Calgary’s Plus 15 Skywalk Network: How to Walk Downtown Indoors

What the Plus 15 is, and how far it reaches

The City of Calgary manages the network, and its current description is 86 bridges and more than 16 kilometres of elevated walkway connecting over 100 buildings. Bridges cross roadways, public lanes and light rail transit tracks; the stretches between them are publicly accessible walkways inside private buildings, secured by public easements rather than by public ownership of the floorspace.

It is a web with dead ends rather than a single corridor. City policy places the network across the downtown core, extending from 8th Street S.W. to 3rd Street S.E. and from 2nd Avenue S.W. to 10th Avenue S.W. Ownership is split: the City owns the bridges over road, lane and transit right-of-way, while building owners own the connectors and walkways within their own properties.

• The network is made up of bridges, bridge connectors, walkways at the Plus 15 level, open-air structures, and level access such as stairs, ramps, escalators and lifts inside buildings.
• Most of it is enclosed and climate controlled. A small number of structures are open-air and predate the 1984 policy that shaped the modern network.
• The Plus 15 level is normally a building’s second floor, so the walkways pass above street-level retail rather than beside it.

Typical operating hours, and why they vary

The network does not open and close as one system. The City sets standard hours, which are longer on weekdays than at weekends and on statutory holidays, and the network is closed on Christmas Day. Some bridges keep shorter hours, or close at weekends and on statutory holidays, because the route passes through buildings that are themselves closed.

Sections also close for construction, lifecycle upgrades and approved events. The City keeps a current table of Plus 15 construction closures and updates it as projects move, which means a route that worked last month may not work this week.

How to navigate it

The difficulty with the Plus 15 is rarely finding it and usually staying oriented inside it. Because the route runs through buildings, you cannot navigate by sightlines the way you can on a street. Two habits help: use the street grid outside as your compass, since most bridges cross an avenue or a street, and navigate by destination rather than by direction of travel.

The City has been replacing the network’s original 1980s-era signage with a single wayfinding system, installed first in City-operated buildings and bridges and then by private property owners using City-supplied signs and installation specifications. The programme is staged, so parts of the network still carry the older signs.

• Download the City’s Plus 15 map before you go and keep it on your phone; the network is far easier to plan than to improvise.
• Use the avenue and street names of the bridges you cross to keep a running fix on where you are.
• Allow more time than the straight-line distance suggests. Routes through buildings detour around atria, parkades, retail floors and closed links.

Accessibility

Access into and through the network depends on level access: the publicly accessible stairs, ramps, escalators and lifts inside buildings that connect the street to the Plus 15 level. The City’s stated objective is convenient, safe and universally accessible pedestrian connections, and accessibility is one of the issues the current wayfinding programme is meant to address. Public engagement for the Plus 15 policy identified inconsistent accessibility as one of the network’s weaknesses.

The honest position for a user is that access varies by building and by entrance. Some routes are step-free from the sidewalk to the Plus 15 level; others are reached by stairs only, and a lift that exists may sit inside a building and be available only during that building’s opening hours.

How the network connects to the CTrain

City policy states the network’s objective as convenient, safe and universally accessible pedestrian connections to transportation, naming light rail transit, bus rapid transit, bus stops, cycle tracks and parking alongside buildings, businesses, cultural landmarks and public spaces. Bridges are defined as structures crossing roadways, transit tracks and public lanes, so the network crosses the downtown transit corridor rather than running beside it.

The City’s Greater Downtown Plan commits to integrating the Plus 15 network with LRT stations and to improving the street-level entrances that connect to transit hubs. That wording matters: integration is a stated direction of travel, not a guarantee that every downtown station is linked by an indoor route today.

Practical habits

• Report a closed link, a broken lift or a maintenance problem to the City through 311, which routes Plus 15 issues to the City’s Plus 15 team.
• Expect the street-level entrances to be the least protected part of any route. Stairs, ramps and doorways at street level are outside.
• Do not plan a route that depends on passing through a building outside its opening hours.
• If a bridge is closed, follow the signed detour rather than retrying the same link or stepping onto the roadway.