Green Line downtown route faces another redesign
Province signals flexibility on elevated option as conflicts with proposed Banff rail connection emerge. City tasked with exploring alternatives by September.
The day's top stories, food & events — every morning at 7. Unsubscribe anytime.
Calgary's Green Line LRT project hit another planning obstacle this week when the province signalled it can no longer support an elevated downtown route—a plan the city was already moving forward with.
Mayor Jeromy Farkas said recent provincial discussions revealed a critical conflict: laying the elevated Green Line and the proposed Calgary-to-Banff passenger rail connection on the same corridor would cause the trains to collide. "If you lay the two maps down on each other, it looks like the two trains crash into each other at a certain intersection," Farkas told reporters.
The province confirmed it's open to discussing "refinements to the alignment" but ruled out a downtown tunnel. Council has now directed staff to explore alternative routes—beyond the 2nd Street alignment Calgarians rejected in an earlier survey—and present options by September.
The timing adds pressure to a project already delayed by years. A city survey showed 71 per cent of businesses along the proposed route opposed an elevated Green Line, while two-thirds of residents supported it. But as one councillor noted, most Calgarians simply want to see the line built. "Some Green Line is better than no Green Line," Ward 8 Councillor Nathaniel Schmidt said.