Calgary council, province still at odds over Green Line LRT budget proposal

Tensions continue between the province and city hall over Calgary’s Green Line LRT alignment proposal with the city accusing the UCP government of not including costs for legal risks.

City council released a statement Tuesday evening saying the proposed Green Line alignment does not include costs on financial and legal risks that, according to the city, would take the project’s cost from $6.2 billion to $7.5 billion — running $1.3 billion over budget.

“That is news to me,” said Transportation Minister Devin Dreeshen, who spoke to CityNews on Wednesday. “That’s something that we will have to dig into to see what exactly it is that they are entailing on what $1.3 billion is not costed in.”

“Obviously AECOM worked closely to come up with an apple and apples comparison to the July city alignment.”

The province contracted AECOM in July to come up with an alternative route for the Green Line through downtown.

The updated alignment would begin at 7 Avenue SW and run to Shepard in the southeast — five more stops than the shortened line approved by council in July, and more alike to the original proposal made in June 2021.

It would include an elevated track running along 10 Avenue in downtown Calgary and a Grand Central Station just west of the Elbow River.

A public presentation on the new proposal at city council Tuesday was limited, as ordered by the province for confidentiality reasons, prompting Mayor Jyoti Gondek to call for more transparency on the project.

The AECOM report was made public Wednesday after the the transportation minister’s office had said last week that it would not be. The detailed report contains artist renderings of what some sections of the finished project could look like.

“This has not been a transparent process to the public,” said Gondek. “It is the public that needs to understand what is in the alignment and the financials.”

Dreeshen said Wednesday it was always the provincial government’s intent to share the report with the public.

“It was always our intention to share it with the working group first, than council, than Calgarians,” says Dreeshen.

Gondek has also raised concerns that the province isn’t doing enough to address how the new line would impact businesses.

Dreeshen says AECOM has already talken extensively with the downtown business association and other’s impacted.

“A lot of them just expressed the need and want to get it built,” he says. “This better alignment servers more people, you serve more people with the same budget.”

Gondek says the city is requesting another working meeting with the province as soon as possible.

Calgary city council voted to wind down the $6.2-billion project in September after the province said it would pull its $1.53 billion in funding without a major project overhaul. 

Weeks later, after discussions with council, the province recommitted funding and both sides agreed to a December deadline for decisions on re-alignment.

With files from the Canadian Press