{"id":726661,"date":"2026-06-10T03:59:13","date_gmt":"2026-06-10T03:59:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/726661\/"},"modified":"2026-06-10T03:59:13","modified_gmt":"2026-06-10T03:59:13","slug":"councillors-eye-alternate-alignment-options-for-green-line-lrt-in-downtown-calgary-calgary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/726661\/","title":{"rendered":"Councillors eye alternate alignment options for Green Line LRT in downtown Calgary – Calgary"},"content":{"rendered":"

As construction continues on the southeast leg of the Green Line LRT<\/a>, how to get the line through Calgary\u2019s downtown core could be up for consideration once again.<\/p>\n

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A city committee Tuesday endorsed an amendment from Ward 13 Coun. Dan McLean to identify and evaluate potential alignment options through the downtown core.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe train has already left the station folks.\u00a0 It\u2019s rolling down the track, we can\u2019t derail it now,\u201d McLean said. \u201cI ask you to choo-choose yes to my amendment.\u201d<\/p>\n

McLean\u2019s amendment, which still requires a vote by city council as a whole, requests those alternate options by September to respond to \u201cinterest holder concerns.\u201d<\/p>\n

Those alternate options would be informed by stakeholder engagement and information gathered as part of a functional study currently underway by project officials.<\/p>\n

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The proposed plan being studied calls for an elevated route between the Event Centre\/Grand Central Station in Victoria Park along 10 Avenue S in the Beltline, turning north above the CPKC Rail tracks to 2 Street S.W. and stopping above 7 Avenue S.W., where the Red and Blue lines travel at-grade through the core.<\/p>\n

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That alignment was the preferred option of the provincial government, which commissioned an engineering firm to develop, after the province pulled its $1.5 billion<\/a> share of funding over significant cost escalations with the route, which included a tunnel under the downtown core.<\/p>\n

The previous city council\u00a0ultimately approved the revised alignment<\/a>\u00a0for the project in early 2025, which allowed construction to begin on the southeast leg of the line from Shepard to Victoria Park.<\/p>\n

According to a quarterly update to city councillors on the $6.2 billion LRT project, 65 per cent of Calgarians are \u201cgenerally supportive\u201d of an elevated alignment in the downtown core.<\/p>\n

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However, the elevated route is significantly unpopular for downtown stakeholders and business owners, with concerns including public safety, impacts to property values and downtown vibrancy, as well as its effect on business activity.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were quite clear that we felt just looking at one alignment was not going to really make this project what it should be,\u201d said Guy Huntingford, director of strategic initiatives at commercial real estate firm NAIOP, who supported committee\u2019s decision to endorse alternate options.<\/p>\n

Calgary Mayor Jeromy Farkas told reporters the project was \u201cdead in the water\u201d last year, and that he isn\u2019t surprised \u201ca lot of people\u201d don\u2019t like the elevated alignment.<\/p>\n

He noted the provincial government \u201chas indicated flexibility\u201d to changes to the downtown alignment.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf the vast majority of downtown residents and businesses can\u2019t see support for this version of what the province has asked for, my understanding is they\u2019re willing to course correct,\u201d Farkas told reporters.<\/p>\n

In a statement to Global News, Alberta transportation minister Devin Dreeshen said the provincial government is \u201copen to discussing refinements to the alignment, but a downtown tunnel is not on the table.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe elevated alignment will reach more neighbourhoods, deliver five more stations, and boosts commuter ridership by 60 per cent,\u201d he said. \u201cOur focus is delivering an above-ground alignment that respects commuters and taxpayer dollars.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Ward 8 Coun. Nathaniel Schmidt said McLean\u2019s amendment could make way for city councillors to have \u201ca few more options\u201d to work with after the surveys showed it wasn\u2019t conclusive the proposed alignment was the ideal way to weave the LRT line through the downtown core.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis has become more of a political game than an actual project that will benefit the whole city,\u201d he told reporters. \u201cIf we can get it back to a point of being fully beneficial for Calgarians, this is going to be something that\u2019s generational.\u201d<\/p>\n

The move is the latest in a saga more than a decade long surrounding the Green Line project, which has spanned multiple city councillors and provincial governments.<\/p>\n

Project officials, however, are confident another study on the downtown core won\u2019t impact current project timelines, which has service between Victoria Park and Shepard in 2031.<\/p>\n

According to Wendy Tynan, the project\u2019s director, the study will incorporate \u201cthe historical work\u201d that\u2019s been done on downtown alignments, after $244 million was spent on work on the downtown tunnel plan.<\/p>\n

\u201cSpending the next couple of months to do this work is not a material delay,\u201d she said. \u201cWe still are on track to be able to come back to council at the end of this year with a decision on what that plan is.\u201d<\/p>\n

Construction on the Green Line is underway in the city\u2019s southeast with work on a maintenance and storage facility, road reconfiguration and an elevated guideway at Barlow Trail and 114 Avenue S.E., as well as LRT bridges at 78 Avenue and Blackfoot Trail.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t&copy 2026 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As construction continues on the southeast leg of the Green Line LRT, how to get the line through…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":726662,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194293],"tags":[49,2798,71388,177137,48,24156,262182,44],"class_list":["post-726661","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-calgary","tag-ca","tag-calgary","tag-calgary-city-council","tag-calgary-city-hall","tag-canada","tag-city-of-calgary","tag-green-line-lrt","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/726661","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=726661"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/726661\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/726662"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=726661"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=726661"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=726661"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}