While the much beleaguered Valley Line expansion has taken a lion’s share of attention around Edmonton’s LRT of late, crews have been quietly working on another extension – to the northwest.
This one will incorporate Edmonton’s sustainable community also under construction at the old site of the municipal airport – Blatchford.
The new 1.6-kilometre addition to the Metro Line is coming in at a cost of $290 million.
“It looks like an LRT now,” said Bruce Ferguson, the City of Edmonton’s branch manager of LRT expansion.
“Fundamentally most of the infrastructure is there, the track is there, the stations are well underway. They’re actually just installing solar PV (photo-voltaic) panels on the stations this week.”
While eventually the Metro Line is planned to run to Campbell Road near St. Albert, this particular extension will add two stops – near NAIT and deeper into Blatchford.
“One is going to serve the NAIT campus the day it opens and the one further north will serve all of Blatchford but it will also serve some of the communities east of that,” Ferguson said.
Neighbourhoods like Prince Rupert and Westwood will be linked to the LRT with shared-use paths, running alongside the tracks.
When the extension opens in 2024, the city anticipates 1,400 new riders will come on board despite the fact that Blatchford itself is still being developed.
But dozens of pre-existing communities have been begging for LRT access for years, so why build to one that is still under construction?
Councillor Anne Stevenson said there was grant money available from Ottawa that covers 80 per cent of the station’s costs.
“The Metro Line had the best opportunity, was sort of furthest along – most shovel ready – to take advantage of that granting opportunity,” Stevenson said.
But, just because the extension will be complete, it doesn’t mean the trains will be gliding into the stations right away.
Council actually voted down funding the operational costs of the expansion as part of the fall budget deliberations.
“Because as much sense as it made to build those physical assets when the grant funding was there, it likely doesn’t make sense to be fully operating them while that portion of Blatchford is still building out,” Stevenson explained.
Stevenson said council is expected to hear from ETS in the fall about different operational ideas, but the Blatchford Gate station may not open for the first year or two, or may only run with partial service during peak hours until more people call the community home.
Having convenient public transit in the neighbourhood might just speed that process up.
“I think that having the LRT infrastructure there will be a huge attractor for lots of residents and builders,” Stevenson said.
The city estimates that by 2027, the Metro Line will have nearly 43,000 passengers get on board each day.
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