[DougB]

What a complete and total farce this has become.

It was always a farce. The project was doomed out of the gate when City Council mused about building the entire north the south line and boring tunnels under the river for the original $4.5B budget. Council was either incredibly naive or intentionally misleading. If it was the later, it should have expected complete cancellation as a possible outcome. This project reeks of intentionally building a white elephant to force the Province to provide more funding to rescue the original project. Too bad much of the 2015-2017 Council is no longer around to experience the ire.

Maybe the Province would be willing to use the $1.5B to fund low risk extensions of the Red and Blue lines.

 

[YYCguy]

The city should let the province be the delivery agency and if the city has been smart the provincial project will be even worse.

In any case. By the time the review is done could have a new Premier.

How long could this review take? Are we talking months, or years?

 

[UrbanWarrior]

With this pivot from the province, I would hope this would finally push city council (and maybe the province if they genuinely are interested in the Green Line getting built) to strongly revisit making NCLRT the first phase, so from day 1 it would have strong ridership to justify the capital costs in getting it built. North Pointe to Downtown/Ramsey area is a much stronger business case than Downtown to Sherpard, or even MacKenzie Towne. It should've been NC first, SE second from the jump.

Yeah I’ll agree with that, for sure. The issue there is that the maintenance and storage yard has to be in the industrial area, because that’s the only area with enough vacant land along the line.

 

[ahuch]

How long could this review take? Are we talking months, or years?

Based on the content of the news article, it's about reviewing alternative designs so I suspect we'd be talking years.

 

[UrbanWarrior]

If we keep scrapping the project, who is going to bid on it? More delays are going to drive huge cost increase and drive away competitive bids. Do we have large consortiums here with hundreds of people potentially losing billables? Not sure I'd want to be the one letting all those folks go over bullshit politics right now.

Okay that’s very fair. I wonder what the solution is then? Cause the proposal as is is pretty much a useless dumpster fire.

 

[Albertasaurus]

How long could this review take? Are we talking months, or years?

Based on the speed at which government typically moves, I am going to say years. Especially considering it took us 9 years to get to today. Although I hope I am wrong.

 

[UrbanWarrior]

Based on the speed at which government typically moves, I am going to say years. Especially considering it took us 9 years to get to today. Although I hope I am wrong.

Also especially considering they’re now talking (nonsensically) about adding the Green Line to the 7th avenue FFZ.

 

[CBBarnett]

Based on the content of the news article, it's about reviewing alternative designs so I suspect we'd be talking years.

The article:

"In the letter, the province says it will move forward by contracting out a third party to provide alternative proposals for the LRT line that integrate the red and blue lines along Seventh Avenue S.W., and the province's envisioned Grand Central inter-city railway station in the east end entertainment district. "​

The UCP-backed Rethink Greenline group's Plan B from years ago https://greenlineinfo.ca/plan-b-our-solution/

Rethink Green Line Board -

Some of those names will be familiar as long-time UCP folks. Stay tuned for who gets this taxpayer-funded "third party" contract to provide counter proposals and/or who is appointed to the "blue ribbon" panel to review those proposals

In this province, the real money is in the politics of transit, not actually building, transit.

 

[Paper Boy]

I am disappointed in my city and my province over this boondoggle. Smith is simply flexing her power making sure everyone knows who is in charge. This is about politics for her. Kenney looks better and better every day.

The 3 Billion that the Feds and Province put up in 2015 is worth 70% of what it was then. So the reality is the delays caused by our provincial government have reduced the spending power of the grant. The subway needs to be built ( or a skytrain styled elevated line connected to the plus 15) We cannot have intersecting lines in the downtown. It would reduce the capacity of the other lines. Wish this city and province could go back in time to their “CAN DO” roots.

 

[aryanoboi]

I mean at this point the best we can hope for is a Nenshi government in 2027 that’s willing to fund the green line. Frankly, the stub proposal being shelved might be a good option for now.

It just shocks me how we can’t build a simple train line. The provincial government is perfectly fine throwing hundreds of millions of dollars to improve one highway interchange, but can’t fund a massive transit expansion? God this place is backwards sometimes…

 

[darwink]

I'm curious whether or not the feds would have approved this revised plan, too.

The feds believe in subsidiarity, that if the local government has skin in the game, the local government must value it, and not be wasting their own money.

 

[darwink]

If they propose building a surface running line downtown and in the beltline I will explode

Elevated.

 

[CalgaryTiger]

IMO, this is a delay tactic to get to the upcoming releases, first of a Airport rail-something (fall '24) and then of the provincial rail plan (spring '25). I see the province taking over all rail after the plan comes out. They'll delay any outcome on this until then while they thumb through the paperwork provided by the city. Honestly, a centralized rail-something isn't the worst but to get here we had to go through hell.

Hell as in Billions in wasted money on utility work, studies, and other administration. Multiple false starts and people patting themselves on the back when there was nothing to celebrate.

 

[Joborule]

Yeah I’ll agree with that, for sure. The issue there is that the maintenance and storage yard has to be in the industrial area, because that’s the only area with enough vacant land along the line.

Auroa Business Park should have ample enough space. It's serving no purpose currently. It was designated to be the storage facility for the Nose Creek alignment I believe.

 

[kora]

Calgary used to be a leader and a model for other cities to follow when it comes to light rail. Now it's a cautionary tale. That's not what we want our city to be.