An official with the Northern Alberta Institute of Technology says the City of Edmonton will be suspending LRT services to the institution’s main campus for several months while it performs maintenance on the Capital Line between Clareview and Belvedere stations.

“It does seem like NAIT does seem to get the short end of the stick that way, but… I don’t know if there’s any other way for them to do this,” Jason Roth, advocacy director at the NAIT Students’ Association, said on Monday.

LRT service to NAIT will be suspended from April 28 to Aug. 30.

“It’s after exams, which is good. But it doesn’t end before our orientations start, which is not good,” Roth said.

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Roth said his understanding is that the Kingsway/Royal Alex Station will be the end of the line for those four months.

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“[Staff and students] can take a No. 8 or No. 9 (bus) from Kingsway or Royal Alex to NAIT and then back to Royal Alex afterwards,” he said. “Absolutely, it will be an inconvenience for our students, although there are fewer students around here during those months than during the rest of the year so at least, in that sense, the timing is better.”

To compensate for the delays the track maintenance will cause, the Edmonton Transit Service will run five-car LRTs, however NAIT’s LRT service will be suspended because its platform can only accommodate three cars.

A city official confirmed ceiling tiles and lighting at the Central Station platform are set to be replaced but they did not say how the maintenance may impact transit users.

The city is expected to provide more details at a news conference on Tuesday.