The City of Calgary will begin to get ready for the end of the Green Line LRT and look to direct its financial risk to the Alberta government after it sent a letter cutting off its funding for it. LiveWire Calgary reported Wednesday a letter sent by Alberta Transportation and Economic Corridors Minister Devin Dreeshen led to the special council meeting Wednesday about allowing City of Calgary administration to examine winding down operations. Dreeshen said on Tuesday the Green Line “is fast becoming a multibillion dollar boondoggle that will serve very few Calgarians.” READ MORE: Dreeshen says Alberta government to halt funding to Calgary’s Green Line LRTIn response, Dreeshen said the Alberta government is unable to support or provide funding for the revised Green Line Stage One scope as outlined in the City of Calgary’s most recent business case. “To be clear, we recognize your and the current council’s efforts to try to salvage the untenable position you’ve been placed in by the former mayor and his utter failure to completely oversee the planning, design, and implementation of a cost-effective transit plan that have could have served hundreds of thousands of Calgarians in the City’s southern and northern communities,” he said..Calgary Mayor Jyoti Gondek said on Wednesday the City of Calgary can no longer afford the cost of the Green Line because of the scope change demanded from the Alberta government.READ MORE: Gondek says Calgary now can't afford Green Line amid Alberta government’s scope changeHowever, Gondek said the City of Calgary has been fiscally responsible with the Green Line. “We have tried to deliver it within the budget we had before us with our other two funding partners,” said Gondek. Calgary city councillors unanimously approved having Gondek speak with Alberta Premier Danielle Smith about the proposal to stop the Green Line. Additionally, they voted to have administration start preparing details about stopping it. The details will be released at a city council meeting on September 17. Since the City of Calgary can no longer afford it, councillors voted 10-5 to start the process of having the transfer and delivery of it sent to the Alberta government. Calgary Coun. Jasmine Mian said she "would love to retain all kinds of control over our transit projects, but we are unable to deliver them if folks don’t have alignment." “From a taxpayer perspective, from a value perspective, I am sad to have to see that up there, but I just don’t see any other way forward, so I will be supporting all these recommendations," said Mian to LiveWire Calgary. Because the Green Line had been halted, Mian had looked upset earlier on Wednesday, describing it as a tough day for Calgary city council and hundreds of thousands of Calgarians. This is because the Green Line had been worked on for more than one decade, with tens of thousands of hours dedicated to developing it. “It’s not about politics, it’s about good governance,” said Mian. “It’s about delivering value for people, and I recognize that [the province] have some differences of opinion on the alignment, but we have given them, time and time again, the information on why we need to build through the core and that we need to serve all of Calgary, both north and south.” By scaling it back and forcing the City of Calgary to build it from the Event Centre down to Seton when it does not have the approved funding, she said it will be devastating. At the moment, Gondek said the Green Line is no longer the City of Calgary’s project. Councillors did not vote for a revised alignment in 2020. “This is now the province’s project, they need to be the ones to hold the risk on this, and if we cannot outline that for them, then we haven’t done our job as a good partner,” she said to LiveWire Calgary. Calgary Coun. Sonya Sharp, who voted no to the revised alignment, said she was unsurprised the Alberta government will be withholding funding.“I look at this like I did when I voted on it,” said Sharp to LiveWire Calgary. “It was the most riskiest, expensive, and lowest ridership leg of the project.” Sharp said she felt the letter shows the Alberta government is not against the Green Line. Rather, it wants to see a different alignment. While Calgary city councillors had approved the new alignment, Sharp said she has greater concerns the Green Line Board did not call the Alberta government after the vote to ensure it approved of it. She said she interpreted the July letter from Dreeshen as a vote of confidence about the previous alignment. “We voted the next day and we publicly published the stump of the Green Line and what the province gave the letter to was the whole Green Line,” she said.“They still had to give a business case and approval for [the revised alignment].”He did not bring up the revised alignment in that letter, saying funding will not be reduced if certain conditions were met. None of those conditions were for a business case or alignment review. Green Line Board Chair Don Fairbairn said the Alberta government knew about its plans to scale it back and present that version to council. Dreeshen’s letter would have covered that. “They certainly knew the options that council approved July 30,” said Fairbairn to LiveWire Calgary. “It was no surprise.” With this letter, Fairbairn said it would have been written with the information the Green Line Board had recommended to council. Although opposition to the changes was present, Calgary Coun. Dan McLean said he did not have an issue with slowing the Green Line down and reviewing it again to “see if we could do this better.” However, McLean said he felt the Green Line Board went about this the wrong way. “My understanding is that the province and the federal government didn’t receive a full business case until August 15,” said McLean to LiveWire Calgary. “So I think that was backwards.”Before voting and deciding on the proposal, he pointed out council should have given the business case to the other governments. Calgary city council approved a revised Green Line Phase One project scope, capital funding request, and delivery model as recommended by the Green Line Board in July. READ MORE: SHORTER & COSTLIER: Calgary Green Line LRT moves ahead with $6.2 billion smaller lineTo respond to rising costs and potential future escalations and maximize the Green Line’s benefits, the City of Calgary said the Green Line Board’s recommendations were based on work done to reduce costs and contractor negotiations during the Development Phase. “Today's decision is more than a decade in the making and sets Calgary up for success for years to come, especially at a time when we are the fastest growing city in the nation,” said Gondek.
