EDMONTON — Ward 11 councillor Mike Nickel has asked city administration to look into how much the lengthy delays on the Metro LRT Line are costing the city.
“I’m more interested in the cost elements as to what it’s actually costing the city due to its under-performance,” Nickel said Tuesday morning.
“If you don’t put a price to things you don’t get a sense of urgency on how fast you have to fix it. So the bottom line was, my inquiry was, to get to the numbers behind the Metro Line, about how we’ve had to supplement extra bus service and other things.”
Beyond extra buses on the streets, additional resources are also being spent behind the scenes to deal with the Metro Line roll-out and there’s no firm number on what those resources cost.
After nearly two years of delays, the Metro Line opened for service in September 2015. However, the line has never been fully operational. Due to ongoing troubles with the signalling system, trains run on a 15-minute frequency between the Churchill and NAIT stations. They also travel at a slower speed of 25 km/h.
System failures and planned maintenance on the line have led to several service disruptions over the past few months.
In November, thousands of hockey fans were left to wait for replacement bus service when a power outage caused a portion of the line to break down. LRT service was down in parts of the city for an entire business day.
READ MORE: Metro LRT Line experienced 11 service delays in November
There is still no word on when the line will be fully operational and Nickel hopes his inquiry will speed things up. He said the delay, along with the delay of several other infrastructure projects in Edmonton, is starting to reflect badly on the city.
“If you start adding them up – Mill Woods double barrel being $40 million over budget, you go to the Metro Line, you go to the Groat Bridge, you go to Walterdale – I’ve heard it many, many times and I’ll say it many, many times, that we have a challenge here about doing capital and we need to get our heads around it and fix our deliveries fast here.”
READ MORE: ‘Don’t let idiots build your transit’: Reporter rips into Edmonton’s Metro LRT Line
The $755-million Metro Line came in approximately $90 million under budget. It was originally scheduled to be ready for passengers in April 2014.
A report updating the status of the Metro Line is expected to be presented to city council later this month.
With files from Vinesh Pratap, Global News.
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