On October 10, 2024 Calgarians got the good news that the City of Calgary and the Province of Alberta have agreed to continue with some of the work on the Green Line, saving 700 jobs and salvaging nearly 2 Billion dollars of tax payer money from being wasted. 

We at the Alliance have heard that our efforts to keep the province engaged was key in moving them to collaborative action with the city. We are counting this as a win for civic engagement! 

It was a rollercoaster summer for the Green Line, especially in September when the province unexpectedly pulled their funding after reviewing the "Build the Core" decision council made on July 30th to build the a shortened Green Line LRT from Ogden, through downtown and to Eau Claire. We are glad that Premier Smith and Mayor Gondek have been able to sit down to talk about how to salvage contracted work so as to minimize wind-down costs, as this project needs to prioritize results for people over political grandstanding. The province expects their privately contracted review of alignment options to be complete by December 2024 at which point council will vote on how to move forward. 

In early parts of our campaign, the Alliance engaged with council and Alberta MLA's with letter writing and in-person conversations over pancakes during Stampede, reminding them of the importance of the Green Line and urging them to keep Eau Claire station and the downtown section as a key piece of the Green Line's ability to connect north Calgary in the future. In September we ramped up our letter writing and organized a rally/press conference at City Hall on September 16th, 2024. With over 100 people attending and press coverage in major papers and radio, we know that our continued engagement with the province has been a pressure point that ultimately brought them to the discussion table so that the over billion dollars already spent on the Green Line wouldn't go to waste and could be integrated into the work the province will likely suggest for LRT in south Calgary. 

We are disappointed that the original Green Line project, the culmination of many years of work and citizen engagement, has been shelved, yet we remain hopeful and determined that we will continue to advocate for transit to continue being built until it does serve north Calgary. Access to reliable transit is an equity issue, and north Calgary has been waiting a long time for their access. We stand behind public transportation, believing in the value of transit environmentally and for economic empowerment of all communities.