Beneath the new 30-storey Epcor tower that’s being built at 101st Street north of the CN Tower, work is underway completing an underground tunnel. The tunnel will tie the existing LRT line into the new Downtown-NAIT line just north of Churchill Station.

Work on the new tunnel began more than a year ago, one of the city’s best recent examples of foresight. Rather than face the complicated and expensive challenge of boring a tunnel beneath the tower, the tunnel cavity, 160 metres long and up to 20 metres wide, was constructed first.

Then the rest of the building went on top. Smart and dandy.

City council recently confirmed the 3.1 kilometre line as its LRT priority, and construction is targeted for completion in 2014. The Downtown-NAIT line, with a new stop at the City Centre Airport, will be followed by lines to the west and southeast, approved by council in December.

After years of debate and wrangling, public hearings and hand-wringing, councillors approved three alignments. One line is to go from downtown to West Edmonton Mall and Lewis Estates along 104th Avenue, Stony Plain Road and 87th Avenue. The other is to travel from downtown through Cloverdale and Strathearn, along 82nd Street and then 75th Street to Mill Woods.

The completion of all these routes would revitalize Jasper Place, the North Edge of downtown, Bonnie Doon and the airport lands, and more than double the size of the LRT system to 48 kilometres from 20 currently. The total cost of the proposed work is about $3 billion, and it would bring Edmonton ever closer to its ambition as a modern, innovative city with a modern and innovative transit system to boot.

The twin tracks of the Downtown-NAIT line will follow the tunnel underneath 104th Avenue, bend west underneath the Epcor Tower development at 101st Street and travel beneath 105th Avenue until 103rd Street, where they will emerge above ground at MacEwan LRT Station. The tracks are to continue west at street level, bend north up 105th Street, then swing east at 108th Avenue to join 104th Street between the Prince of Wales Armouries and the Victoria School of Performing and Visual Arts.

The alignment will then travel north on 104th Street until Kingsway Avenue, where they veer west to Kingsway LRT Station immediately adjacent to the Royal Alexandra Hospital. The tracks then continue northwest along Kingsway to 106th Street, where they turn north once again, following 106th Street to Princess Elizabeth Avenue.

Once the Epcor tunnel segment is completed, excavation for the portal when it breaks the surface will begin at 105th Avenue and 103rd Street. The cut-and-cover portion of the tunnel will then be built eastwards to near 102nd Street.

Once that is done, the subterranean part of the tunnel will be constructed linking the cavity under the Epcor Tower. The final segment will then be built from Epcor to Churchill Station. Once the entire 700-metre long cavity is complete, crews will construct concrete slabs inside the two track tunnel and install the tracks on them, and get the electrical and mechanical systems in place.

The two-storey MacEwan Station west of 105th Avenue at 103rd Street will feature an overhead pedestrian walkway connecting to heated waiting platforms on either side of the tracks. Located on the north side of Kingsway Avenue at 105th Street next to the Royal Alexandra Hospital, the Kingsway Station will be built with access to health care services as a priority.

While the work on the NAIT line is underway, the city is also examining at least eight possible routes that will someday link Edmonton and St. Albert. The corridors would run along possible alignments next to St. Albert Trail, 127th Street or 113 A Street, starting at NAIT.

The lines would be eight to 10 kilometres long and completing them could cost around $1.5 billion. It would likely use the existing high-floor trains rather than the low-floor cars that are planned for the new west and southeast routes. The city is asking residents and business owners along the proposed northwest routes for feedback, and council is to make a decision on routing this summer.

Gazing into the crystal ball, other routes under consideration include extensions from Century Park to Ellerslie Road and Heritage Valley, from Clareview to Gorman and the rural northeast, and east to Sherwood Park. A surface loop through downtown is also being touted as a possibility.

Construction on any of the other lines isn’t likely to start until after the NAIT line is complete, unless the city’s bid for Expo 2017 is successful. If that happens, the city has indicated it will be ready to fast track the lines to have trains running on them in 2016.

For more information on Edmonton’s LRT projects, visit www.edmonton.ca/lrtprojects