Gondek, Smith hold ‘productive’ meeting on Calgary Green Line aimed at preserving contracts – Calgary Achi-News

Days after Calgary city council voted to end the LRT Green Line, the city and provincial governments are back at the table to discuss the future of the project.

Calgary mayor Jyoti Gondek along with members of the city administration met with Premier Danielle Smith, Transportation Minister Devin Dreeshen and other provincial officials Friday morning in what both sides described as a “productive meeting.”

It comes after Gondek sent what he described as a “hail hail” letter to the province on Thursday urging the Alberta Government to keep existing pieces of work and contracts as they seek a new alignment.

In the letter, the mayor specifically identified a contract for 28 low-floor light rail vehicles, as well as the contract for design work on the Green Line segment between Victoria Park and Shepard.

“We discussed the remaining value in existing contracts and how work already being done could align with the new vision the province wishes to deliver by the end of the year,” Gondek told reporters following Friday’s meeting.

Gondek estimated that keeping those contracts would save millions in costs and more than 700 jobs.

According to Gondek, timelines and costs would be extended if the province started from scratch, as the project would require an entirely new procurement process.

The Alberta Government hired engineering firm AECOM to find alternative alignments for the Green Line by the end of the year that would see it run on a large scale from the city’s core as far as Seton in the southeast of the city – all within the project’s $6.2 billion budget.

Calgary’s mayor said the province is committed to reviewing the city’s existing contracts in the coming days, after twice rejecting the idea.

“Both parties are currently incredibly committed to ensuring that whatever the new alignment looks like is delivered in a way that is cost-effective as well as quick to deliver,” he said. Gondek. “But also something that doesn’t compromise the rider’s experience and the vision we had to go from north to south.”

In an interview with Global News, Dreeshen echoed the mayors’ sentiments about the meeting after weeks of finger-pointing and back-and-forth between the city council and the provincial government.

“It opened the door for the city administration as well as our officers to be able to have a working relationship to make sure we can save the Green Line, so we can basically work together,” Dreeshen said. . “It was very positive to see that the mayor and some Calgary city councilors see the value of working with the province to make sure we can extend the Green Line.”

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The project had been in limbo since a Sept. 3 letter from Dreeshen to Gondek said the province would pull its $1.53 billion in funding — unless the city changed and extended the line’s route.

That letter came weeks after Calgary city council was forced to shorten the line to Lynwood/Millican, eliminating six stations, and boosting the city’s share of funding by $705 million due to rising costs in the first phase of the alignment.

“At the end of the day, there’s only one taxpayer, and we want to make sure that the best value for tax dollars comes at the end of this and that we can actually build the Green Line,” Dreeshen said.

The costs of winding down the project are estimated to cost the city at least $850 million, which increases to $2.1 billion when including money already spent on the project. Dreeshen has previously said the province would not help with those costs, and that the city would be the entity overseeing the construction of the future LRT line.

City and state officials are reviewing existing contracts and more information is expected in the coming days. Both sides noted that time is of the essence.

“This interim review period is very tight,” Gondek said. “We only have a matter of days to make decisions on some of these existing agreements. So it’s important that our administrative teams can work together on this quickly.”

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