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Northwest LRT station may be delayed as city eyes construction priorities


By Jason Markusoff, Calgary Herald July 16, 2011 8:28 AM

The northwest LRT extension to Tuscany and Rocky Ridge could be delayed by several years as council prepares to reshuffle its construction priority list and push ahead other projects the city currently can’t afford.

That planned new C-Train station, which will cost $80.6 million, was among the specific projects that at least one alderman is suggesting could move back in the to-do queue. Ald. Brian Pincott’s southwest ward, which has waited uncomfortably long without a ring-road leg, has its $43.6-million rapid busway project — a “dire need,” he said — sitting on the unfunded list that the city’s transportation committee will debate Wednesday.

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With the 14th Street S.W. bus rapid transit project sharing space on the unfunded list with the newly approved cycling strategy’s upgrades, a $62-million scheme to fuel buses with natural gas, the debate will likely be rife with aldermen fighting for their ward-specific projects at the expense of others.

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The Tuscany/Rocky Ridge LRT project has been funded since 2007, when then-mayor Dave Bronconnier pushed it through along with the west LRT and northeast train extensions, fulfilling an election pledge.

“It’s been delayed enough, in my opinion,” Hodges said of the Tuscany station, currently scheduled for a 2014 opening. The city has already secured the land clearance through the Crowchild Trail-Stoney Trail interchange for the project, and also closed down Rocky Ridge Road, spending roughly $20 million to date, he said.

Nenshi has openly questioned the 2007 council’s snap decision on the northwest and other LRT plans.

Ald. Andre Chabot, the transportation committee’s chairman, was non-committal on the fate of the extra station on the northwest line. “What was the highest priority yesterday may still not be the highest priority today,” he said.

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