Portions of Green Line work with contracts in place could be saved in a new era of transit collaboration between the City of Calgary and the Government of Alberta.

Calgary Mayor Jyoti Gondek told reporters on Friday afternoon that after a letter she sent to Premier Danielle Smith and Transportation Minister Devin Dreeshen on Thursday, they had a productive meeting that could see the sides work together once again.

This comes days after a squabble that’s been ongoing since Sept. 3, with both governments laying the blame for the $6.25 billion project’s failure at one another’s feet. Calgary city councillors heard this week that a wind down of the Green Line would cost around $550 million more than the $1.6 billion already spent or committed.

Mayor Gondek said the letter to the province was a “Hail Mary” to see if they could salvage some of the work already done on the Green Line project. The sides spoke Friday morning, with administrative teams to dive further into the details.

“We discussed the value that remains in existing contracts and how work that’s already being done may align with the new vision that the province wishes to bring forward by the end of the year,” Mayor Gondek said.

The Government of Alberta has brought on a third party to examine different options for a transit alignment to the southeast. Both Minister Dreeshen and Premier Smith have expressed a desire to deliver a project that goes from Calgary’s new Event Centre down to at least Shepard, and perhaps the community of Seton where the South Health Campus is located.

“Today, together with the city’s experts and folks that are working on the Green Line project, I was able to explain how we might be able to save money, get to construction and delivery quicker, and save jobs,” the mayor said.

“If the province were to start from scratch on their vision for a new alignment, it would require all new procurements and all new contracts, which means more time, and it means more money. With what I’ve proposed, they can use carefully considered rail solutions that have already been reviewed and approved by all three funders, and solutions which already have many industry experts working on them.”

What can be salvaged?

Presumably, with the Green Line’s initial path taking it from the downtown into southeast Calgary, much of the enabling work done thus far in that alignment could be repurposed.

The mayor also suggested that maintaining the design work from 4 Street to Shepard would save time and money, along with the purchase of 28 LRVs for that line.  

Earlier this week, Minister Dreeshen said that they wouldn’t help Calgary with the wind-down costs for their version of the Green Line project. Should the parties continue to work together, it could mitigate some of those wind-down costs for the City of Calgary.

Minister Dreeshen also told LiveWire Calgary that it was a productive meeting. He said it was good to see a change in tone with the City of Calgary wanting to sit down and work with the province and AECOM, the consultant hired to conduct the transit review. Dreeshen said they’ve always had an olive branch extended – the $1.5 billion in funding was intact and the new project had to meet three criteria.

A lot of the work the city’s done to move utilities and other enabling work done between the downtown and the Millican would likely stay intact, Dreeshen said.

“I hate to speculate, but I would say from the Event Center south, down to Millican, that alignment will probably be identical to what the city drew up. But obviously going down from Millican south into Shepard or even into Seton, that we’ll have to see,” he said.

Dreeshen acknowledged that AECOM’s biggest challenge would be finding a way to tie in the Green Line and the Red and Blue lines – one of the conditions for funding. He also said that they’re aware of the low-floor LRV contract – and potentially large cancellation penalties. The challenge is that those cars won’t operate on the Red and Blue lines.

Mayor Gondek said she would have much preferred to have these conversations on what parts could have been salvaged before city administration delivered the wind-down costs to Calgary city council – or before they received the Sept. 3 notice funding was being pulled for the current Green Line alignment.

“I would have much preferred that we could have had conversations about that potential decision before the decision was made and issued to us,” Mayor Gondek said.

“It would have been a very good time to talk about the contracts that would be jeopardized. It would have been a very good time to talk about how their new vision could potentially use things we’ve already had in place.”

Minister Dreeshen said that he’d met personally with numerous councillors to explain the province’s position on funding the Green Line, and the conditions that had to be met. While the Green Line Board said that the province knew about the truncated line and the dramatically reduced ridership, the minister said it wasn’t until he saw the full business case, submitted Aug. 15, that they decided they couldn’t fund the project.

“That would make the Green Line the most expensive and least effective LRT project in North America,” he said.

Green Line: A New Hope

The City of Calgary and the Government of Alberta will continue to meet over the next several days to iron out how they can collaborate on the potential new transit project. Mayor Gondek said that time is of the essence as many of these contracts need decisions within days.

Depending on what could be used, some work could continue, though it would ultimately be contingent on the alignment the province seeks with its southeast transit project.

“I would say that both parties right now are incredibly committed to making sure that whatever the new alignment looks like is delivered in a way that’s cost-effective as well as quick for delivery, but also something that doesn’t compromise the rider experience and the vision that we had to go further north,” Mayor Gondek said.

Both sides are aware of the March 2025 deadline for a revised project to qualify under the current federal government funding rules. Minister Dreeshen said they expect to have something in place by December 2024.

“That is something that we as a province and the city are both working in a very timely manner to make sure that we can have this new alignment by December, we can do everything that we can to make sure that federal $1.53 billion of funding is secured as well, and we can finally see, next year, kilometers of track being built on the Green Line,” he said.

Minister Dreeshen said he believed a measure of trust and goodwill was built up with the Friday meeting.

“I think everybody on both levels of government want to see the Green Line built because we know the benefits that it’ll have for Calgary commuters by having fewer people on of our roads, freeing up more traffic on local Calgary roads, as well as having a good transit solution for commuters in the city,” he said.

“At the end of the day, I think everybody sees the validity of having a Green Line that works and that serves most amount of Calgary as possible.”