For more than six years, Coun. Jim Stevenson sent letters to countless politicians, led hundreds of presentations and met with officials anywhere he could to garner support for a project he believed was important for a growing Calgary.
There were days he believed the whole thing would fall apart, as he faced opposition from council colleagues and struggled to convince provincial counterparts to see the value an airport tunnel would bring to the city.
On the weekend, the Ward 3 councillor finally saw the hard-fought and controversial build come to fruition. Standing in the eastbound lanes of the $295-million tunnel on Saturday, Stevenson – along with Mayor Naheed Nenshi, Calgary Mackay-Nose Hill MLA Dr. Neil Brown, and Calgary Airport Authority board chairman David Swanson – celebrated the roadway’s grand opening with thousands of Calgarians in attendance.
Past foes of the project who argued the underpass shouldn’t get built said, amid the celebration, that residents should recognize the city faces many years of empty coffers as it deals with more pressing transportation woes down the road. But on Saturday, the crowds snapped photos of Lamborghinis, Ferraris and other fancy cars at a show and shine, lined up for snacks at the food trucks, and were serenaded by live bands at the opening day party that gave members of the public a chance to visit the tunnel on foot before it opened to traffic at 5 a.m. Sunday morning.
Stevenson scanned the structure with great satisfaction. “This is pretty exciting,” he told reporters. “I just felt there had to be a way, if something is right and you believe in it, you just keep pushing for it.”
On Sunday, when the airport tunnel opened to traffic early in the morning, Ed Tanas lined up at around 5 a.m. to be one of the first drivers through. He posted a dashboard video of his trip on Twitter, under the handle @calgarykiaguy.
Tanas described driving through the tunnel as “awesome,” “neat” and “fun.”
The six-lane, 620-metre roadway – built beneath the airport’s new runway – connects Airport Trail between Barlow Trail and 36th Street N.E. and is meant to link the east and west parts of the city. It’s estimated the tunnel will have 15,000 users daily. Council approved the project in February 2011 and five months later, excavation began. Stevenson said there is still years of work yet to be done.
Former alderman and mayoral candidate Bob Hawkesworth, who campaigned against the tunnel, said the city will pay an even bigger price for “burying” close to $300 million on the project when it’s looking for cash for the next leg of the LRT and other big ticket transit projects.
“There’s a lot of more important projects that are going to go unfunded for a number of years as a legacy of this tunnel at the airport,” he said on Sunday. “I don’t think anybody in the provincial government looking at that priority is going to rush to write a cheque to Calgary city council, for the things they want money for….” For now, the road dead-ends at 36th Street as the city cannot extend Airport Trail farther east to Metis Trail until it helps finance interchanges that will lead into the airport terminal.
But the plan is to ultimately connect Stoney Trail east to the Centre Street alignment. The LRT will also eventually run through the tunnel. Stevenson acknowledged it may be difficult to see the impact the tunnel will have on the city as it stands today.
“But when we add another 50 to 60,000 people on the other side of that stoplight (east of 36th Street) and we create another 40 to 50,000 jobs all around this airport, that’s when this is really going to be important,” he said. “Today, it will help us. But in the future, it will be necessary.”
The mayor touted the roadway as a “remarkable feat of engineering,” which he proudly reminded the public was completed “on time and on budget.”
“It had to be built to very specific specifications because of what’s on top of it. The runway that’s on top of this is not a road, it’s almost like a giant skyscraper that’s tilted on its side,” Nenshi said. “The new runway is almost the length of from City Hall to Heritage Drive, so think about that.”
Swanson, Calgary Airport Authority’s board chairman, said the tunnel will benefit the airport and those who work at and use the facility, which continues to grow and had 14 million passengers pass through last year.
By Clara Ho, Calgary Herald
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