By rosebell
With the aim of saving costs on Calgary’s Green Line, Alberta’s government is proposing an elevated track, rather than an underground sections, that is going to expand the line farther south without additional costs, as a report has found.
While in order to assessing an alternative at-grade and/or elevated route through the downtown core that would achieve a functional, cost-effective Green Line, the province contracted Aecom in July, Aecom has suggested an entirely elevated route and a new alignment from 7th Avenue to Shepard that more closely aligns with the initial provincially and federally approved business case from June 2021, with indication to that the cost savings of not tunneling would fund the extended route.
Linking to the Red and Blue lines, which is the new Event Centre and communities much further into south-east Calgary, the new plan would increase ridership and is saving over than C$1bn by elevating tracks and shortening the route through downtown.
The C$6.2bn route from Eau Claire to Lynnwood/Millican, with tunneling through downtown was approved by Calgary City Council earlier this year. Decreasing the length of the originally planned route, this proposal would have resulted in a more than 40% reduction in ridership.
The 2017 was the date of commencing early works for the Green Line.
The underground stations at Eau Claire and 7th Avenue SW, that are connected by tunnels built at depths up to 30m, were the contents of the original proposal and the tunnels were to be constructed by cut and cover, and boring.
Minister of transportation and economic corridors Devin Dreeshen said: “This new Green Line route saves more than C$1bn in tunnelling costs. This alignment adds five more stops, will be 76% longer and will serve 60% more Calgarians – all within the same budget. The ball is now in Calgary City Council’s court to approve this alignment and to finally start construction on the Green Line in the new year.”
