Build Green Line above ground to beat inflation price pressures

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With cost pressures building, Calgarians learned last week the long-awaited Green Line LRT will start out being even shorter than planned.

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The line will only go from Eau Claire to Lynnwood/Millican and will cost more, with the budget reaching $6.3 billion.

Perhaps it’s time for a little daylight, metaphorically speaking.

Short urban rail lines aren’t rare in Canada.

The new Phase 1 of the Green Line has cousins: among them are subway Line 4 in Toronto (5.5 kilometres) and métro Line 5 in Montreal (9.7 kilometres).

People do ride these trains — I’ve seen it for myself, post-pandemic — but given the relatively small distances they cover, it’s safe to say neither of those has reached their full potential.

Only now, some four decades after Montreal’s Line 5 opened, work is underway for a five-station, seven-kilometre, all-underground extension costing $6.4 billion.

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Meanwhile, in Toronto, officials have finally begun consulting for possible major additions to Line 4, which opened about 20 years ago.

The newly revised Phase 1 of Calgary’s Green Line is just about as long as Montreal’s existing Line 5.

It won’t be as useless as critics presume as there will still be major trip generators on the line, between Stampede Park and various workplaces in Inglewood, Ramsay and the industrial parks. We can also safely presume the bus network will be reshaped to help people connect with the Green Line.

But there’s no arguing the truncated Phase 1 will be less attractive than its previous iteration, which would have gone as far as Shepard in the south, giving direct access to more retail and other businesses. Fewer people will benefit from a potential one-seat train-only ride, and those going long distances transferring from bus to train would potentially see a smaller reduction in trip times.

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Now, time for a little daylight — literally.

I’ve long been a proponent of having the Green Line cross downtown underground. The benefits are clear, given the need to separate new trains from existing CTrains and other traffic.

However, it’s been many years since the plans for the Green Line were settled upon. Cost circumstances have changed dramatically and the difficulties with tunnelling downtown aren’t news to anyone.

Going underground isn’t the only way to provide grade separation: elevated track will do the job just as well. Projects elsewhere show it would be more economical than tunnelling while offering many of the same benefits.

Sure, there will be difficulties with Plus 15s and crossing the CPKC rail line downtown, but those issues will likely be less complicated to resolve than having to worry about subsurface rivers and ground composition.

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As for all the preparatory work already done, the underground utilities recently moved to make way for the Green Line would have had to have been renewed at some point anyway, so no loss there.

Pivoting from underground to elevated track now will surely result in further delays. But if anyone is still worried about the project being late, I’m sorry to say that train left the station long ago.

Regardless of the additional time we spend to figure how to run the Green Line above ground, we will benefit by being able to build more of it — perhaps with enough money left over to bridge the Bow River and construct previously postponed segments.

We can look east again for another example: Montreal’s new automated light metro system, the REM, has a budget of $8 billion to build 67 kilometres of track — a lot of it on elevated guideways.

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By comparison, the entire Green Line is closer to 50 kilometres in length.

True, Montreal’s REM benefits from the reuse of an existing five-kilometre tunnel and a pre-built major river crossing, but it’s still fair to say that project provides a bigger bang for every dollar spent.

Yes, we do have to start somewhere with the Green Line.

But we should also maximize its new $6.3-billion budget and get as much rail laid with it as we can.

Those in charge shouldn’t succumb to tunnel vision.

rleong@postmedia.com

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