I Think I'm Getting Better....

As even a cursory glance at the datelines on this blog would tell you, it has indeed been a while since I last posted here. Deal with it. ;)

In any case, I'm working on a report on long-range light rail transit development that I intend to present to Plan It Calgary, a great blooming city-wide confabulation of people who are more or less expecting to be ignored by the city's Land Use Planning and Policy department as they revisit the civic land use and transportation plan. Here, for your edification and amusement, is the first completed section of my contribution to the city's exercise in tilting at windmills, in which I discuss in brief some of the history behind Calgary's decision to build an LRT. Enjoy — and flame merrily away.

History of Light Rail Planning in Calgary

Rail-based mass transit service for Calgarians has been a part of the city’s public transportation planning process for over forty years. The first indication of Calgary’s commitment to mass transit by rail would appear in 1967’s Calgary Transportation Study, a twenty-year plan devoted mostly to roadway expansion that would nonetheless incorporate a two-line passenger metro system sharing tracks in the downtown core whose initial revenue service would occur in 1978. In subsequent years, a number of factors would contribute to a change in the plan’s focus that would see Calgary commit to light rail transit service in shared rights of way, but by 1977 the momentum was solidly in favour of light rail transit as an option for downtown commuting. What follows is a necessarily brief history of how mass transit by rail evolved and then manifested itself in Calgary.

The Calgary Transportation Study of 1967

The history of light rail transit in Calgary officially began with the publication of the Calgary Transportation Study in December of 1967. Although mass transit was a secondary component of this long-range transportation plan, the Calgary Transportation Study envisioned two metro lines — one with southern and north-western legs, the other with western and northern legs — sharing a common downtown metro with five stations along Seventh Avenue between City Hall and 11 Street SW. In essence, this proposed 38-station metro system was expected to accommodate peak commuter volumes of 10,000 passengers per hour per direction (City of Calgary, 1967:18) along a total system length of 19.61 miles, or 31.55 kilometres, to be constructed in several stages with a system completion date well beyond the twenty-year planning horizon established in the Calgary Transportation Study. The total projected capital investment of $115-million (1967:21) seems almost quaint in light of the construction costs that would be incurred in the development of Calgary’s present light rail transit system.

A total of five metro stations would have been brought into service underneath a 1.33-mile (2.14 kilometres) stretch of Seventh Avenue by 1978 (City of Calgary, 1967:27) to act as the spine of the Calgary Transportation Study’s metro system. The westernmost station downtown would have been built at the intersection of Seventh Avenue and 11 Street SW. From there, the line would have continued eastbound to the intersection of Seventh Avenue and Seventh Street SW, and thence to the intersection of Seventh Avenue and Fourth Street SW. One could argue in hindsight that the two busiest stations in the proposed metro system would have extended eastward along Seventh Avenue to intersections at First Street SW, interchanging with the Hudson’s Bay Company Building, and at Second Street SW, interchanging with City Hall (City of Calgary, 1967:19; Figure A:23).

The nine-station, 4.51-mile (7.26 kilometres) northwest leg of the Calgary Transportation Study’s metro system proposal (City of Calgary, 1967:19-20; Figure A:19) bears obvious similarities, and the occasional striking contrast, to the light rail line that would eventually reach the northwest precincts of the city. The first station outside of the downtown core would have been Hillhurst Station, constructed underneath the intersection of 11A Street and Gladstone Road NW. From there, the line would have passed underneath Riley Park to an Auditorium Station, immediately adjacent of course to the Southern Alberta Jubilee Auditorium. Two additional stations would have been built at North Hill, at 16 Avenue between 16 and 17 Streets NW to serve the North Hill Shopping Centre, and at Capitol Hill, approximately at the intersection of Capitol Hill Crescent and Tye Street NW. Traffic to McMahon Stadium would have been accommodated at Stadium Station, underneath the northeast corner of the present McMahon Stadium parking lot adjacent to the intersection of Crowchild Trail and 23 Avenue NW. Metro service to the University of Calgary would have been served at University Station, roughly underneath the present site of the university’s Biological Sciences Building. The two northwest-most metro stations to be completed by 1978 would have been constructed underneath Crowchild Trail — Brentwood Station, at the intersection with Charleswood Drive NW, and Brisebois Station, at the intersection with Brisebois Drive NW. A single-station extension of the northwest leg to Banff Trail Station, at the intersection of Crowchild Trail and Northland Drive NW, was expected to be brought into revenue service by 1986 (1967:27).

The third component of the Calgary Transportation Study’s 1978-vintage metro system would have consisted of a ten-station, 5.90-mile (9.49-kilometres) south leg (City of Calgary, 1967:19; Figure A:20) that bore but a slight resemblance to the first iteration of light rail service in Calgary. Stampede Park would have been served by Exhibition Grounds Station, underneath the intersection of the 17 Avenue and Third Street SE rights of way. The line would thence have continued to Mission Station, at the junction of 25 Avenue SW with the west bank of the Elbow River, and to Parkhill Station, at the intersection of Mission Road and First Street SW. Two subsequent stations would have then been built at Stanley Park, where 42 Avenue and Stanley Drive SW meet, and at Windsor Park, at the intersection of 50 Avenue and Fourth Street SW. The current site of Chinook Centre would have earned two metro stations on this proposed line — Southridge Station, at 58 Avenue and Fifth Street SW, and Chinook Station, at Glenmore Trail and Fifth Street SW. By 1978, the southern leg of the Calgary Transportation Study’s metro system would have seen the commissioning of two further stations — Kingsland Station, at the junction of 75 Avenue and 4A Street SW, and Haysboro Station, which would effectively have been directly beneath the present Heritage LRT station at Heritage Drive SW and the Canadian Pacific Railway tracks. By 1986, the southern leg of the metro system would have been extended to Southwood Station, due north of the present Southland LRT station at the intersection of Southland Drive and the Canadian Pacific Railway tracks (1967:27).

At the same time as the south-to-northwest metro line was completed, the Calgary Transportation Study also foresaw the opening of a third seven-station, 3.26-mile (5.25 kilometres) metro leg from the downtown core to the inner-southwest neighbourhoods of the city (City of Calgary, 1967:20; Figure A:22). The first station of this southwest leg outside of the downtown core would have been built under 14 Street SW, between 10 Avenue and 11 Avenue SW, and commissioned as Sunalta Station. The southwest leg would then have been extended beneath 14 Street SW to the aptly-named 17 Avenue Station, at the junction of 14 Street and 17 Avenue SW, and to Bankview Station, where 14 Street and 25 Avenue intersect. From there, the southwest metro leg would have turned beneath 26 Avenue SW to South Calgary Station, at its intersection with 20 Street SW, and to Knob Hill Station, at its junction with Crowchild Trail SW. At that point, the southwest metro leg would have continued to Killarney Station, where 26 Avenue and 29 Street SW intersect, and thence to its terminus at Glendale Station, at the junction of 26 Avenue and 37 Street SW (1967:28).

Even though the Calgary Transportation Study did make a point of mapping a fourth metro leg to serve the northern environs of the city (City of Calgary, 1967:20; Figure A:21), no date for implementing the seven-station, 4.61-mile (7.42 kilometres) extension was defined in the document, indicating that northward metro construction would have occurred well beyond the twenty-year horizon by which the study was constrained (1967:28). Initially, the north leg would have curved out of the downtown core to stop at Renfrew Station, at the intersection of Eighth Avenue and Edmonton Trail NE. The metro would then have eased itself to an alignment under Centre Street North, with stops at Crescent Heights Station, at the junction with 16 Avenue North, and at Tuxedo Station, at the junction with 24 Avenue North. Further stops were set for construction along Centre Street at Northminster Station, where Centre Street meets 32 Avenue North, and at Highland Park Station, at Centre Street’s intersection with 40 Avenue North. After a slight deviation to meet 48 Avenue Station, at the intersection of Centre Street and Laycock Drive North, the north leg of the metro would ease itself under Fourth Street NW to its terminus at Thorncliffe Station, at its junction with Northmount Drive NW.

The Calgary Transportation Study was predicated on the construction of metro service being divided into several stages. The first stage would have seen construction of a continuous metro line from Brisebois Station in the northwest through the downtown core to a southern terminus at Haysboro Station by 1978 (City of Calgary, 1967:27). In its second stage, the Calgary Transportation Study metro system would have been built to the southwest from the city centre to Glendale Station by 1986 (1967:28). Concurrently, by 1986 the original metro line would have been extended to the northwest from Brisebois to Banff Trail Station, and to the south from Haysboro to Southwood Station (1967:28). The fourth and final stage of metro construction in Calgary would then have involved the commissioning of the northeast leg from downtown to Thorncliffe at an indeterminate point in the future (1967:28).

The Decision for Light Rail

By 1970, the planning and design process for passenger metro service in Calgary had progressed to the point where functional engineering studies had generated cost estimates for a re-aligned downtown service underneath Stephen Avenue ranging from $26.5-million to $35.8-million, depending on whether the four proposed downtown metro stations were to be constructed with central platforms or side platforms (Simpson and Curtin et alia, 1970:8). At the same time, 1970 would witness the start of a building boom, and subsequently of construction inflation, in Calgary, thus rendering moot most of the capital cost calculations that the Calgary Transportation Study had estimated three years before. The city’s transportation planners were therefore left to find alternatives to metro construction that required lesser degrees of capital investment while offering most of the operational advantages of metro service. It was over the course of this investigation that the city would seize upon light rail transit as its preferred construction alternative.

In “Selection of LRT for Calgary’s South Corridor”, their 1978 report to the American Public Transport Association, City of Calgary transportation experts W.C. Kuyt and J.D. Hemstock described the incremental improvements and strategic system planning (1978:3-4) that had been implemented between the demise of the Calgary Transportation Study’s metro plan and the commissioning of light rail transit service for the city. The establishment of Blue Arrow express bus services to Calgary’s outlying regions and a series of ancillary road upgrades dated back to 1973. In 1975, it was officially proposed that a light rail transit service be constructed from the downtown core to Anderson Road, using a combination of transit-only surface service along Seventh Avenue and a shared right of way with the Canadian Pacific Railway. Calgary’s City Council approved the construction of this light rail service in May of 1977, and the first stages of light rail implementation in Calgary officially commenced on 25 July 1977. In their analysis and preparations for light rail construction, Kuyt and Hemstock succeeded in their argument for building light rail prior to further roadway upgrades, noting that “potential savings, both financial and environmental, are achievable therefore only if transit precedes road construction” (1978:7).

Kuyt and Hemstock compared light rail’s capital and operational capabilities both to expanded Blue Arrow express bus services and to dedicated busways (1978:13-15), and found both of these alternatives inferior to that of light rail in Calgary. Despite a relative premium over both busways and express bus lanes in required capital funding, Kuyt and Hemstock concluded that light rail service trumped both modes of enhanced bus service by ameliorating roadway traffic congestion and by minimising annual operating costs (1978:13-15). “Most importantly, however,” Kuyt and Hemstock noted, “it was felt that the level of service and capacity which could be offered would be essential in achieving long term transit objectives” (1978:15). In the ultimate analysis that Kuyt and Hemstock offered, “by providing a high level of service at reasonable cost and substantial flexibility for improvement and expansion, LRT is most suitable to meet the City’s objectives” (1978:28).

Works Cited

City of Calgary (1967). Calgary Transportation Study, Volume 2. From City of Calgary Archives.

Kuyt, W.C., and Hemstock, J.D. (1978). “Selection of LRT for Calgary’s South Corridor”. From proceedings of American Public Transport Association Western Conference, 15-19 Apr 1978. From City of Calgary Archives.