Green Line LRT | ?m | ?s | Calgary Transit

[CBBarnett]

A couple issues here, obviously.

First, project inflation in North America needs to be solved. At current rates of escalation, this is the last LRT line to ever be built. Looking at other cities, it’s hardly the greenline it’s everything else too - costs are escalating so far beyond other inflation measures.

15 years ago, $2-2.5B bought the 19km, 15 station fully automated, fully grade separated Canada Line. Green line is 1/3 the stations, 1/2 the length, 3x the cost, 0x the automation, and I can only assume substantially easier building conditions for the majority of the route. This cost/value degradation is unsustainable.

Secondly, the reference to some sort of “grand central” station is neat but totally ridiculously. The Provincial rail plan is so far a cocktail napkin sketch. I get the benefits of positioning the spin to soften the blow, but let’s get real - alignment is to an imaginary product.

Lastly, I’d be curious in the more technical qualities of the rump. If $6B is what it take to build a great future-proofed north-south tunnel in the core with capacity and quality to forever expand service - perhaps an expensive, but worthwhile pursuit.

But spending all this money - for slow, non-automated trains, in a tunnel that doesn’t connect - Not sure here- if the costs are so ridiculous, might as well buy a light metro than an LRT.

 

[FCC1982]

So paying more to get much less. At least the downtown tunnel remains mostly in tact. But man this seems outrageously expensive for the significantly shorter length. Are there any comparable projects we can use to determine cost per km ?
I now worry the City won’t have money for any other infrastructure projects for over a decade.

 

[FCC1982]

I think the thing to remember is that opening day of Green Line won't be until late 2031 at the earliest and the downtown tunneling will take significantly longer to build than any surface running track in south east Calgary. If more funding is dedicated to this project between now and 2027, it is quite conceivable that a phase 2 from Millican to Douglas Glen or Shepard could open on the same day as the current phase 1 plan and I think that's what Council is banking on.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1818465414881702179

Good point - I agree that is what the City is counting on.

 

[accord1999]

So paying more to get much less. At least the downtown tunnel remains mostly in tact. But man this seems outrageously expensive for the significantly shorter length. Are there any comparable projects we can use to determine cost per km ?

The closest North American project in terms of cost and cost increases I can think of is Honolulu's Skyline which also started at around $4B and continually escalated to around $12B for the full 20-mile elevated line (and is not fully funded). But at least Honolulu can claim being isolated and lacking in any experience with rail transit.

Skyline (Honolulu) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[jhappy77]

1. I've heard the 4 St SE station is now at surface level. Anyone know where the tunnel will begin, then?

2. Is there literally any chance that the scope could be changed further? Because the price-tag for so little actual line is eye-watering. We should be reducing the tunnel length to skip only the busiest roads (everywhere between Macleod to 4th Ave) and be using the Centre St bridge to cross the Bow. (so, probably tunnel under 1st St SW or Centre St).

 

[YYCguy]

I’ve been away so am just now catching up on the 4 pages of your discussion. I now live in Airdrie but have still been keenly interested in the Green Line project. I’m shocked to hear about the cuts to the project! A loss of a station in the Beltline means if you want to go from the new event centre to a point in the west end of the Beltline you would have to double back on foot from 7th Ave?!?! And the proposed terminus of Lynwood is ridiculous! Who goes there? It’s a wasteland. There is no TOD potential there, with the land being contaminated. Has the Eau Claire station been saved from the rescoping exercise? Or is that too now off the table in favour of a more direct route from the Beltline to the river via centre street south?

 

[MissingMiddle]

This is a mess, I don't have anything to say aside from there's probably too many people being paid to not contribute.

I don't understand a decade of planning leads to literally negative progress.

Are there any comparable projects we can use to determine cost per km ?

The Ontario Line in Toronto consists of mostly tunnel bored underground rail, across all of downtown, and has ballooned in cost as well.

A 2019 estimate had the capital cost at $10.7B. Costs obviously increased, and they have added in "Operation & Maintenance" to make people feel like they're getting more for the increase. Current total is ~$28B.

The new estimated capital cost as of 2022 is $17B to $19B. But they're building it regardless.

 

[kempes_78]

A couple issues here, obviously.

First, project inflation in North America needs to be solved. At current rates of escalation, this is the last LRT line to ever be built. Looking at other cities, it’s hardly the greenline it’s everything else too - costs are escalating so far beyond other inflation measures.

15 years ago, $2-2.5B bought the 19km, 15 station fully automated, fully grade separated Canada Line. Green line is 1/3 the stations, 1/2 the length, 3x the cost, 0x the automation, and I can only assume substantially easier building conditions for the majority of the route. This cost/value degradation is unsustainable.

Secondly, the reference to some sort of “grand central” station is neat but totally ridiculously. The Provincial rail plan is so far a cocktail napkin sketch. I get the benefits of positioning the spin to soften the blow, but let’s get real - alignment is to an imaginary product.

Lastly, I’d be curious in the more technical qualities of the rump. If $6B is what it take to build a great future-proofed north-south tunnel in the core with capacity and quality to forever expand service - perhaps an expensive, but worthwhile pursuit.

But spending all this money - for slow, non-automated trains, in a tunnel that doesn’t connect - Not sure here- if the costs are so ridiculous, might as well buy a light metro than an LRT.

The joy of using a risk and reward format. Shades of the Big Dig and Brandenburg Airport lurk ominously. The roller coaster cost ride now starts with 90% design imminent. What surprises wil the city and consultants pull that will color events. Strap in.

 

[YYCguy]

This is a mess, I don't have anything to say aside from there's probably too many people being paid to not contribute.

I don't understand a decade of planning leads to literally negative progress.

The Ontario Line in Toronto consists of mostly tunnel bored underground rail, across all of downtown, and has ballooned in cost as well.

A 2019 estimate had the capital cost at $10.7B. Costs obviously increased, and they have added in "Operation & Maintenance" to make people feel like they're getting more for the increase. Current total is ~$28B.

The new estimated capital cost as of 2022 is $17B to $19B. But they're building it regardless.

Well as I mentioned before, Trudeau had a “wink wink nudge nudge” moment with Chow as he announced the new transit funding, probably meaning that no matter what Toronto will get all the funding they need for that project and more. Because we all know Toronto is the Centre of the Universe!

 

[O-tac]

How many billion would have been saved had the UCP and Rick McIver not put funding on hold for 2 years during COVID when we were still the only major project of this kind in NA? And all to review it and find nothing worth changing. And now they will point out this insufficient, butchered Phase 1 and say: “see! It wasn’t worth doing.”

 

[darwink]

How many billion would have been saved had the UCP and Rick McIver not put funding on hold for 2 years during COVID when we were still the only major project of this kind in NA? And all to review it and find nothing worth changing. And now they will point out this insufficient, butchered Phase 1 and say: “see! It wasn’t worth doing.”

The city wasn’t ready for most of that period despite protestations, and the way the city intended to contract would have made the tunnel incredibly hard to contract at all.

In addition, locking in a fixed cost and then having no inflation or interest cost mechanism you can end up with the contractor walking away.

 

[trtcttc]

Everyone talks about inflation as the reason the project has ballooned, but what exactly is causing the increase? Is it labor? materials? engineering? Or was scope changed? How do we make sure the next time a project doesn't get completely changed from proposal to construction.

 

[Ramsayite]

I agree that this new scope is a huge bummer, but I'm still on the side of rooting for the completion of this core section with the hope that more funding will emerge during construction to expand. All the dilly Dowling and uncertainty about this project has been awful for just getting it done. We could have a dedicated brt road along most of the green line right away in operation today if we would have prioritized functionality first.

With that said, in the long term, grade separation through beltline in downtown is absolutely necessary for this line, It's just such a shame that it gobbles up so much of the funding. With what's left of this core segment it seems like more than half of it is either in a tunnel or elevated; definitely the hardest part first.

Perhaps our next provincial election will allow us to ditch this dumpster fire provincial government and replace it with one that has more appetite for spending money on public goods. We're sitting on a surplus in our province, now is exactly the time we should be funding these kinds of projects in a way to keep up with cost inflation.


It's pretty obvious that right now the UCP benefits more from setting this project up as a boondoggle to campaign on then they would benefit from actually doing their job and building the public realm for Albertans.

Certainly The price tag for such a short segment seems ridiculous, but I think people often forget that trains are expensive because they include the right of way and the vehicles and the service facilities Plus long-term operating efficiencies.

We'd stop funding car infrastructure if we added up the total cost of roads maintenance as well as the cost of all of our individual vehicles, gas, insurance, service facilities, parking space; plus pollution, city scale distortion, environmental degradation and negative health effects.

Trains are always at a disadvantage from a public funding perspective because they bundle all the costs publicly, cars are always at an advantage because they atomize the costs across individuals. So nobody can see the true multi-billion dollar cost of our car obsession to compare against a large rail project like this one.

Moving into the future I think we need to be more honest about these costs; we are collectively happy to spend billions and billions of dollars on cars and their negative externalities but then everybody cringes when they see the cost of the alternative in the form of an LRT line. We need to build this shit ASAP and we need a municipal provincial and federal government that is courageous enough to fund more.

 

[Albertasaurus]

Everyone talks about inflation as the reason the project has ballooned, but what exactly is causing the increase? Is it labor? materials? engineering? Or was scope changed? How do we make sure the next time a project doesn't get completely changed from proposal to construction.

I wonder the same thing. I know there's a shortage of skilled trades in construction, and I assume cost pressures related to concrete in particular must have something to do with the fact that we have had exactly one groundbreaking for a concrete tower thus far this year (Yellowstone) in spite of record population growth. I would imagine that a lot of concrete will be required for the rail tunnels. There may be other factors as well?

 

[darwink]

Everyone talks about inflation as the reason the project has ballooned, but what exactly is causing the increase? Is it labor? materials? engineering? Or was scope changed? How do we make sure the next time a project doesn't get completely changed from proposal to construction.

Well, initially, council added things to the scope, and the project team treated those elements as sacrosanct, without accounting for cost or evaluating tradeoffs.

What was added/decisions which raised costs?

• A 100% requirement that the project be underground in the core.
• Avoiding crossing Macleod Trail at grade (very strong preference to underground in the Beltline)
• Elevated in Inglewood instead of property acquisition
• Crossing the Elbow in the CPR ROW instead of near MacDonald Ave to avoid property acquisition/'cutting a community in two'
• Community gardens
• Deciding on Centre St without a fulsome evaluation of costs
• Remediation of the Highfield Road landfill to support potential TOD
• Relocating the Lynnwood and Ogden stations to better for pedestrians but more expensive locations
• Relocating the entire quarry park segment including station to a new ROW
• Splitting the contract in illogical ways
• Insisting that city council would be an effective project management board despite not being best practice, and then pivoting to a management board model after many key decisions had been made
• Insisting for almost a decade that a fixed price contract was not only possible, but desirable

Not an active decision, but the key factor in my mind

• Not empowering staff when decisions were being made to speak up to say:
  • This is not best practice, we can report to the next meeting with options, including best practice, for this decision
  • This is not the right time to make this decision
  • We do not have the information today to weigh the tradeoffs of this decision
  • This preference will have cost implications: is this preference a $5 million preference, or a $500 million preference so we can make this decision without coming back to council

The biggest one:

• Analysis paralysis on the 2nd St tunnel downtown: sticking to the plan despite all geotechnical obstacles and not being open to alternatives, insisting that risk could be mitigated by more information beyond starting to dig