MF YYC Politics - there, I mega did it

[fotze2]

Originally Posted by kevman

$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.

I was being optimistic. I'm thinking $15B if I had money on it.

Do we re-do the economics at each stagegate? NAHHH, why the fata would you do that.

I am doing this today, made the mistake to ask to re-do the economics after a trainwreck, was told to not ask that question. OK, forge ahead, I want a paycheque.

Can i short my own company's stock?

[Ahuch]

Originally Posted by kevman

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.

Based on what, UCP crayon alignments? lol

[FlameOn]

Originally Posted by kevman

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.

You haven't paid any attention the last few years. The UCP has a long history of incompetence even executing their own grifts. They cancelled the Green Line without even the concept of a plan to replace it. They have a massive history of waste and mismanagement. Expecting a group like that to produce a replacement to be better in any metric like cost, better service, or alignment that broadly serves Calgarians is lunacy.

[powderjunkie]

Originally Posted by 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!!

Why are previous reviews relevant?

Province was okay with 16th-Shephard with a huge tunnel for ~4.5B
Province was okay* with 16th-Shephard with a shorter tunnel for 4.9B
Province was okay with Eau Clair-Shephard for 5.5B

*after a bunch of ####ery around then tbf

Turns out province was not okay with Eau Clair-Lynnwood for 6.3B.

But they sent a poorly considered letter and answered questions poorly in a ~72 hour period around the latest de-scope. And a month later they pulled the plug (unclear but if there was a formal process for a provincial stamp of approval or not...there was one for the Feds that we had not yet received)

The UCP ####ing sucks. But IMO they are a convenient scapegoat here.

Why do we believe that this time the project was actually going to go ahead and be delivered on-time and on-budget?

Also, #### the UCP.

[PaperBagger'14]

Wish I could say more but there was a massive civil engineering #### up to the tune of $50 mil +. If someone told me it was a $100 mil it wouldn’t surprise me, that’s why I mentioned months ago that we were close to a stoppage.

I’m sure there is finger pointing and mud slinging going on behind the scenes, enough for the lawyers to lap up some fat paycheques. But yeah, this was totally predictable given how royally huge the mess up was.

[powderjunkie]

Remember in 2020 when everyone repeated "if we don't get across the Bow River now, we'll never get across!" And then a couple years later that died on the vine and everyone just accepted it as an unfortunate but necessary compromise...


"Build the complicated part first" seems the same. Everyone regurgitates it without a critical thought. It's no more non-negotiable than the non-negotiable Bow River Bridge that was non-negotiable...until it was negotiable.

[GGG]

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.

Your comparison to bearspaw is not valid at all.

Bearspaw was not built “good enough”. It was built using the acceptable material of the day. In fact they were using the new higher strength lower cost pipe with new steel grades. It would be a relevant discussion if the issue here was the adoption of new technology. The pipe was supposed to last 100 years it has not because the new specification did not consider the pipes susceptibility to corrosion over time. Many(perhaps all) jurisdictions made this mistake at the same time.

Better examples are things like Deerfoot trail, the SW ring road. SW ring road will be an interesting one. Originally designed so wide to accommodate another 8 lanes down the middle because they didn’t want to have to build a secondary ring road through reserve land in the future. By the time the ring road was under construction this was no longer a design requirement so it’s over designed even considering future needs. They couldn’t change due to the time constraints. But 100 years from now if a road is ever built there someone will declare they built it right.

Deerfoot on the other hand was under designed at places like memorial and glenmore and they are slowly being debottlenecked.

I think leaving the flexibility for expensive but possible future improvements is the right place to end up. Dont pre-invest but don’t hamstring yourself.

[pepper24]

Green Line LRT was going to cost too much and be way over budget if we wanted everything that was originally planned. $15B like posted above. Way too much and good to see it being cancelled.

Instead...

Extend the south line at Somerset-Bridlewood station east along the south part of the ring road all the way to the deep southeast (McKenzie Towne, Cranston, Auburn Bay etc.) with tons of rapid bus transit from surrounding communities and park and ride at stations.

Extend the NE line from Saddletowne station to airport. Up 60th St NE then west on Aiport Trail. Hopefully no issues with Airport tunnel and if tunnel was built without considering LRT expansion then that's just bad city planning.

For North Central. Increase bus capacity into downtown along Center Street and add more car pool/bus lanes.

Get back to 4 cars for each LRT, not sure why I only see 3 cars and full LRTs.

[Mazrim]

Originally Posted by powderjunkie

Why are previous reviews relevant?

Province was okay with 16th-Shephard with a huge tunnel for ~4.5B
Province was okay* with 16th-Shephard with a shorter tunnel for 4.9B
Province was okay with Eau Clair-Shephard for 5.5B

*after a bunch of ####ery around then tbf

Turns out province was not okay with Eau Clair-Lynnwood for 6.3B.

They're relevant because so much of the current discussion is about the earlier decisions made that set the scope and layout of the project. If these so-called obvious problems in the methodology of choosing the alignment type were so obvious, why didn't the province raise the red flag then?

[kevman]

Originally Posted by FlameOn

You haven't paid any attention the last few years. The UCP has a long history of incompetence even executing their own grifts. They cancelled the Green Line without even the concept of a plan to replace it. They have a massive history of waste and mismanagement. Expecting a group like that to produce a replacement to be better in any metric like cost, better service, or alignment that broadly serves Calgarians is lunacy.

Oh, I don't think the UCP is going to deliver a better project. No part of my optimism comes from our current provincial government.

[Fuzz]

Originally Posted by pepper24

Green Line LRT was going to cost too much and be way over budget if we wanted everything that was originally planned. $15B like posted above. Way too much and good to see it being cancelled.

Instead...

Extend the south line at Somerset-Bridlewood station east along the south part of the ring road all the way to the deep southeast (McKenzie Towne, Cranston, Auburn Bay etc.) with tons of rapid bus transit from surrounding communities and park and ride at stations.

Extend the NE line from Saddletowne station to airport. Up 60th St NE then west on Aiport Trail. Hopefully no issues with Airport tunnel and if tunnel was built without considering LRT expansion then that's just bad city planning.

For North Central. Increase bus capacity into downtown along Center Street and add more car pool/bus lanes.

Get back to 4 cars for each LRT, not sure why I only see 3 cars and full LRTs.

It's already pretty much maxed out, from previous studies. If only their were a next step to move to...

[FlameOn]

To people who need a reminder of why the UCP cannot and will not produce a better outcome for the Green Line.

Infrastructure projects need long term planning and funding certainty. Neither of which has existed in any form with this projects run by this party. We just need to look at the initial delays to Greenline before this cancellation. The UCP delayed the project for two years last time just because of a golf course back room conversation between Jason Kenney and some contractors that told him "we can do it for cheaper". This new review by the UCP engineering company, which very likely has connections to some UCP in some way, will be more of the same. The history and track record of this administration shows us this. We're going to end up with something that is the same or worse, that will cost us more, but line some UCP insider's pocket.

“We would have been ready to go to procurement right in the first phase of the pandemic,” Nenshi says.

“But then the Kenney government put a hold on the whole project.

“Somebody had come up to Jason Kenney — literally a guy he met — who said, ‘Oh, we can do it cheaper than that.’

“Based on that one conversation, the provincial government put a hold on the whole project to try to find a way to do it cheaper.

“They cost us almost two years as they went back and forth on this thing. In the end, they completely agreed with and approved our design.

“Ric McIver (municipal affairs minister) and Jason Kenney cost the city two years for nothing, just when the price started rising.”

“There is a very real likelihood they will kill the project just to try to score political points on me.“

https://calgaryherald.com/opinion/co...-cost-overruns

[Torture]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

It's already pretty much maxed out, from previous studies. If only their were a next step to move to...

Nah man, you can just write out a plan for a major transit system on a hockey forum in 3 minutes. Nothing to it.

[accord1999]

Originally Posted by Mazrim

They're relevant because so much of the current discussion is about the earlier decisions made that set the scope and layout of the project. If these so-called obvious problems in the methodology of choosing the alignment type were so obvious, why didn't the province raise the red flag then?

The Province deferred for the most part since Calgary was the lead in the project. It's only when costs escalated beyond a certain level that they started to take notice and be concerned.


Since cities have relatively limited revenue generation capabilities and mega-projects will always need provincial support, those increasingly expensive future stages now become something that Alberta needs to worry about for the future and affect its other capital spending programs. Alberta has been signalling to Calgary that it won't support much more growth in the Green Line project costs but it didn't listen.

[Locke]

Originally Posted by PaperBagger'14

Wish I could say more but there was a massive civil engineering #### up to the tune of $50 mil +. If someone told me it was a $100 mil it wouldn’t surprise me, that’s why I mentioned months ago that we were close to a stoppage.

I’m sure there is finger pointing and mud slinging going on behind the scenes, enough for the lawyers to lap up some fat paycheques. But yeah, this was totally predictable given how royally huge the mess up was.

Yes, yes, all well and good...but there is a massive amount of dirt across from my office that has been named 'Mount Ogden' whats going to happen with that?

Because if its still there in the winter I'm going to make my Intern climb it and plant a flag at the top....photoshop will do the rest.

[accord1999]

Originally Posted by FlameOn

Infrastructure projects need long term planning and funding certainty. Neither of which has existed in any form with this projects run by this party. We just need to look at the initial delays to Greenline before this cancellation. The UCP delayed the project for two years last time just because of a golf course back room conversation between

It was delayed at most by 13 months, the time between Calgary approved the 2020 revised plan on June 16, 2020 (due to the Bow River tunnel being too expensive) and when Alberta (and Canada) approved it on July 8 2021.

But that ignores at that same time, a new Green Line board was being setup to take over-sight duties, the previous managing director left and a new CEO wasn't onboarded until August 2021.

And even after Alberta's approval, the constructor wasn't selected until April 2023 who still needed 16 months for the design work. The reality is that the Green Line was never ready for construction as early as Nenshi now claims it was.

[Leeman4Gilmour]

https://www.calgary.ca/green-line/ab...t-history.html

I'm not following who is screwing who politically on this but the timeline above suggests they fiddle ####ed around for a decade on getting input from the public, then crammed the actual work into the last two years. As of June, this year, the design was only 60% complete. They've purchased, started construction and spent over a billion dollars and the design just passed the 60% mark? Sorry, if that timeline is true, this is not some revolutionary lesson in project management. It's the first lesson. Learned generations ago. Brutal.

[puffnstuff]

I havent completely followed along but does the UCP still get the feds GL money for whatever unicorn they decide to build?

[Ahuch]

Originally Posted by puffnstuff

I havent completely followed along but does the UCP still get the feds GL money for whatever unicorn they decide to build?

Feds would have to approve the revised alignment, and that expires March 31st.

The crux of it all is that if the city gets stuck with a billion dollars in project wind down costs, they won't have any money to fund even a cheaper, surface alignment without raising taxes a bunch. So unless the province or feds kick in a bunch of extra money, the projects basically dead for the timebeing.

[PaperBagger'14]

Originally Posted by Locke

Yes, yes, all well and good...but there is a massive amount of dirt across from my office that has been named 'Mount Ogden' whats going to happen with that?

Because if its still there in the winter I'm going to make my Intern climb it and plant a flag at the top....photoshop will do the rest.

Buy the land, flatten out the top of the hill, lay down an asphalt tarmac, paint a large H with a circle around it, park your helicopter there.