Calgary city councillors emerged from an hours-long discussion on Calgary’s Green Line with an evaluation that shows they believe there’s $1.3 billion not included in the province’s work.

Behind closed doors at the Dec. 17 Regular Meeting of Council, Calgary city council dug into the provincial consultant’s report, which the Alberta government delivered to council late last week. 

That report came with a 7 Avenue to Shepard alignment that included an above-grade entry from a proposed Grand Central Station, along 10 Avenue S and then northward at roughly 2 Street SW.  The province said this proposal would fit within the $6.2 billion funding envelope that had been most recently established.

“This alignment adds five more stops, will be 76 per cent longer and will serve 60 per cent more Calgarians – all within the same budget,” said Alberta Minister of Transportation Devin Dreeshen.

City officials, however, said the rough order of magnitude estimate provided by AECOM didn’t include $1.3 billion in known costs and risks. The AECOM report is included at the bottom of this story.

“As the report remains confidential, the details of the analysis will be included as part of further negotiations and decisions within the Reimagined Green Line Working Group,” read a City of Calgary statement.

“The alignment is only one component of the due diligence that The City needs to undertake before making a decision on a reimagined Green Line.”

The City said that their prior alignment down to Shepard was tallied at around $7.2 billion (with a downtown tunnel). This new provincial project down to Shepard, with $1.3 billion in unaccounted for costs would bring the project total to $7.5 billion, the City said.

Earlier in the day, councillors heard that the prior Green Line project was at a 60 per cent design before being scuppered. At that level, the budget narrowed in on a -15 per cent / +15 per cent variance.  They heard this high-level review by the consultant represented a roughly five per cent design level, which comes with a -50 to +100 per cent variance.

No snap decisions: Mayor Gondek

Calgary Mayor Jyoti Gondek said there’s a lot that still needs to be reviewed by her and her council colleagues before making a decision. She said as much to Alberta Premier Danielle Smith.

“We can’t make a snap decision on this. We’ve got a lot of questions. We will need to do our due diligence on what (they’re) proposing in terms of an alignment,” she told reporters on Tuesday evening.

“But more importantly, we need to understand who will bear the risk on this project. We have a responsibility to Calgarians to take care of their tax dollars, and if there are overages on this project, if they miscalculated how much this is actually going to cost, that’s not something we can take on as a risk.”

Ward 1 Coun. Sonya Sharp said she didn’t agree with city council directing administration to release statements to “fight” with the province in the media. She said there’s been debate on this project for more than a decade with not an inch of track built.

“Calgarians don’t want politicians saying, ‘I told you so’ – like some of my Council colleagues said. They want leaders who say: ‘I’m listening, I’m open to all options, and I’m working with our partners to deliver what’s best for Calgary,’” Sharp said in a prepared media statement.

“Let’s focus on solutions by working together, not fighting with our partners in the media. The Green Line needs to move forward—responsibly, transparently, and with the trust of Calgarians.”

Ward 11 Coun. Kourtney Penner said the next step is the province coming to the table to have a frank discussion with the city on the costs and how they were derived.

“There is a lot of explanation that needs to happen to the public on how (the province) continue to assert the $6.2 billion and that there’s a lot of future work to do to truly understand the cost of this alignment,” she said.

Mayor Gondek said she had to be broad with where their additional costs are coming from, due to the confidentiality of the agreement. She said getting too specific would get into a gray area.

“It’s our belief that the AECOM report is missing some important information about costs that we’ve already sunk into the Green Line project,” she said.

The province has said that “pre-existing or already spent costs were not part of the review” done by AECOM.