Article content

A few years ago, a southeast Calgary councillor encouraged the bus-only expressway to the south hospital that’s now planned as a first step before an LRT line.

Shane Keating now has a better idea. He wants city transportation planers to figure out how to skip transit’s version of training wheels and go directly to LRT down Centre Street and into the deep southeast. He’ll call for a new study into this possibility at Monday’s council meeting.

We apologize, but this video has failed to load.

tap here to see other videos from our team. Try refreshing your browser, or Keating wants to fast-track southeast LRT, instead of bus corridor first Back to video

The estimated price tag for bus rapid transit from Country Hills to the hospital is less than $1 billion, and most is already funded and planned, with construction set to start in 2017. The fuller meal deal, CTrains along that line, is $5 billion — or more than triple the cost of the west LRT.

“LRT was always the goal. BRT was the halfway step. Times have changed,” Keating said Wednesday.

What’s changed? The federal government has pledged a transit fund worth $1 billion a year by 2019, and Alberta’s incoming NDP government will grant $250 million for urban transit in its first year. Add in some other potential sources, and Keating believes his quadrant’s Green Line LRT dream has a legitimate shot.