000 people when completed.[16] Mayor Naheed Nenshi stated that the provincial government's actions delaying construction of the line could add “tens of millions of dollars” to the project's cost.[9]