Communications obtained by LiveWire Calgary through a Freedom of Information request to the Government of Alberta have revealed new details about options considered by the province for a potential Green Line alignment.
Those communications cover the time period from when the Green Line was approved by Calgary City Council to when Minister of Transportation and Economic Corridors Devin Dreeshen indicated that the province would no longer be funding the City’s alignment in September 2024.
Although the province backed down on that decision, communications between senior government officials made clear that alternative alignment options were under consideration ahead of that announcement.
Among those was a request for information regarding the 1980s-built underground LRT station at Calgary City Hall.
In an email entitled Green Line Update by Deputy Minister of Transportation and Economic Corridors Bryce Stewart, writing to Minister Dreeshen on July 23, there was an indication that was an option being sought by Premier Danielle Smith.
“We are following up on… getting information on the underground station at City Hall that was pre-built as per the Premier’s request, I
understand it was initially developed with the intent of providing additional future capacity for the Red Line.”
In another email sent on the same date by the Director of Executive Operations for the transportation ministry, Teigan Lawton, to the Executive Director of the technical branch of the transportation ministry, Rob Lonson, quoted Premier Smith.
“PO has asked “Can you check out the underground stations that have been prebuilt at city hall? There may be the right terminal point and interface within the existing LRT (respecting Green Line). Can we get more information on Calgary’s City Hall LRT location?”
“l’d take whatever information/bullets/maps the rail team can pull.”
Province identified issues with City Hall LRT station, ahead of requests to City of Calgary
In a response by Robert Quinton, the Executive Director for Strategic Procurement and Grants in the transportation ministry, he said that the province did not receive a formal response to the questions by the city, but was still seeking more details on the 1980s build.
Among the information sought was a sketch of the tunnels so that the location, orientation, and extent of the tunnels beyond city call could be determined, and the condition of the tunnels after the 2013 flooding.
Additional information sought was whether the city had contemplated the use of the tunnels as part of the Green Line, whether there was a prior 2008 plan to still use the tunnels for an extension of the Red Line, and whether there was still a future plan to put the Red Line in a tunnel under 7 Avenue.
Whether the City of Calgary provided any responses to the requests of senior government officials was not recorded by the province, and therefore not included in the FOIP package.
A request sent to Premier Smith’s office by LWC asking how seriously she and the province were considering the use of the pre-existing tunnels was not acknowledged.
Quinton noted in his email that there were significant barriers to the use of the City Hall tunnels, including that there was no station portal at Calgary City Hall, that the City of Calgary had already undertaken a review of the concept in 2021 but had found “considerable issues with the Red Line alignment and a Green Line concept,” and that routing the Green Line to City Hall missed ridership and connectivity in the Beltline that was existent in the City of Calgary approved alignment.
In a follow-up email sent by Stewart to the then Deputy Minister for Intergovernmental Relations for the government’s Executive Council, Paul Wynnyk on July 26, he wrote that the updated information provided “pales in comparison to other events, however a pretty key decision in relation to the Green Line is coming up at City Council on Tuesday (July 30).”
The remainder of the email was redacted by the province, under sections 24(1)(a), 24(1)(b), and 25(1)(b).
Those section 24 provisions relate to the advice given by a public body to Executive Council—Alberta’s cabinet ministers—and any deliberations that might disclose what that advice was. Section 25 also relates to any financial, commercial, or technical information that the government has a proprietary interest in.
The province did not mention using a potential underground City Hall LRT station further following the in-camera meeting on the Green Line governance, corporate risk, and financial held by Calgary City Council on July 30.
