It has been a busy year for the Greenline. Below are the 2016 highlights:
Funding announcement
On Saturday, December 3, 2016, the Government of Canada and the Province of Alberta announced funding that will bring The City of Calgary one step closer to beginning construction of the new Green Line LRT. The funding, which comes from the federal Public Transit Infrastructure Fund (PTIF) and the provincial Green Transit Incentives Program (GreenTRIP), will provide transit infrastructure funding to more than 25 municipalities across Alberta. In Calgary, the funds will help prepare the Green Line right-of-way for construction with items such as utilities and land.
North alignment
The Green Line north team spent most of 2016 having conversations with you to help inform more detailed planning of the Green Line on Centre Street. We had conversations with almost 2,000 of you at five station area workshops and transit oriented development workshops at Crescent Height/Tuxedo Park, 40 Avenue and 64 Avenue. All of this input is being used to help build a more refined technical plan for the Green Line north.
We’ll be back in the New Year to discuss the specifics of the Green Line north alignment and station locations will go to City Council in June 2017.
Centre City alignment
The north and southeast alignments were approved by City Council in 2015, and in 2016 the Green Line team worked towards Council approval of the Centre City alignment, which includes the Beltline communities, the downtown core, and the Bow River crossing.
Downtown and Bow River Crossing
On October 4, 2016, City Council approved a fully tunneled LRT route in Calgary’s downtown core. The approval was made “in principle”, contingent on the overall funding for the Green Line program. The fully tunneled route would see the Green Line LRT run underground from the CP tracks in the Beltline, under 2 Street S.W., and under the Bow River. The line would resurface at 24 Avenue N along Centre Street N.
Corridor Recommended: Beltline
The Beltline alignment options have recently undergone an extensive evaluation. The results of the evaluation, which includes stakeholder and public input, indicate that 12 Avenue S is the preferred corridor. On December 19, Council approved 12 Avenue S as the preferred corridor for the Green Line in the Beltline. The Green Line project team will carry two options forward for further evaluation: 12 Avenue S Surface (which sees the LRT running at street level along 12 Avenue from 2 St SW to the Inglewood area) and 12 Avenue S Tunnel + Surface (which sees the LRT running underground from 2 St SW to just east of 4 St SE, then proceeding at surface into Inglewood). This next stage of evaluation will include traffic analysis, investigation of technical considerations, and continued coordination with stakeholders to better understand future development in the area. Once further evaluation is complete, an official recommendation on alignment will be presented in Spring of 2017.
Southeast alignment
The Green Line team conducted 20 public meetings and spoke with over 1,400 people in developing the Area Redevelopment Plans (ARPs) and Station Area Plan (SAP) for the TOD areas on the southeast leg of the line. The ARPs and SAP are scheduled for Calgary Planning Commission in Q1 2017.
Speaker Series
The Green Line team hosted four speaker series events, which featured panel discussions with subject matter experts across a variety of disciplines. During 2016, we covered a range of topics like “City-Shaping” and how the project has the potential to change entire communities along the alignment. Our second session looked at “How to build a transit village”, focusing on the transit-oriented approach to community planning. Our third session explored at how Green Line is “Shaping the way we move” and our final session looked at "Calgary's Potential" – What will the Calgary we pass to future generations look like?
Read more (and see videos from each session)
For more information on the Greenline, visit their project page!