The City of Calgary is moving ahead with a functional rail study on extending the Red Line LRT further south, and is gathering feedback on the proposal.
The scope of the study is a four-kilometre expansion of the Red Line from Somerset-Bridlewood south across the ring road, with two new stations at Silverado and 210 Avenue South.
According to city officials, the extended line would serve over 55,000 people in the communities of Silverado, Belmont, Pine Creek, Chaparral, Walden and Legacy, as well as future communities southwest of MacLeod Trail.
A map showing the scope of a City of Calgary functional study to extend the Red Line LRT further south.
Courtesy: City of Calgary
“Calgary is growing rapidly,” said Liming Sun, the city’s project manager on the study. “The goal of the transit project is to meet the transit needs for the existing and the future to serve people and improve the customer service experience.”
The study is aimed to determine the right-of-way of the LRT line, the preferred alignment, station location and design, as well as identify any environmental impacts and mitigation solutions in the area.
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It will also look into a new LRT maintenance and storage facility at 210 Avenue, which the city said is critical for further expansion of the transit network.
“It’s to help keep up the capacity of the overall LRT system to serve more transit needs into the future,” Sun told Global News.
The City of Calgary is seeking feedback on the proposal through a survey on its website, which asks Calgarians a variety of questions about which proposed station they’d use, and how they would access the stations.
“I think it’s good, I think it’s needed,” said Jackie Bodie, a senior who lives near the proposed Silverado station. “If I worked, it would be wonderful.”
However, others expressed some apprehension about extending the Red Line closer to their communities due to concern over safety on the transit network.
“You can see in Shawnessy, it’s brought in a lot of people that unfortunately cause problems,” nearby resident Kayla Powell told Global News. “So to bring it even closer to our homes, I don’t love that idea.”
One of the survey questions asks Calgarians about safety and station design features including lighting, CCTV cameras, and emergency call buttons.
The study is set to be complete sometime next year, however, construction on a project to extend the Red Line could still be many years away.
According to the city, a functional study is needed to help develop a business case to secure funding from other orders of government before design can begin.
Ward 13 Coun. Dan McLean said the project is “badly needed” in the rapidly growing communities he represents, with hope funding could be secured “in a few years.”
“I think the Green Line has eaten up a lot of the oxygen talking about money for transit,” McLean said. “But I hope the city prioritizes this and gets on it as soon as possible.”
While an extension of the Red Line LRT is among the city’s prioritized transit project, there are others ahead of it in the queue including the Green Line, with construction set to begin later this year, and an ongoing study to extend the Blue Line to the airport.
However, McLean argued extending the Red Line would be cheaper and not as complex as some of the other prioritized transit projects.
“We’re nowhere near talking billions of dollars,” McLean said. “It’s very simple. There’s no tunneling, it’s the same (light rail vehicles), it goes to a maintenance facility, it makes a lot of sense.”
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