The Green Line's downtown route, at grade on 10 Avenue

The Beat

The route the committee chose

On September 8 2026, Calgary's Executive Committee voted to recommend that Council pick Option 3, the 10 Avenue and 2 Street SW surface alignment, and discontinue work on Option 1, the elevated baseline the Government of Alberta brought forward. The vote was twelve to one. The same motion directs administration to advance planning and design on the option the committee named, along with procurement.

The City describes the route on its Downtown Segment page. The line will travel at grade along 10 Avenue, from Event Centre/Grand Central Station to 2 Street SW, running down the centre of 10 Avenue S with a lane of traffic on either side so access to parkades and businesses is kept. A climate-controlled pedestrian access will bring riders from the station into the Plus 15 network, and the pedestrian underpass at 1 Street SW gets improvements.

The first phase of public engagement on the downtown plan ran in February and March 2026, and the City followed with a research program in April to gauge support.

What Council directed on June 30

On June 30 2026, Council directed administration to explore and evaluate potential alternatives for the downtown segment. The City has set the boundaries of that work out on its project pages. Its analysis did not consider a tunnel in this phase. The alternatives it weighed were at-grade or elevated.

The direction followed a unanimous Executive Committee vote three weeks earlier to keep studying alternatives, on an amendment brought by Ward 13 Councillor Dan McLean. Wendy Tynan, the Green Line director, said at that committee meeting that spending the next couple of months on the work was not a material delay.

What the province has said

Alberta Transportation Minister Devin Dreeshen said in June that the province is open to discussing refinements to the alignment, and that a downtown tunnel is not on the table. He described the province's focus as delivering an above ground alignment that respects commuters and taxpayer dollars. Alberta is one of the three funding partners on Phase 1, alongside the Government of Canada and the City.

What happened at Executive Committee on September 8

Administration brought its assessment of feasible options to Executive Committee on September 8 2026. The committee's motion also sends the budget for the southeast extension to Seton, and the budget for north corridor planning and design, to Council for the 2027-2030 cycle.

In June the Green Line director said the timeline for a downtown decision remained the end of the year. The committee's decision came in September, and the City's project pages now carry the route and the work that follows it.

What is being built while this is decided

Construction on the southeast segment began in June 2025 and continues. That segment runs 16 kilometres from Shepard to the Event Centre and Grand Central Station, carrying the first 10 stations on the line. The downtown segment picks up where that work ends.

Following the file

The committee's recommendation goes to Council on the consent agenda of its September 22 2026 meeting, and Council has the last word on it. Administration is directed to report back to Executive Committee on November 3 on the MAX Green bus rapid transit costs and on the budgets for the southeast and north work. A public realm, streetscape and mobility plan for 10 Avenue rides with it, with the full report due no later than the first quarter of 2027.

If you are weighing the Beltline or Victoria Park against somewhere else in the city, September 22 is the next date on the calendar that changes what we know here. The Beltline and sixty-five other Calgary communities sit on our full neighbourhoods index. The committee has picked the route. Council has not ratified it.