Commuter or Regional Rail is used all over Europe, and is gaining popularity in North America. The costs to build a Regional Rail system varies significantly, depending upon how busy with freight the existing rail lines are.
Since I'm not familiar with the traffic of the Calgary railroad corridors, I'll just list what has been happening in the USA recently.
CapMetro in Austin, Tx has built a ~31 mile (~50 km) Metrorail commuter line for ~$105 million. That averages to ~$2.1 million/km.
CapMetro already owned the ROW, and had maintained the tracks along, so they didn't have to spend much upgrading the tracks. But they did add tracks, turnouts, rebuilt a few bridges, and added stations with park and ride lots. CapMetro bought 6 lightweight Stadler GTW DMUs. The rail line isn't busy, and CapMetro has received temporal separation approval to run their non-FRA complaint trains on the tracks.
http://allsystemsgo.capmetro.org/capital-metrorail.shtml
TriMet in Portland, Or has built a ~15 mile (~24 km) WES commuter line for ~$166 million. That averages to ~$7 million/km.
Since the P&W, a local shortline freight company, owns the ROW, TriMet bought trackage rights for the ROW. TriMet also rebuilt all the tracks, added new tracks and turnouts, rebuilt a few bridges, and added stations with park and ride lots. TriMet bought 3 heavy Colorado Railcar DMUs. There aren't that many freight trains on the tracks. Since CR DMUs are FRA compliant, there is no problem running passenger and freight trains on the same tracks.
http://trimet.org/wes/index.htm
New Mexico built a ~100 mile (~161 km) Railrunner commuter line between Albuquerque and Santa Fe for ~$385 million, including all 300 miles of BNSF ROW New Mexico bought for $75 million. That averages to ~$2.4 million/km.
New Mexico only built new tracks on new ROW for just 18 miles, added turnouts, built a few bridges, and added stations with park and ride lots. Railrunner uses Motive Power MP36PH-3C locomotives and Bombardier BiLevel passenger cars. There aren't that many freight trains on the tracks. Since the trains are FRA compliant, there is no problem running passenger and freight trains on the same tracks.
http://www.nmrailrunner.com/
Denton County TX DCTA is building the ~21 mile (~38 km) A-Train commuter line for an estimated ~$317 million. That averages ~$8 million/km. $8 million/km seems high in comparison, but $1 to $2 million per km is for the 10 feet wide concrete bike path.
DCTA is building on an existing publicly owned ROW, replacing every feet of track, replacing all but one bridge, building a parallel bike path, building new turnouts and stations with park and ride lots. DCTA is looking at purchasing 12 light DMUs, but hasn't finalized that yet. There's just one local freight train a day on the tracks. DCTA is asking for temporal separation approval to run their non-FRA complaint trains on the tracks.
http://www.mya-train.com/
Minnesota is building the 40 mile (~64 km) Northstar commuter line for an estimated ~$320 million. That averages ~$5 million per km.
Northstar will be purchasing trackage rights over the BNSF. They are building stations, adding just a few miles of track, building new turnouts and stations with park and ride lots. Northstar is buying Motive Power MP36PH-3C locomotives and Bombardier BiLevel passenger cars. There are many freight trains on the tracks, but they have been doubled tracked for a long time. Since the trains are FRA compliant, there is no problem running passenger and freight trains on the same tracks.
http://www.northstartrain.org/
I haven't discussed California's commuter rail projects because there's so many in service and being planned. I have only posted links to very recently completed projects and projects being built today.
Compared to light rail, commuter rail is cheap. $2 to $8 million per km is the capital costs depending upon how much work is needed.
The main disadvantage for commuter rail is that the stations are placed further apart to maintain the train's average speed. Because the stations are further apart and the trains have longer headways, commuter rail doesn't attract as many passengers. But, do you really want to place a train station in rural areas?
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