The Alberta government has unveiled its revised route for Calgary’s controversial $6.2-billion Green Line LRT project, but city officials and local stakeholders are raising concerns over missing details.

The proposed new route does not include the former Eau Claire Market site, which was intended to be the downtown terminus station in a scaled-down version that the city approved. That version cut six stations from original list of 13. As a result of the proposed Eau station’s exclusion, the province’s latest revision only restored five of the six previously scrapped stations.

The Eau Claire exclusion comes after Calgary-based Harvard Developments sold the former market site to the city and unveiled plans to develop a large-scale mixed-use project on other lands that the company owns around the would-be station considered to be integral stop. In addition to buying the former market site, the city expropriated land to accommodate the new station.

AECOM redrew the route after being commissioned by the province at a cost of $2.5 million. But the province did not release the company’s full report after being widely expected do so.,

Instead, Transportation Minister Devin Dreeshen presented a single map and a brief news release Friday, touting the project as “back on track.”

The new version of the Green Line eliminates a previously proposed downtown tunnel and replaces it with elevated tracks running along the northern edge of 10th Avenue in the Beltline district and Second Street S.W. downtown. The route would terminate above the existing Red and Blue C-Train lines on Seventh Avenue.

The province has promised that the new version will keep the Green Line’s $6.2-billion budget intact.

But Mayor Jyoti Gondek criticized the province’s approach, citing a lack of information provided to the city ahead of the public release. City councillors received a single-slide briefing at 7 a.m. Friday and were promised the full report later that day. However, the 165-page report, marked ‘confidential,’ arrived at 10 p.m., leaving little time for review, CBC reported.

“We’ve been given no time to even look at what’s been proposed, but the government has already put it out in the media,” Gondek told CBC. “We’re in a really tough position because we’ve been given a document that’s marked confidential. We’ve been told this is a better alignment, but we can’t talk about what’s in this report.”

Gondek added that questions remain about whether impacted businesses and communities were consulted.

The province’s proposed alignment has sparked concerns about its impact on downtown streets, businesses, and accessibility. Elevated tracks along Second Street S.W. would occupy space currently used by three Plus-15 bridges, according to CBC, and questions remain about shadowing effects, street parking, and pedestrian access. (The Plus-15 is a skywalk system that links downtown buildings to each other, enabling pedestrians to avoid meandering along busy downtown streets during cold and hot weather.)

“There are so many intricacies around a 10th Avenue alignment,” David Low, executive-director for the Victoria Park Business Improvement Area told CBC.

He noted that neither AECOM, the consultant behind the redesign, nor the province consulted him.

“By not properly understanding what the impacts are, you could put businesses out of business,” he told CBC. “You could also successfully sterilize entire blocks of 10th Avenue.”

Peter Oliver, director of the Beltline Neighbourhoods Association, called the elevated tracks “disastrous” in an interview with CTV, citing potential for crime, accessibility issues, and disruption to businesses.

“You have all the stations, the escalator banks, the emergency exit staircases on each end of the platform — either they’re going to have space to build those, which it isn’t really obvious where they would go or they’ll have to issue parachutes in the overhead of the train cars so that people can jump off the side of the tracks,” he told CTV. “We don’t know, because it’s all the secret.”

One of the most controversial changes is the removal of the Eau Claire station, which was integral to the city’s original plan. The city purchased and closed Eau Claire Market to make way for the station and expropriated the adjacent River Run condominiums.

Naheed Nenshi, the Alberta NDP Leader, renewed his scathing criticism of his province’s handling of the Green Line project. Nenshi spearheaded the project during his tenure as Calgary’s mayor.

“If you stop at Seventh Avenue, then the most obvious question people should ask is, what happens to that very valuable piece of land at Eau Claire Market?” Nenshi told Calgary Herald columnist Don Braid on Monday. “The market is closed. It’s boarded up. It’s ready for construction. There’s hundreds of millions of dollars at stake on that development that cannot go forward unless the Green Line is built to Eau Claire. You think the city and the province aren’t going to get sued for at least nine figures? Of course, they are.”

Nenshi also pointed out the north leg of the Green Line, up Centre Street North, remains abandoned under the province’s plan despite it being one of the city’s highest-ridership corridors.

“Right now at rush hour, we’ve got completely packed buses nose-to-tail on Centre Street,” Nenshi told Braid. “But the minister just scoffed and said maybe many years in the future some future council might go ahead with the north line.”

Premier Danielle Smith defended the new alignment, saying the changes balance affordability with expanded service.

“I think we just have to come to terms with the fact that this project is a $20-billion project overall. It is a lot more expensive than anyone anticipated,” Smith said during her weekly call-in radio show. “We’re trying to make the best of getting a reasonable amount of it built at a reasonable price and we hope that council looks at that and balances it and makes a decision on it soon.”

Dreeshen’s office issued a statement Monday reiterating that the Green Line remains “a City of Calgary project” and encouraged council to thoroughly review the proposal.

“The ball is now in Calgary city council’s court,” Dreeshen said Friday.

Dreeshen withdrew the province’s $1.5-billion investment in the project after initially expressing support for the city’s approved version. City council subsequently voted to wind down the project, calling on Smith’s government to take it over and assume the financial responsibility.

The city and province later announced that they have agreed to allow construction to resume on the portion of the Green Line that extends from 4th Street S.E. near downtown to Shepard in southeast Calgary.

For now, Calgary city council faces a difficult decision with limited details and an unclear path forward. Ward 10 Coun. Andre Chabot told CTV that council needs time to properly review the report before making any decisions.

Meanwhile, several announced and contemplated commercial real estate projects have been caught in the political crossfire.

“We are still waiting for our provincial government to state they will take on the financial risk for this new project,” Gondek told CTV.

Rendering: Harvard Developments