Doors open on west LRT
With new line, thoughts turn to future expansion
Approximately 30,000 commuters are expected to ride the new west LRT on Monday, the first full day of service for the $1.4-billion project.
It’s the first new LRT line built in Calgary in 25 years and the biggest infrastructure project in the city’s history. But as the speeches and applause from Saturday’s ceremonial opening fade and the west LRT becomes a way of life for Calgarians, the question in many people’s minds will become, “What’s next?”
City officials agree that further expansions to public transit are a priority.
“Transit has to happen,” said Ward 12 Ald. Shane Keating. “Even though my ward is deep south, I’ve never said, ‘let’s build bigger and better roads.’ ... That whole concept has to change, and we know that.”
What hasn’t been figured out, however, is how to roll out public transit improvements — or how to pay for them.
On Wednesday, council is set to debate Route Ahead, Calgary Transit’s 28-year vision for public transportation in the city. The plan calls for $12.9 billion in transit system upgrades by 2040, but makes no recommendation on how city hall should come up with the money.
At the same time, debate rages about where the LRT system should go next — to the deep southeast, or along a north-central route using either Centre Street or Edmonton Trail. There has been no money budgeted for either project.
Ward 7 Ald. Druh Farrell said what she likes about RouteAhead is its focus on a grid-like rapid transit network throughout the city, rather than the traditional radial network feeding into the downtown. It also focuses heavily on buses, proposing to increase the number of routes receiving service every 10 minutes or less, get more frequent buses running to the suburbs, and establish service to brand-new communities sooner.
“Opening a new line of the LRT is a big day for Calgary, but transit is so much more than an LRT system,” Farrell said. “With bus rapid transit, we can move a lot of people at a cheaper price.”
RouteAhead also addresses LRT service, creating a ranking system for new projects. It gives the southeast LRT line 22 points, ranking it behind the north-central leg with 24 points. The plan recommends that because the southeast portion has already been planned, it should start first, but full build-out of the north-central line should come before the LRT reaches the new southeast hospital.
Keating, whose ward encompasses the deep southeast, said he questions the ranking system.
“Which one of these (the southeast or north-central line) is going to take more cars off the road, more drastically than the other?” Keating said. “Obviously in my view that’s the southeast.”
However, Farrell said she doesn’t believe public transit ridership numbers support a southeast LRT just yet. She said a north-central line, on the other hand, would serve those who are known to be dedicated users of public transit.
“We’ve got 1,500 buses going down Centre Street a day, and we’re still leaving people at the curb,” she said. “At some point, we’ll have to consider moving to an LRT (in the southeast), but the numbers don’t work yet.”
Doug Hayden, chairman of the Southeast LRT Coalition — a lobby group made up of southeast Calgary residents — said he’s not opposed to the idea of a north-central line, and believes it could be built in stages at the same time as a southeast line. But he said improved bus service won’t be enough to ease the congestion in the deep southeast, so the city needs to start thinking LRT sooner rather than later.
“I think they could start construction today, and by the time you were finished in four or five years, you would have a full train from Day 1,” Hayden said. “What I’d like to see is for them to get this onto a reasonable schedule. Start setting some dates and stick to them.”
A city report released in July suggested a southeast LRT line would cost $2.7 billion and take until 2039 to complete. Of the $12.9 billion in transit upgrades proposed by RouteAhead, $11 billion is for new LRT lines and busways. However you break it down, the timelines are lengthy and the price tags are massive.
While the province announced $743 million in longawaited Green Trip funding for Calgary on Saturday, most of those funds will go to pay for cost overruns with the west LRT project, the purchase of new LRT cars, and the predesign studies for the bus-only routes in the southeast.