In just one month from now, Calgarians will have a better idea of how the downtown portion of the $6.5 billion Green Line might look.

That’s because the Green Line’s downtown functional planning study update is coming to Calgary city council’s Executive Committee on Sept. 8. That document will provide councillors with options for a downtown alignment from the proposed Grand Central Station near the new Scotia Place event centre, through to a viable launching point to move to the north.

Back in June, City administration presented an update that showed a generally positive city-wide sentiment for an above-grade downtown alignment, though the vast majority of downtown residents didn’t like it.

City councillors asked the Green Line team to come back in September with alternative options from the original preferred route proposed by the province.

The province said at that time that they were open to adjustments to the downtown Green Line alignment, but that it must remain above ground.

Calgary Mayor Jeromy Farkas tinkered with the idea of a federal-only deal to put the downtown Green Line underground – which was the preferred option after several studies and multiple rounds of engagement were done to arrive at the previously approved route.

“I’d be looking at perhaps parking some of the more contentious portions of the downtown route, potentially stopping a little bit shorter in the downtown, giving us more time to solve for that portion of the alignment, and taking some of the cost savings and pushing even further south into suburban Calgary to be able to get greater ridership,” Farkas told LWC back in June.

Despite chatter about the potential changes, the task to deliver the downtown functional alignment study has been focused on delivering what city council asked for, according to Green Line director Wendy Tynan.

What can Calgarians expect from the Green Line downtown report?

Over the summer, Tynan said that the Green Line team has been reviewing all of the potential alignments that have been proposed over the years. She said at each point in time when those were delivered, they all were subject to a certain criterion.

“The difference this time around, and what we spoke about in June, is there’s only a finite number of options, and so the only thing that’s really changed is what are the conditions to making the decision,” Tynan told LWC.

Those conditions have morphed over the years, with the most recent and most substantive being that it cannot be an underground alignment.

Each order of government, however, has a specific criterion that must be met to qualify for project funding. Here’s a breakdown of the most current matrix.

Once you run each of the previous options through the gauntlet, Tynan expects that, along with the province’s initial 10 Avenue and 2 Street SW elevated option, there will likely be three more to present, though she couldn’t divulge which ones.

“Everyone is working daily on this and really going through all the analysis and really making sure that we’re able to put together a very fulsome report for council, and to make sure that they’re very aware of where the opportunities are, what the trade-offs would be, and what this means in the long term,” Tynan said.

Some councillors are adamant that an underground option is the only way to go. There have been rumblings of voting no to any above-ground option.

“If you look at elevated lines that have been built across North American cities over the years, there isn’t a highway or an elevated train line that in any way adds to the overall social fabric of an area,” Ward 7 Coun. Myke Atkinson told LiveWire Calgary in June.

“Downtown is critical. We have social disorder problems already. We have issues of perceptions of safety within our downtown that need to be met, and doing something that will hurt the public realm, hurt local businesses, hurt the folks that have decided to move into downtown, as many folks have over these past couple of years, that is not putting us on the right path.”

Saying no to one of the downtown Green Line options isn’t really an option: Tynan

Tynan said one of the funding requirements is that there is a downtown connection. She said the conditions of the business case wouldn’t be met if the line stops at the Scotia Place event centre.

“Our focus is really on something that people can say yes to,” Tynan said.

“We all know that we need to find something that is going to work.”

Once the downtown report hits the Executive Committee agenda, Tynan said she and the rest of the Green Line team are looking for specific direction. That will set in motion a chain of events that could see work on the downtown portion begin in earnest sometime in 2027.

Tynan said they are still working on what a contracting strategy would look like for a downtown option, with cost and schedule being big drivers behind that work.

“Starting operation service on the southeast segment and the southeast project in 2031, we’d like a path that would get the downtown segment opened as soon as practically possible to that 2031 date,” she said.