Calgary’s Green Line, a massive planned expansion to the city’s transit system, is in a state of light rail limbo: neither going ahead nor totally dead.
City council voted last week to stop work on the project. The mayor and councillors in favour of halting the line say Alberta’s governing United Conservative Party forced their hand this month by going back on their word to provide $1.53-billion to the project, a long-standing commitment that had been reaffirmed as recently as Aug. 1.
Construction on the light-rail line was already underway. The mayor and city administration argue it’s too late to go back to the drawing board – as the province wants – after years of planning. An orderly wind down is the only option.
“Withdrawing the funding killed the project. There is no more Green Line, as we’ve known it,” Calgary Mayor Jyoti Gondek said.
On the other side, the Danielle Smith government argues it has stepped in to stop a slow-motion boondoogle. The project cost has gone up while the number of stations have been whittled down to seven from the original 29. “A stub line barely reaching out of downtown,” is how Transportation Minister Devin Dreeshen characterizes........