Council asked for make-or-break airport tunnel decision

CALGARY – Council will be asked to make a pivotal decision on the airport tunnel project at a special meeting aldermen are being summoned to this Friday.

That meeting, newly announced late Tuesday, comes right before the final long weekend of city negotiations with the airport authority, to hammer out a final deal that would see the underpass intersect a new runway.

According to Councillor Jim Stevenson, this will likely be the make-or-break council vote.

City managers have asked for one final week to settle things, as they hurriedly try to find ways to pay for additional construction projects the authority demands as a condition to permitting a tunnel on its property.

"We’ll be presenting what we have to decide on the options, or the option will be to can the whole damn thing," the northeast councillor said Tuesday.

He admitted that the options will likely include asking council to approve more money beyond the $295 million already approved – which, the tunnel booster himself has admitted, is a longshot.

The city is also appealing to the Stelmach government to commit within the next few days to future funds for the tunnel-related construction. But there may also other ways to make the project work without raising more money from the province or through council, Stevenson said.

Throughout months of talks, the airport authority has dropped many of its conditions but remained stubborn on one: that a tunnel must be accompanied in the future by costly interchanges along Airport Trail. That demand would be a budget-buster for a council that was already sharply split on whether a $295-million Airport Trail extension was worth it.

Council this week agreed to set May 24 as the deadline for tunnel negotiations. Mayor Naheed Nenshi will be flying off on an economic-development trip to China that day, and his absence that day would tilt the council balance in favour of the anti-tunnel side.

That makes this Friday the last business day for Nenshi to join council and determine the tunnel project’s fate.

Calgary Herald