Premier Danielle Smith likes trains. She really likes trains. Before getting back into politics, Smith owned a High River restaurant located in a restored 1947 railway car and, since the last election, she has started to lay the track to launch the largest passenger rail expansion in Alberta’s history.
The UCP is currently drawing up ambitious plans that would see passenger rail serve towns across Alberta, complete with a grand central station in downtown Calgary to allow transfers between the LRT and regional and intercity trains. It seems the only train Smith does not like is Calgary’s Green Line LRT.
We know this because Transportation Minister Devon Dreeshen recently told Calgarians we should be knocking on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s door for more Green Line funding instead of his. More Ottawa, less Alberta? That’s definitely off-brand for this government.
The UCP’s stance is a head-scratcher because, like the premier, Calgarians also like trains. And as polling shows, the one train we really like is the Green Line LRT. Since former mayor Ralph Klein launched Calgary’s LRT network in the early 1980s, Calgarians have embraced rail in a big way.
The numbers back this up. Calgary has some of the highest LRT ridership in North America. We punch way above our weight, as Calgary sees more people hop on the train daily than large U.S. cities such as Boston and Dallas. Not only has transit ridership in Calgary recovered to pre-pandemic levels, in March of this year Calgary Transit set a record with close to eight million boardings.
Calgarians’ pro-LRT sentiments can be linked to the slow and steady expansion of our LRT network. The battles fought to build and expand the LRT network are long forgotten but the benefits touch the lives of Calgarians daily.
That’s not to say the battles didn’t exist and weren’t fierce. One only has to browse the Herald archives to find intense opposition to things such as the location of Sunnyside Station or municipal politicians working overtime to try to get other orders of government to see the value in funding LRT in Calgary.
In a 1981 Herald article, a frustrated Klein pushed back against a provincial refusal to provide further LRT funding. Reacting to the provincial transportation minister’s demand to prove the entire LRT system will work based on the success or failure of the first segment to be built, Klein called the government “timid to the extreme.”
Which brings us back to the Green Line. A council decision on whether to proceed with construction of Stage 1 is looming and budgetary pressures are being felt from major infrastructure projects across North America. Montreal’s REM light rail project is around 25 per cent over budget and Vancouver’s latest Skytrain expansion is tracking to be 40 per cent over budget. Even in Edmonton, where a short 4.5-kilometre surface extension to the Capital Line is being built, it is more than 20 per cent over budget.
Yet, despite financial obstacles, all of these cities are forging ahead with the projects as they know the long-term value that high-quality transit provides. Calgarians also know that, as we have been electing politicians to council and the legislature who have been vocally supportive of the Green Line regardless of their political stripes. Building transit shouldn’t be partisan; it should just be common sense.
It’s time for the UCP and Calgarians to unite in their love of trains. When it comes to the Green Line, Calgarians don’t need more delays, more political debates or, even worse, more redesigns. We need our leaders to show leadership by putting aside their differences to do what’s best for this city. We need them to find a way to start construction of a train Calgarians have been waiting decades for.
If the UCP is ready to hop on board, it might just be their ticket to reclaiming many more Calgary ridings in the next election.
Jeff Binks is president of LRT on the Green, a volunteer-driven, not-for-profit governed by a board of Green Line community members.