Scope changes on the Green Line LRT mean that the line will end four stops south of downtown Calgary, with one station brought to grade and another deferred to a later date.

That’s the decision that Calgary city councillors ultimately made at the start of their summer wrap-up meeting on July 30, after an hours long closed-session meeting on a project that was long suffering from infrastructure inflationary pressures. The project budget for the Green Line was $5.5 billion, and now with scope changes and additional funding required the budget will be $6.248 billion.

This decision would cut out stations from Ogden to Shepard and along with it, nearly half the projected day one ridership, from 55,000 to 32,000 daily.

Now, the Green Line’s projected route will go from Eau Claire in the downtown to Lynnwood / Millican in the southeast. There will also be a maintenance facility built in Highfield instead of Shepard (128 Avenue SE) where it was originally planned. Further, the 4 Street SE will be brought above grade to accommodate integration with the future regional transit.

Also, the Centre Street station will be deferred, but with transitional station work done so that it can be converted to an underground station down the road.

“We have an unprecedented amount of money committed to this project,” said Ward 9 Coun. Gian-Carlo Carra.

“It’s three times larger than the largest infrastructure project we’ve ever tackled, and it’s buying us less now, but because we have that amount of money, we have to tackle the hardest part of this project.”

Carra said that if we don’t do this now, we won’t connect north Calgary with south Calgary through the Green Line.

“People who live in the southeast will never be able to take a train to the airport or to a northern hospital that will eventually be built,” he said.

“People in the North will never be able to get downtown and get to the Event Center and to the South Health Campus and to everything in between that grows up along that.”

Ward 7 Coun. Terry Wong said that this is just a start, and that we need the Green Line.

“This is equivalent of building the chassis to the ultimate engine. If you don’t start the chassis, you don’t start with building the roof or the trunk. This is a startup, the starting point,” he said.

“Ideally we want to go down to Seton. Ideally we want to get to North Pointe, but we got to start somewhere. I know a lot of people would have challenged me by saying, ‘you know, as a conservative, why would you do this?’ It’s about city building. That’s what it’s all about.”

Getting to work on extensions

Ward 11 Coun. Evan Spencer amended the main motion so work could begin immediately on finding the cash to extend the line right away – in line with the original Green Line alignment agreed in 2017.

Much of the alignment down to Shepard has enabling works already done, including work that’s ongoing in the Ogden area.

“After nearly a decade of delays and setbacks, this project is moving forward, and I want us to immediately begin thinking beyond the core,” Spencer said.

“While this is super important…. just the necessity of getting the downtown figured out the necessity of doing the open-heart surgery that’s going to increase the viability of this project into future iterations and to future extensions, we need to be immediately thinking about tomorrow. The hard work to get to this day isn’t just about today.”

They wanted a scoping report to come back to the Executive Committee in the second quarter of 2025.

Green Line Board Chair Don Fairbairn, upon questions around the response of Calgarians who will now wait longer for the Green Line, he said he understands their frustration.

“I understand the disappointment that some Calgarians will feel that the line is being built in phases and will not be built to serve their community when they had thought it might be,” he said.

“I think expectation has been expressed to us, in any event, is that there will be ongoing efforts on behalf of council to ensure that funding is made available for future phases.”

Ward 10 Coun. Andre Chabot said he didn’t think this was the best solution going forward, especially because the city would be operating this at a big cost annually. He said it was a net negative of nearly $60 million each year.

“I just can’t see the cost benefit for this kind of an investment. For so few new riders, the amount of revenue that’s going to generate is is nominal.

Coun. Spencer said you can look at it in small slivers of information like the ones Chabot is bringing up, he said that would never be a compelling sell to anyone.

“When we talk about completing this that is exceedingly compelling for the future of the city, and that is the vision that we need to stay focused on,” Spencer said.

“Mass transit projects are having all kinds of issues. We spent an awful lot of our time talking about them and trying to work with our experts to find a way forward that works for Calgarians when it comes right down to it, even Councillor Chabot, you alluded to this, that this is the most efficient way of moving people.”

Earlier in the day, the Government of Alberta delivered a letter to the City of Calgary and said with this change the grant funding wouldn’t be impacted, provided the new changes connect the Green Line to the existing Red and Blue lines in the downtown, and also integrate into the provincial master plan for a Grand Central Station for regional rail.

The federal government also said that they would need a revised business case sent to them to confirm funding details.

The changes will require new definitive agreements with both funding partners, expected for later this year.