Overview
The City of Calgary's 
Centre City Plan (approved by Calgary City Council May7, 2007) recommends enhanced urban design in Calgary’s Centre City. This includes:
- Showcasing key gateways to downtown;
- Accentuating important views and landmark features;
- Facilitating and creating great design in the public realm;
- Incorporating new technologies;
- Applying decorative lighting to highlight architecture and animate the public realm;
- Preserving and enlivening heritage resources; and,
- Employing economic and environmental sustainable development practices.
In 2011, City Council adopted the Centre City Illumination Guidelines, a non-statutory policy which addresses experiential lighting guidelines as one more step towards implementing the Centre City Plan’s urban design vision.
The Centre Street Bridge Lighting Project addresses various principles and urban design objectives outlined in both the Centre City Plan and the Centre City Illumination Guidelines.
Project Summary
The Centre Street Bridge is a heritage resource and an important pathway for Calgarians and their visitors, who are walking, biking or travelling by bus or car. It’s also an important gateway to our Chinatown community.
The City of Calgary is introducing new LED lights to better illuminate bridge features and reduce maintenance costs and energy consumption.
Light Emitting Diode (LED) luminaries will be used to update the existing decorative lighting fixtures. The light emitted by the LED’s will wash the bridge with white light, better accentuating the architectural features of this heritage landmark.
New LED lighting will also showcase the four lion pavilions that mark the bridge entranceways. The lighting will highlight the lions while also illuminating the interiors of the pavilions, creating bright and welcoming gateways at each end of the bridge.
Sustainable Benefits
This project serves as a demonstration of new sustainable technologies that can be employed by both The City of Calgary
and our citizens when it comes to commercial and residential lighting.
LED lighting is energy efficient and cost-effective. The wattage of LED lamps is much lower than traditional lighting systems, resulting in less energy usage. LED lamps last four to ten times longer than traditional lights, and therefore minimize maintenance time and costs.
The new Centre Street Bridge lighting will be controlled by an astronomical clock timer. This timer will further improve the efficiencies in power consumption as the timer adjusts light time by season and can also shut off decorative lights during low use periods – such as between 2 and 6 a.m.
Project Timelines
Improvements will begin on February 6 and will require southbound Centre Street between 2 Avenue and Samis Road to be reduced to one lane during off peak hours (9 a.m. to 3 p.m.) Monday to Friday and from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. on weekends.
The sidewalk on the west side of Centre Street Bridge will be temporarily closed until work on the west side has been completed. Once crews move to the east side of the bridge, the west sidewalk will be reopened and the east sidewalk will be closed until the project is completed.
The project will be completed in summer 2012.
