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Fund swap could boost southeast Calgary transit




By Jason Markusoff, Calgary Herald November 14, 2011


CALGARY — Some inventive arithmetic devised by transportation officials will let council plow nearly a half-billion dollars into southeast transit upgrades — something that otherwise would have to wait until mid-decade, at least.


A few hundred million dollars from the west LRT column here, a few more hundred million more from a provincial transit grant there . . . it’s even difficult for an alderman to sort out and comprehend, but if it means his district can finally take steps toward LRT, it’s all good.


Under the current funding plan, southeast Calgary would have had to wait until at least 2015 — or the next financial boom — to unlock the much-discussed Green Trip transit grant dollars, which required matching funds from city hall, which doesn’t have matching funds.


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The city’s proposed money shuffle would devote a wad of Green Trip dollars to the west LRT. Then, the city would swap out west LRT funds from another provincial grant program (the Stelmach-era Municipal Sustainability Initiative) and use those to match to the transit grants the Tory government has already pledged.


The result: in the next few years, Calgary gets to devote $464 million to building up transit infrastructure on the future southeast LRT corridor and 17th Avenue S.E., and west LRT remains fully funded at the same time, without spending a single extra civic dollar.

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This proposal, which council will vote on today, has the added benefit of making up the $35-million overrun that’s been confirmed on the west LRT, which will now open in March 2013 instead of December 2012.

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Calgary has already committed $241 million of that total for replacement vehicles for the existing C-Train system, and a study into interim busways within the downtown-to-south-hospital route of the future southeast LRT.


Should council approve this, building those busways and securing more LRT land can happen sooner than officials much earlier than expected.


Neil McKendrick, the city’s transit planning manager, said that study will help the city determine by next summer what it can build with that $464 million in the next few years.

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Rest of article here