Edmonton Valley Line light rail transit

With relatively low density population, the City of Edmonton sought to implement a new vision of mass transit that integrates transit into communities and makes access simple. The Valley Line Light Rail Transit (LRT) is Edmonton’s first implementation of this low floor, street level transit line that extends transit service to the south east portion of the city. The compact transit form required creative engineering solutions along the heavily constrained route. 

Our team was engaged as the Owner’s Engineer for this project which was the city’s first procurement under a partnership model. In this role, we built and led the team that developed all reference design and procurement documents and managed the tendering process for the new LRT system. 

We are leading the Owner’s Engineer team for the AFP/P3 procurement of the Valley Line Phase 1: (Southeast LRT: Downtown to Mill Woods) and are Prime Consultant for the preliminary design / reference concept design (RCD) of the entire Valley Line, Southeast to West LRT (Mill Woods to Lewis Estates).  

The Valley Line project focuses on mode shift, providing citizens with premium public transit along with shared-use pathways and other infrastructure that encourages a more active, greener lifestyle. The auto-to-transit mode shift is estimated to eliminate 5,340 metric tons of greenhouse gasses (GHG) per year.  

We also developed a ‘Green Charter’ for the project, based on public engagement and industry best practices, that is meant to ensure that the new LRT will integrate into the communities it serves in an environmentally- and community-friendly manner.  

As part of the engagement, we consulted with the 31 First Nations affected by the project and invited them to participate in construction monitoring to ensure any archaeological finds were handled in a culturally appropriate fashion. Representatives of the 17 First Nations who chose to participate in the program monitored construction in one week rotations.