While the cities might be more than 3,000 kilometres away, their issues with bringing on a new transit line are about as close as you can get.

A Quebec City delegation, led by Mayor Bruno Marchand, was in Calgary this week, and on Thursday, they met with city officials on the Green Line.

Calgary’s sister city has also undertaken a massive light rail project called the Quebec City Tramway, or Tramcité. It’s a project that has been more than 25 years in the making, with the first feasibility study done back in 2000.  Calgary had a similar study on the Green Line first done back in 1987.

Both cities have dealt with questions about it being a bus rapid transit versus light rail, the length of the line, project parameters, more feasibility studies, respective provincial government interruptions for extra studies, project phasing… and the like.

There’s even a tunnel story in Quebec City – and, of course, the provincial government found it too expensive, and it was subsequently cut nearly in half.

There’s a lot to learn from Calgary, considering this city’s project is about two years further along. Calgary is expected to begin service with the Green Line in 2031, with Tramcité expecting to open in 2033.

Specifically, Marchand said that they were curious how the City of Calgary was handling ongoing engagement with citizens and businesses that would be impacted by the route.

“I would say, huge learning about what we should do and what we should do better as a city, to be more able to engage citizens in our project,” he said.

“Even though we’re a bit further down the line, we still need to get better at managing the communication with citizens.”

Marchand said that, given that it’s a six-year project, they need to bring citizens along and keep them in the loop on the work being done and some of the potential interruptions.

Project scoping also discussed

The two cities also talked about how Calgary has scoped the overall project: Phasing the different parts of the currently approved line and then delivering smaller, focused chunks of the project, instead of awarding the entire thing.

“How do you divide the project in order to make quick wins and not only say, citizens, you’re going to be happy in six years from now,” he said.

“Even though the line is not working yet, even though it will be, our tramway will be working, will be functioning in six years, what are the benefits in the years to come in order for citizens to see that, OK, there’s gain for me, even though we’re not at the end of the line.”

Adam Noble-Johnson with the Green Line team said they talked about developing relationships with local businesses and the communities as Green Line work is undertaken.

“They were really curious about the work that we do to support businesses, to make sure communities are informed along the way,” he said.

“We were happy to share that. But we always have a lot that we can learn from the way they do engagement in Quebec as well.”

Noble-Johnson said they were also able to detail how they work with their construction partners, highlighting and featuring each aspect of the project development.  Marchand said that the key is in planning for the next 30 years, not just project to project. He believes that’s how you bring both the community and the corporations along.

While transit was one big similarity between the two cities, Marchand also said they were keen to learn more about how Calgary is tackling the return of people to the downtown.

“If people are going away and you don’t have people living in a home in the downtown, we’re experiencing kind of the same situation in Quebec City with our downtown neighbourhoods,” he said.

He said they were impressed by the example of bringing post-secondary schools into the downtown, bringing teachers and bringing students to try to add vibrancy to the area. Marchand also said they would examine further Calgary’s downtown office conversion program to see how it could apply in his city.

“We need to find, I would say, the right place as a city, where we can help people to bring their own people, their own employees, back to the downtown, and bring citizens,” he said.

“It’s very useful to hear that other cities are experiencing the same challenges.”