darwink
Senior Member
The core of the Greenline and as much as can be concurrently contracted.What investments do you think would be better? (genuinely curious)
A couple years old now, but did a bit of an analysis for a client. The greenline north has pretty uncertain costs. We don’t really have necessary costing north of 64th. What I recommended for the client at the time for an incremental transit spend:
Trenched or underground station for 16th.
Extension up to 64th to make the NC Line useful.
Extension to McKenzie Towne as the political price to ‘complete’ the greenline
A bunch of BRT
Trying to prioritize the NC LRT now is zero sun thinking. Every year that passes there is more money to spend. Post 2026 there will be new federal funding. Provincial funding rolls on. City funding accrues at least $70 million a year.
There are lots of opportunities to go NC. But it should be connected into a project that hits the centre of the CBD.
The goal is speed. Dumping people to walk much further on average (the centre street surface runner) creates an illusion of speed. It is not better than when SE LRT advocates in 2010 were pushing for a SE LRT which ended south of the CPR. Missing the objective, just focused on the tool. If the tool exists the objective must be met right?
Anyways. We will see whether procurement succeeds or not soon — hopefully it doesn’t succeed now then fail 10 months from now but that risk is much lower.
Resetting the project now creates a huge funding hole. Getting a grant from the feds—it isn’t sitting in a bank account for the city to use. The feds expect the money to be spent before the end of fiscal 2026, maybe being ok with spending a little in fiscal 2027.
If there isn’t a plan to spend it on an eligible project within that window Calgary just misses out. It either gets spent elsewhere in the province or elsewhere in the country.
Imagine applying for funds for the next program: we’re totally going to deliver this time on a totally different project after accomplishing only enabling works after more than a decade is super weak. Don’t expect any bending over backwards to find interesting ways to fund more than the basic envelope.