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

Best direction for the Green line at this point?

  • Go ahead with the current option of Eau Claire to Lynbrook and phase in extensions.

    Votes: 41 59.4%

  • Re-design the whole system

    Votes: 22 31.9%

  • Cancel it altogether

    Votes: 6 8.7%
  • Total voters
    69
HudsonA08 said:
I wonder if the plan is to move this under Alberta Infrastructure management. That would make sense in no longer needing a full project team for the green line. Just Calgary input into the larger project.
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Its really too late to do it. If the province was ready, it could have shown faith in the technical leadership of the project by 'buying' the project team instead of telling the city to fire them.
 
CalgaryTiger said:
One thing missing from all this is who will be making the final decision on the downtown alignment.

AECOM? Or are they just providing a report? Council? Either way once that decision is made is there a separate RFP that needs to go out? I wonder what the contract looks like with the current winning bidder?

Outside of alignment still so many questions...
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City wants province to take it. Province wants city to do it. Green Line Board seems to want to wash their hands of it, too...I didn't realize the board was still winding down, but I wonder if it's because the board members simply want out?

Not good if the governance reverts to council, in an election year no less!
 
lemongrab said:
in an election year
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I think this gets it across the line sooner than it otherwise would. If you're on council and running you want the fact it's going to get done on your resume.

With the proverbial provincial funding gun to their head I assume it goes through.

In saying that...

I worry Gondek will take the AECOM report and will want to take it to the people. In the news she's angling at a "people don't know me" pitch and I think she'll want to be seen as listening to Calgarians. I really fear that council is spooked by their satisfaction numbers and will hesitate to make a decision pushing a downtown alignment decision into the election.
 
Spoke with a friend who's working on this last night. Seems they've been given the ok to continue work East of the Elbow and going South. Apparently there is talk that the province wants it to continue to Seton, but would need to commit more funding for that.
As for downtown there is also discussion on crossing under the CP tracks, but that whole segment is still up in the air.
 
FriendlyDrunks said:
Spoke with a friend who's working on this last night. Seems they've been given the ok to continue work East of the Elbow and going South. Apparently there is talk that the province wants it to continue to Seton, but would need to commit more funding for that.
As for downtown there is also discussion on crossing under the CP tracks, but that whole segment is still up in the air.
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There's not really much point in speculating further in my mind (since it's been beaten to death at this point and we'll find out more in a few months hopefully), but it really seems like the province wants to ignore the learnings from previous transit projects and just dump people downtown onto other transit. I don't see the city agreeing to something like this... presumably there are some 7 ave ridership projections for 2031+ with or without the additional strain, would be curious to see something like that. If we're just deferring one subway to necessitate building another subway I don't really get the appeal of such a drastic change in scope.
 
Unknown User said:
https://calgaryherald.com/news/poli...roval-funding-continue-transporation-minister

This screams 1 of 2 things to me, entering east of city hall or at grade through the center of downtown, take it or leave it, which seemed to be the consensus of what the UCP study would present, but another nail in the coffin.
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I don't think this says anything at all. They were asked a question, without any news to announce, and said what they have already said.

The report will come and all will have to respond to it.
 
darwink said:
I don't think this says anything at all. They were asked a question, without any news to announce, and said what they have already said.

The report will come and all will have to respond to it.
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I agree, this gave no details on what is on the table to be accepted or rejected. He is saying that city council's options are what is recommended in the report or nothing so you better adopt the recommendation. The City's hands are tied here... the province has laid this at their feet and council will be the one to adopt a non-underground option or kill it.

Sure, the report comes out and council could throw their hands up (like they have already done) and say this situation is on the province, they're holding a gun to our head but I don't think it would work. If you're council you really do have to just accept what they give you or kill the whole thing. And if you kill the whole thing, could be tough to wash yourself clean of being on the council that wasted that sum of money.

As a Calgarian I'm then waiting on next year's municipal election to see if they adopt the recommendation or if that council then waits for an NDP government to get the underground option back on the table.

My reading is that if the AECOM recommendation isn't adopted by council the 4th to Shepard isn't happening either. Dreeshan says they would pull their full funding. So even though they saved the 70 people's jobs and they're still working on that section, they're really just shuffling deck chairs around on the Titanic (if council kills it).
 
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We won’t give funding based on this alignment

We won’t fund unless you accept our alignment

You will pay any cost overruns

Very Authoritarian government we have up in Edmonton

9 years after the funding was announced for many cities in Canada we are the one that hasn’t built anything

Not the can do city and province I grew up in

Absolutely abysmal management and leadership
 
I wonder if the city can say 'thank you so much for this detailed plan. We will take it under consideration for public consultation. In the meantime lets work on the section we agree on.' and leave the decision till after the next municipal election when hopefully some rail has been laid and it's too late to stop it. That how you play politics with politicians.
 
That would be incredible. Shuffle it off to committee and public consultation. Then Smith would have to either accept or end the charade and say the quiet part of her blackmail scheme out loud.
 
HudsonA08 said:
I wonder if the city can say 'thank you so much for this detailed plan. We will take it under consideration for public consultation. In the meantime lets work on the section we agree on.' and leave the decision till after the next municipal election when hopefully some rail has been laid and it's too late to stop it. That how you play politics with politicians.
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That's a dangerous game - I think the UCP would be delighted to drag this out for another 2-3 years so the "Nenshi Nightmare" (cringe) will still be fresh for the next prov. election. And who knows what the composition of the next YYCCC will be like.
 
If you're part of this council you cannot be seen to be studying this again. It is time for a to go or no go. If you push this again and you're on council, good luck getting re-elected.

As an aside... For the whole overcrowding 7th Ave issue, I had the idea to do a Gondola. I asked co-pilot: Create an image depicting a ski Gondola going through Calgary's downtown. (I had to add ski because at first it put a gondola from venice... AI I tell you.)

Gondola.jpg


Gave me a laugh.

Also asked it to depict elevated rail downtown... This one was my favourite.
Elevated 1.jpeg
 
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