City warns of 9-day shutdown on portion of LRT's Red Line

Building a new LRT station by Stampede Park will soon reach a major milestone. But first, a bit of pain.

The city will close the CTrain's Red Line between City Hall/Bow Valley College station and Chinook station for nine days, starting Nov. 24.

Interrupting train service will allow construction crews to work 24 hours a day to remove the temporary platform set up in 2022 at Victoria Park/Stampede station. They'll prepare to switch over trains to the new platform that's being built.

Crews will remove existing tracks, signals and overhead power lines and prepare the new station to be in service for CTrains as of Monday Dec. 4.

Even once the cutover work is complete, it will take several more months before the $103-million project is completed.

Officials are already signalling they know the switchover will be a challenging time for CTrain users.

The station project is being managed by the Calgary Municipal Land Corporation.

Its president and CEO, Kate Thompson, wants Calgarians to get ready for the disruption.

"We know that this will be inconvenient for Calgarians," said Thompson.

But she said it's not a plan that was made without all due considerations.

"We spent months evaluating options of what's the best way to do this. How do we go from the temporary track, temporary platform, to the permanent platform?  And how do we do it safely? How do we do it efficiently?"

The CTrain disruption means Calgary Transit will be laying on its largest ever replacement shuttle service between Chinook station and City Hall/Bow Valley College station.

Those buses will stop at the 39th Avenue and Erlton/Stampede stations, which also will not have CTrain service during the nine-day period.

As well, transit plans to offer express bus service between Chinook and City Hall stations and between the Anderson and City Hall stations.

The disruption will affect schools near the Victoria Park/Stampede station and events at Stampede Park.

There will be three Calgary Flames games at the Saddledome during the temporary CTrain shutdown.

Motorists won't be exempt, either, from the impacts of the shutdown.

The city is planning lane closures on northbound Macleod Trail between 25th Avenue and 12th Avenue so crews have additional room to work around the Victoria Park/Stampede station.

Final details on the lane closures are still being worked out and will be announced in advance of the Nov. 24 shutdown.

Doug Morgan, the general manager for operational services with the City of Calgary, said efforts have been made to keep the LRT platform operational as much as possible throughout the multi-year project to rebuild the station.

He said it's extremely rare for the city to close a CTrain station for weekday service, never mind nine straight days.

"In short, we know that this closure will present some significant challenges and it wasn't a decision that we made lightly. We would not be taking this path if there was a better option."

To thank transit customers for their patience with the disruption, Calgary Transit says it will offer a 25 per cent discount to all monthly pass holders in the month of December.

Once the nine-day shutdown is over, transit users will be able to board and exit CTrains at the new platform.

Additional work on the station, including remaining construction, landscaping and integration with the new 17th Avenue crossing into Stampede Park, will continue for a number of months.

The plan is to complete the job by the time the $500-million BMO Centre expansion opens in June 2024.