Alberta Minister of Transportation and Economic Corridors Devin Dreeshen says the province won’t be footing the bill for the wind-down of Calgary’s Green Line LRT project after he withdrew funding earlier this month.
“I don’t see why Alberta taxpayers should be asked to pay for a decade-long mismanagement and decisions of past mayors and city council,” Dreeshen told CBC Radio’s Calgary Eyeopener host Loren McGinnis Wednesday.
Dreeshen maintained he didn’t kill the Green Line when he pulled the province’s share of funding for it Sept. 3, contrary to claims by multiple members of Calgary city council that the LRT project was dead the moment the transportation minister made that move.
Several council members also said that with no provincial funding committed in the future, the project as currently envisioned is not possible to achieve.
Dreeshen again contradicted council, claiming “the funding is still there” for an alignment that is more cost-effective, longer and above ground.
“I was surprised to see council voting to potentially end the Green Line,” the minister said, adding he hopes council would change its mind if a new alignment is shown to be feasible.
“I hope that they want to build the Green Line and that they know that our provincial contribution, and federal contribution, remains on the table.”
‘Funding is still there’ for Green Line from province
Dreeshen said in an interview with CBC Radio’s The Homestretch on Aug. 1 that funding for the Green line in its current form was “100 per cent” secure.
“I didn’t go back on that. The funding is still there. The $1.53-billion commitment from the province is still there. We did have stipulations. That wasn’t a blank cheque that we were going to give the city,” he said.
“There were conditions of making sure the Red and Blue lines were tied into the Green Line, the new event centre would be connected, as well as stretching down to the southeast of Calgary.”
Dreeshen reiterated that the project isn’t viable as it is, and its exorbitant cost would have made it the most expensive LRT project in North America.
Asked whether the province would step in and take leadership of building the Green Line, the transportation minister said the province is still committed to working with the city to get the project back on the rails.
Dreeshen said a third party has been contracted to come up with a new alignment for the Green Line by December that will forgo plans to tunnel through downtown Calgary in favour of laying tracks above ground to extend the line further into the southeast of the city.
“That would be our hope and obviously that we’ve heard a wide range of billion-dollar-plus tunneling costs that could be avoided if we were to not tunnel under downtown,” he said.
It’s unclear how a new alignment would connect the Green Line to the Red and Blue lines without tunneling underground, or how the train service would extend to Seton without going over the reported cost of $6.2 billion — funding that includes contributions from all three levels of government.
Dreeshen said he hopes a new plan can be agreed upon early in the new year that would see work begin and tracks start to be laid sometime in 2025. He said if the city decides not to accept the province’s new plan, “the Green Line alignment will be on the shelf.”
“It’ll be there for future councils to consider. But we need to make sure that the City of Calgary wants this alignment and we’ll see what happens in December.”
Feds upset by Green Line situation?
Dreeshen also appeared to speak on behalf of the federal government during his Wednesday interview on Calgary Eyeopener, claiming the federal transport office is frustrated by “10 years of headache,” again placing blame on former Calgary mayor Naheed Nenshi, now the Alberta NDP Leader, for mismanaging the Green Line project.
“No kilometre of track has been built. So that, I think, is the big frustration of the province and the federal government, is we have a city-led project that hasn’t really done anything in 10 years,” Dreeshen said.
“They’re as frustrated as we are of the fact that this has been a 10-year project that hasn’t actually laid one kilometre of track.”
CBC News has reached out to the federal minister of housing, infrastructure and communities, Sean Fraser, for a response to Dreeshen’s remarks.
Fraser has previously said he was “surprised and disappointed by the decision” by the province to pull funding for the LRT, adding the move would impact thousands of jobs.
“This was especially surprising considering the positive discussions that took place with provincial officials at regular meetings where these apparent issues were not raised, up until the province’s decision to delay construction, risking cost escalations,” Fraser’s office said in a statement to CBC News on Sept. 6.