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“It was like being ignored the whole time. It was the same political letters that all of them sent us,” O’Neil said.

“We never stopped and we never gave up.”

The city designed the route through the Unitarian campus to avoid major water and sewer lines in the area. Engineers have now found a way to build the train tunnel away from the campus without creating havoc with the underground infrastructure.

The city will save some money by not having to expropriate other properties on Richmond Road, like a garage and restaurant, but it plans to reinvest the savings into the construction and operations.

On the other hand, the new alignment will bring the tunnel closer to a condo at the corner of Richmond Road and Cleary Avenue. The city is working on measures to limit the noise from the trains.

Kitchissippi Coun. Jeff Leiper likes that a shift of the Cleary station will protect more National Capital Commission greenspace.

“On first blush I’m very supportive of this,” Leiper said.

The NCC also supports the changes, the city said.

There are two other changes to the Stage 2 LRT blueprint in the east end.

Where the city was planning to run LRT below Blair Road and two ramps connecting Hwy. 174, it now wants to run trains along the existing Transitway on the north side of the highway, eliminating the need to build tunnels on a new alignment. It will save $4 to 5 million and be easier to maintain, the city said.

The final tweak, which will save $12 million, has the city bringing the LRT line into the median of Hwy. 174 sooner, going west to east. It was going to happen east of Montreal Road, but the city now wants to transition trains to the median 2.3 kilometres farther west, just east of Blair Road. It means the city wouldn’t need to build a 500 metre long structure over Montreal Road. Montreal station would be located in the highway median.