Cost concerns continue to mount for Green Line
Posted Jan 25, 2022 3:37 pm.
There still has not been any track laid in the ground, but we are already expecting a growing price tag for the Green Line LRT.
On Tuesday, the Executive Committee at city hall heard the first-quarter report for the transit project, which will be the largest infrastructure project in Calgary history.
To this point, more than $700 million has been spent on the project as work continues on the first stage which will take the line from Shepard in the southeast into Inglewood, before eventually connecting through the downtown core and landing at 16 Ave. This will also include the complicated work involved with taking the line through the downtown core alongside the existing Red and Blue lines.
The rest of stage two will take the line through the north to a finishing point at 160 Ave.
Related article:
Construction on phase one of Green Line LRT to begin this fall
But the money spent already wasn’t the only concern, as councillors heard that the cost may be higher than forecasted due to several ongoing stressors.
“We can say nothing other than that we have a low level of confidence in our ability to deliver all of stage one within available funding,” said Green Line Board Chair Don Fairbairn.
This mention of low confidence immediately raised eyebrows, though Fairbairn tried to ease any worries.
“I think it’s really important for us all together to stay grounded,” he said. “The uncertainty absolutely is high. But the real question, I think, is do we have the skill, do we have the right team, and do we have our eyes clearly focused on the risks?”
Fairbairn said he has absolute faith in the team working on the Green Line, pointing specifically to the project’s new CEO Darshpreet Bhatti.
Bhatti identified some of the other specific risks they are faced with, even in terms of the earliest work happening now that has to be done in the lead-up of more significant construction.
“The market is very volatile,” he said. “Even in these smaller packages that have gone for utility relocations in the Beltline area, the pricing is more than what we’re anticipating. We already know escalation exists. We took assumptions, we made assumptions, we went out to the market and the market was even higher than that. If that continues for another six, seven months, it may not be an issue. But if it continues for the next six years, that is definitely an issue and that’s hard for us to assess at this point.”
Bhatti remained confident that a tunnel can be built through the downtown core, promising they have experienced experts on hand who know what it would take to dig through the challenging soil under Calgary’s streets in a way that can minimize the most severe of disruptions.
Related article:
Green Line’s CEO says the downtown tunnel can be built
“There’s definitely risks, so it’s not that we’re assuming that this will be done without any issues, there are risks. We are identifying them, we’re trying to manage them, we’re trying to make that we’re learning from those risks and experiences from other cities.”
Another hiccup at the moment, largely due to the depressed economy, is there seems to be less appetite among building owners in the downtown core to invest in connecting their properties to underground Ctrain stations. Bhatti said this may change the scope of how they integrate the stations into the core, but also said they have more time to figure out the best path forward.
Councillors asked questions for over an hour to get down to the bottom of the status of the project right now, before going into a closed session to get more details. The reports were eventually approved and the work will be continuing within city hall.
Later in the afternoon, Mayor Jyoti Gondek was asked about the Green Line and remained confident about its future.
“We have strong plans in place, we have a board in place that’s providing very good oversight, and we have an incredible team that understands how complex this project is and the mitigation that needs to take place,” she said. “It’s always a little bit troubling when you hear that market conditions may create some cost overruns, but I’m very confident that we’ve got the right people in place to bring this project about.”
Gondek said there is also no need to panic about the prospect of pieces of the project getting taken off the table, and there will still be ongoing conversations with the provincial and federal governments to ensure their funding remains in place.
She added that nobody should be surprised they are getting hampered by supply chain issues and other global issues that affect the price of construction projects of this magnitude.
The Green Line is due to start fulsome construction this year, and it should all be complete in 2027.
