Days after Calgary city council voted to wind down the Green Line LRT, the city and provincial government are back at the table to discuss the future of the project.
Calgary mayor Jyoti Gondek along with members of city administration met with Premier Danielle Smith, Transportation Minister Devin Dreeshen and other provincial officials Friday morning in what both sides describe as a “productive meeting.”
It comes after Gondek sent a letter she described as a “hail Mary pass,” to the province Thursday urging the Government of Alberta to preserve portions of existing work and contracts as they seek a new alignment.
In the letter, the mayor specifically noted a contract for 28 low-floor light-rail vehicles, as well as the contract for design work on the Green Line segment between Victoria Park and Shepard.
“We discussed the value that remains in existing contracts and how work that’s already being done may align with the new vision that the province wishes to bring forward by the end of the year,” Gondek told reporters following Friday’s meeting.
Gondek estimated that keeping those contracts would save millions in costs and upwards of 700 jobs.
According to Gondek, timelines and costs would be extended if the province was to start from scratch, as the project would require an entirely new procurement process.
The Government of Alberta hired engineering firm AECOM to find alternate alignments for the Green Line by the end of the year that would see it run at-grade from the downtown core as far as Seton in the city’s southeast — all within the project’s $6.2 billion budget.
Calgary’s mayor said the province committed to reviewing the city’s existing contracts in the coming days, after rejecting the idea twice.
“Both parties right now are incredibly committed to making sure that whatever the new alignment looks like is delivered in a way that is cost effective as well as quick for delivery,” Gondek said. “But also something that doesn’t compromise the rider experience and the vision we had to go from north to south.”
In an interview with Global News, Dreeshen echoed the mayors’ sentiments about the meeting after weeks of finger-pointing and back-and-forth between city council and the provincial government.
“It opened the door for city administration as well as our officials to be able to have a working relationship to make sure that we can salvage the Green Line, so that we can essentially work together,” Dreeshen said. “It was very positive to see that the mayor and certain Calgary city councillors see the value of working with the province to make sure that we can extend the Green Line.”
The project had been in limbo since a Sept. 3 letter from Dreeshen to Gondek said the province would pull its $1.53 billion in funding — unless the city altered and extended the line’s route.
That letter came weeks after Calgary city council was forced to shorten the line to Lynwood/Millican, removing six stations, and boost the city’s share of funding by $705 million due to escalating costs on the first phase of the alignment.
“At the end of the day, there’s only one taxpayer, and we want to make sure that the best value for tax dollars comes at the end of this and that we can actually build the Green Line,” Dreeshen said.
Costs to wind down the project are estimated to cost the city at minimum $850 million, which increases to $2.1 billion when including money already spent on the project. Dreeshen has previously said the province wouldn’t help with those costs, and the city would be the entity overseeing construction of the future LRT line.
City and provincial officials are reviewing existing contracts with more information expected in the coming days. Both sides noted time is of the essence.
“This interim period of review is really tight,” Gondek said. “We only have a matter of days to make decisions on some of these existing contracts. So it’s important that our administration teams are able to work together on this quickly.”