page_title: Transportation in Calgary
section_title: Light rail
hierarchical_section_title: Transportation in Calgary / Public transportation / Light rail
caption_attribution_description: English: Calgary LRT, downtown city hall station.
context_page_description: The city of Calgary, Alberta, has a large transportation network that encompasses a variety of road, rail, air, public transit, and pedestrian infrastructure. Calgary is also a major Canadian transportation centre and a central cargo hub for freight in and out of north-western North America. The city sits at the junction between the "Canamex" highway system and the Trans-Canada Highway.
  As a prairie city, Calgary has never had any major impediments to growth. As such, it has developed into a city with an area of about 745 km² and a metropolitan area of nearly 5,100 km². This outward growth has encouraged the development of an extensive personal vehicle-oriented road network complete with a freeway system.
  Since 1981, when the city officially opened the first leg of its CTrain rapid transit system, emphasis on public transportation as an alternative to cars has become important. The CTrain has the second-highest light rail system ridership of any North American city, only slightly behind Guadalajara, Mexico. Cycling is also seen as a major alternative to driving in Calgary.
context_section_description: The light rail transit (LRT) system, known as the C-Train, consists of 58.5 km (36.4 mi) of track connecting 45 stations and was one of the first such systems in North America. Until very recently, Calgary and Edmonton were the only two North American cities with populations under one million to operate rapid mass transit systems.
  The Saddletowne-69 St. (Route 202) line serves the city's West, downtown and Northeast areas, while the Tuscany-Somerset–Bridlewood (Route 201) line runs between the Northwest and South Calgary via the 7th Avenue South transit-only corridor. Travel between stations along 7th Avenue in downtown is free-of-charge. Unique to the C-Train system, its power is completely wind generated and completely free of emissions. An extension of the Route 202 line was recently built to serve some Southwest communities to the west of downtown. The project is called the WestLRT and was completed in December 2012.
caption: C-Train at City Hall Station
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