MF YYC Politics - there, I mega did it

[FlameOn]

Originally Posted by Torture

Sorry everyone, it was just a big misunderstanding. The 1.5B is still on the table, we didn't pull it says Dreeshan on the Eye Opener this morning.

https://twitter.com/user/status/1836408702548742160


Huh, guess we were all supposed to take something different from that.

This is just spin for the cancellation because the City made clear it's intention to pursue the province for the $850M cost of the wind down of the Green Line. The UCP are giving themselves a "out" saying this and they have no intention of funding the thing unless the city falls in line with provincial alignment demands. Dreeshan wants to shift the entire cost of the project cancellation back onto the city. The longer article and quotes seem to align with this. Dreeshen and the UCP MAGA are slime.

With more than $1.3 billion spent on the Green Line to date, the wind-down costs would increase the total price tag to over $2.1 billion, despite not a single kilometre of track being laid.

City officials said they would seek to be “made whole” by the province for those costs, but Dreeshen said he doesn’t see “why Alberta taxpayers should be asked to pay for decade-long mismanagements and decisions” made by past mayors and city councils.

https://calgaryherald.com/news/local...own-green-line

[Fuzz]

Does Dreeshan think this engineering firm they hired will have some flash of brilliance that hasn't been considered and examined ad-nauseam over the past decade? Because if so, he's even dumber than he looks. If not, this is clearly a delay and de-fund strategy and no Albertan should be supporting this garbage politics that just costs us money.

[accord1999]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

But is the cost of burying the red line less than the green, and benefits of that setup? I'm just wondering if this would be cost savings, or just different.

It should be significantly cheaper, the Green Line tunnel needs to be deeper to go under the Red Line tunnel at MacLeod and (ironically) also under where that 8th Avenue Subway potentially would be.

Green Line will have two underground stations Downtown/Beltline area. These include:

Eau Claire
7 Avenue S.W.

Connecting these stations will be tunnels that reach depths of around 30 metres below the surface. To safely build these tunnels, two separate approaches will be undertaken: cut and cover and tunnel boring.

https://www.calgary.ca/green-line/co...-stations.html

And for the short to middle-term, I doubt you even need to build 8th Avenue for the SE LRT. The 7th Avenue at capacity is something from 2014 but ridership growth has not matched projections from then. Changed commute patterns and reduced jobs means that the Transit can run 3-car trains every 5 minutes for the Red Line without overloading them.

[accord1999]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

Does Dreeshan think this engineering firm they hired will have some flash of brilliance that hasn't been considered and examined ad-nauseam over the past decade? Because if so, he's even dumber than he looks. If not, this is clearly a delay and de-fund strategy and no Albertan should be supporting this garbage politics that just costs us money.

I think it'll be that this engineering firm will be able to properly look at alternatives, instead of the City/Green Line being extremely attached to a certain alignment and making sure their studies supported it.

[accord1999]

Originally Posted by The Fisher Account

First time in Canadian history that public taxpayer dollars are going to build private schools.

We all knew this was the end goal. Now we're seeing it actually happen. Way to go Alberta.

Charter schools in Alberta are specialized public schools (ie no tuition costs) not overseen by a larger board.

[Fuzz]

Originally Posted by accord1999

I think it'll be that this engineering firm will be able to properly look at alternatives, instead of the City/Green Line being extremely attached to a certain alignment and making sure their studies supported it.

You don't think the green line team would have considered many alternatives before settling on what they announced as options? And every forced change didn't have them considering these options along the way? I'm just going to be incredibly surprised if they come out with something different and affordable.

[Torture]

Originally Posted by accord1999

I think it'll be that this engineering firm will be able to properly look at alternatives, instead of the City/Green Line being extremely attached to a certain alignment and making sure their studies supported it.

Or more likely, they'll be given an extremely limited scope to only consider and rubber stamp exactly what the UCP want.
Also neat that they must have sole-sourced the contract rather than putting it out for a proper RFP given nobody knew they had engaged a firm already until now...

[OldDutch]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

You don't think the green line team would have considered many alternatives before settling on what they announced as options? And every forced change didn't have them considering these options along the way? I'm just going to be incredibly surprised if they come out with something different and affordable.

I’d day this is a win win for you. In that if they find a better way than we get more public transit for the money, and if they don’t than Smith looks like a dolt helping defeat her and the Cons.

I’d just sit back at this point and watch

[GGG]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

You don't think the green line team would have considered many alternatives before settling on what they announced as options? And every forced change didn't have them considering these options along the way? I'm just going to be incredibly surprised if they come out with something different and affordable.

They certainly did. But cost was one factor in the decision matrix. I think the request to revisit is based on revisiting the decision matrix in today’s pricing reality. When cost of the option only represented 15% or so of the weighting in the decision it results in more expensive solutions being selected.

If you fixed the budget at what’s available and then changed the criteria to 1st day ridership, or ultimate ridership with no further funding or average ridership per year assuming some future funding for expansions the preferred option would change. The green line team made the best decision based on the criteria at the time. Due to meddling and delays those criteria should be revisited.

If Calgary doesn’t the province is going to build the North Central Line down Nose creek which will be useless as civic public transit.

BRT south, NC LRT North with the low floor cars.

[Fuzz]

Originally Posted by OldDutch

I’d day this is a win win for you. In that if they find a better way than we get more public transit for the money, and if they don’t than Smith looks like a dolt helping defeat her and the Cons.

I’d just sit back at this point and watch

This kind of thinking is exactly why we have such ####e politicians leading us. In no way is there any win here. She certainly doesn't need additional help looking like a dolt. She's got that covered. It also means nothing to me to see her fail more, because that hurts Alberta. I want her to stop failing, and preferably stop doing anything in public ever again.

So that leaves a win coming down to this UCP government, in all the competence they've displayed, somehow finding a solution that doesn't cost more, provides more, and also involves the delay and potential lawsuits eating up taxpayer money? Where's the win?

[You Need a Thneed]

Originally Posted by FlameOn

This is just spin for the cancellation because the City made clear it's intention to pursue the province for the $850M cost of the wind down of the Green Line. The UCP are giving themselves a "out" saying this and they have no intention of funding the thing unless the city falls in line with provincial alignment demands. Dreeshan wants to shift the entire cost of the project cancellation back onto the city. The longer article and quotes seem to align with this. Dreeshen and the UCP MAGA are slime.


https://calgaryherald.com/news/local...own-green-line

There is ZERO Chance that the city hasn't been talking back and forth with the Provincial government in the last couple weeks, and the city would have confirmed that the funding is in fact, completely dead.

The province is definitely worried about this $850 million that they will definitely be on the hook for.

[accord1999]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

You don't think the green line team would have considered many alternatives before settling on what they announced as options? And every forced change didn't have them considering these options along the way? I'm just going to be incredibly surprised if they come out with something different and affordable.

When I look through the 2020 alignment options review document, I don't think they gave the alternatives a fair shake. For example, when comparing ridership they include the North Central bus ridership into their preferred alignment. But doesn't count the costs of those buses. It also says the alignment would be able meet 2048 demand without noting it needs upgrades too.

[accord1999]

Originally Posted by Torture

Or more likely, they'll be given an extremely limited scope to only consider and rubber stamp exactly what the UCP want.

I mean that's essentially what the Green Line did, by only looking at maintenance facility sites in the SE. And picked the one 18 km away from downtown to make sure it had to go in the SE direction no matter what.

[powderjunkie]

Originally Posted by para transit fellow

For me, the trouble with "good enough" would be that it is difficult to build the LRT underground (at a later time) while continuing LRT operations on the same routing above ground.

Edmonton did the hard part first. Calgary opted for "good enough" and fifty years later both the capacity of both the Red and Blue lines is limited by the capacity of 7 avenue to accommodate the interline trains and the north/south vehicle traffic.

Indeed, the Bearspaw feedermain was built "good enough" ...and again, fifty years later we are complaining how that was a poor decision.

Good enough got calgary to ~235k daily riders in 2024
Doing it right the first time got Edmonton to ~89k

How do we know that the Bearspaw feeder main wasn't considered the overbuilt/future-proofed option at the time?

Originally Posted by Fuzz

You don't think the green line team would have considered many alternatives before settling on what they announced as options? And every forced change didn't have them considering these options along the way? I'm just going to be incredibly surprised if they come out with something different and affordable.

I do not think they did, and that is the problem.

accord already provided a good timeline, but I'll try to fill it in a bit differently:

2015-17: determining phase 1 in largely the same process used to deliver the West Leg: city staff (under-resourced for a project this size) and a council committee (aka NOT experts) giving way too much input, including vibes decisions like low-floor cars because they seemed nice when in another city

Result = 2017 Plan: Shephard to 16th Ave; crazy deep/long tunnel

Decisions I don't think have ever been seriously reconsidered since 2017:

1. SE will be first
2. SE will be trains from day 1
3. Low-floor trains
4. The lines must connect
5. Shephard is the only option for MSF (until a month ago...)
6. 2nd St SW is the only viable N-S option through DT

We know they did reconsider a lot of other stuff like when/where to be at-grade/underground/elevated, stations to be cut, 10th vs 11th vs 12th, etc

But there has been a lot of preference-pushing along the way, which is pretty easy to do when presenting different options...like including feeder shuttle costs in some options but not others, or silly things like the SE terminus option on C2 where it is elevated by doesn't cross the CP tracks!

#6 is most interesting to me. They considered lots of options before 2017 (I believe they preferred to be even further west), but there is no indication that they ever reconsidered. 2nd St was useful for pushing the tunnel because there are like 6 +15s (including a double decker)...and it would have to use a TBM because of the buildings in the way.

1st St SW is easier in so many ways, whether underground or elevated and offers easier options to connect to the North (like expropriating a DT parking lot instead of 36 units in the midst of a housing crisis...). Only downside to 1st (if underground) is that you'd give up the four most redundant lanes of vehicle underpass. But I don't think it would have been impossible to design it with a vehicle lane or two for busses/emergency vehicles if that was necessary.

And if you want to get really crazy (which I do), you don't even need to re-cover the full width of 1st St to vehicle bearing spec! Calgary could really use a good N-S pedestrian corridor...I could envision 1 lane for BRT, another for a bike lane, and then you could even do something like this https://maps.app.goo.gl/UZL3sQi4CqLGvgVe9 (if it were cheaper and helped facilitate stuff like tunnel HVAC/etc)

[powderjunkie]

Originally Posted by You Need a Thneed

There is ZERO Chance that the city hasn't been talking back and forth with the Provincial government in the last couple weeks, and the city would have confirmed that the funding is in fact, completely dead.

The province is definitely worried about this $850 million that they will definitely be on the hook for.

Yesterday's council meeting was about sorting out the above - I only caught part of it, but killing the city's funding and winding down was not a certainty.

The municipality is effectively subservient to the province. I think a feature of this whole thing from the UCP side is an opportunity/excuse to dismantle municipal governance independence as we have known it.

[Fuzz]

Oh, I don't think the north options were fairly considered at all, once the political decision was made to go south. But once they did that, I just don't see how they didn't consider all options along the way. I guess it's possible they discarded valid ones for reasons we could now overlook, but really, this feels like analysis paralysis at this point, and further delays just increase costs, making the cheaper options then cost as much as the expensive ones if we did them now.


The fact the province keeps saying the need this grand central thing related to the arena location and design which was just selected recently, and not known when the green line was planned tells me they have some bigger plan and this is just a step to get there. Is there a design for this grand central plan? Or is this all going to come out as a unified provincial transit plan with a train to Banff involving the line actually going to the airport from the SE, and touching this station on the way? I predict there will never be a green line through downtown in this plan.

[fotze2]

So you guys really truly think this is 100.00000000% political grandstanding? and one side is 100.0000% in the right and the other is just being plain crazy?

This isn't a hockey game and the Oilasz are no good.

The city is where crappy engineers go to work. It's a well known fact. Just know that.

"The science" does not exist and it never did. "The science" disagrees all the time, the science is self motivated, its hard to believe but it is true. Go to any engineering faculty.

That's the best part of "the science" the disagreeing. But now all us/you morons are involved so the politicians need to use this to self promote.

This project has been a clusterfata from day one mostly because its a mega-project and sorry to tell ya, its not the politicians fault. Gondek is taking advice, Smith is taking advice. not from some boob on this site who drafts some crap, like actual smart people. and it may be hard to believe. There is disagreement, major disagreement

This project absolutely needs to hit pause and its turned into a bun fight. Doesn't help that all of us morons get a say.

Zero chance this is done under $10B.

I have been a part of many huge projects and the ones where costs start getting out of control and we decide to forge on because of sunk costs, turned out to be a mistake. Every one would have been better to stop mid way.

When Barry Lester is sounding the warning sirens before it starts.

This project will be a primer on large project management course.

People were bitching about the peace bridge?

[Mazrim]

I like how accord is slowly working through all the fact finding that was done in previous green line reviews like no one has ever done this and they're finding the silver bullet solution (similar to Jim Grey's pipe dream...hmm). You think the province didn't do this already in their dragged-out review themselves? And somehow, they didn't think to put on the brakes before now? Amazing clairvoyance by the government in 2024 all of a sudden, I guess!!

[kevman]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

This kind of thinking is exactly why we have such ####e politicians leading us. In no way is there any win here. She certainly doesn't need additional help looking like a dolt. She's got that covered. It also means nothing to me to see her fail more, because that hurts Alberta. I want her to stop failing, and preferably stop doing anything in public ever again.

So that leaves a win coming down to this UCP government, in all the competence they've displayed, somehow finding a solution that doesn't cost more, provides more, and also involves the delay and potential lawsuits eating up taxpayer money? Where's the win?

The green line is a disaster. It's the kind of project that's going to be a case study in text books soon. I'm optimistic we're going to get a green line and it's going to be better than what was proposed.

[kevman]

Originally Posted by fotze2

Zero chance this is done under $10B.

$6B 10 years ago before COVID completely upended construction costs. I agree, this is a $10B project in today's dollars before contingency and below the line items are even considered.