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As construction continues on the southeast leg of the Green Line LRT, how to get the line through Calgary’s downtown core could be up for consideration once again.
A city committee Tuesday endorsed an amendment from Ward 13 Coun. Dan McLean to identify and evaluate potential alignment options through the downtown core.
“The train has already left the station folks. It’s rolling down the track, we can’t derail it now,” McLean said. “I ask you to choo-choose yes to my amendment.”
McLean’s amendment, which still requires a vote by city council as a whole, requests those alternate options by September to respond to “interest holder concerns.”
Those alternate options would be informed by stakeholder engagement and information gathered as part of a functional study currently underway by project officials.
The proposed plan being studied calls for an elevated route between the Event Centre/Grand Central Station in Victoria Park along 10 Avenue S in the Beltline, turning north above the CPKC Rail tracks to 2 Street S.W. and stopping above 7 Avenue S.W., where the Red and Blue lines travel at-grade through the core.
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That alignment was the preferred option of the provincial government, which commissioned an engineering firm to develop, after the province pulled its $1.5 billion share of funding over significant cost escalations with the route, which included a tunnel under the downtown core.
The previous city council ultimately approved the revised alignment for the project in early 2025, which allowed construction to begin on the southeast leg of the line from Shepard to Victoria Park.
According to a quarterly update to city councillors on the $6.2 billion LRT project, 65 per cent of Calgarians are “generally supportive” of an elevated alignment in the downtown core.
However, the elevated route is significantly unpopular for downtown stakeholders and business owners, with concerns including public safety, impacts to property values and downtown vibrancy, as well as its effect on business activity.
“We were quite clear that we felt just looking at one alignment was not going to really make this project what it should be,” said Guy Huntingford, director of strategic initiatives at commercial real estate firm NAIOP, who supported committee’s decision to endorse alternate options.
Calgary Mayor Jeromy Farkas told reporters the project was “dead in the water” last year, and that he isn’t surprised “a lot of people” don’t like the elevated alignment.
He noted the provincial government “has indicated flexibility” to changes to the downtown alignment.
“If the vast majority of downtown residents and businesses can’t see support for this version of what the province has asked for, my understanding is they’re willing to course correct,” Farkas told reporters.
In a statement to Global News, Alberta transportation minister Devin Dreeshen said the provincial government is “open to discussing refinements to the alignment, but a downtown tunnel is not on the table.”
“The elevated alignment will reach more neighbourhoods, deliver five more stations, and boosts commuter ridership by 60 per cent,” he said. “Our focus is delivering an above-ground alignment that respects commuters and taxpayer dollars.”
Ward 8 Coun. Nathaniel Schmidt said McLean’s amendment could make way for city councillors to have “a few more options” to work with after the surveys showed it wasn’t conclusive the proposed alignment was the ideal way to weave the LRT line through the downtown core.
“This has become more of a political game than an actual project that will benefit the whole city,” he told reporters. “If we can get it back to a point of being fully beneficial for Calgarians, this is going to be something that’s generational.”
The move is the latest in a saga more than a decade long surrounding the Green Line project, which has spanned multiple city councillors and provincial governments.
Project officials, however, are confident another study on the downtown core won’t impact current project timelines, which has service between Victoria Park and Shepard in 2031.
According to Wendy Tynan, the project’s director, the study will incorporate “the historical work” that’s been done on downtown alignments, after $244 million was spent on work on the downtown tunnel plan.
“Spending the next couple of months to do this work is not a material delay,” she said. “We still are on track to be able to come back to council at the end of this year with a decision on what that plan is.”
Construction on the Green Line is underway in the city’s southeast with work on a maintenance and storage facility, road reconfiguration and an elevated guideway at Barlow Trail and 114 Avenue S.E., as well as LRT bridges at 78 Avenue and Blackfoot Trail.
© 2026 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.
