Green Line LRT - $4.6 Billion Project

[Corndogger]

Originally Posted by evolv

I don’t get why we need this line anymore. With jobs leaving downtown and now what looks to be a permanent increase in work from home strategies, rail to the downtown doesn’t make sense.

We probably don't. It would be much better to use the money to upgrade our roads as we still need to get goods to market and some people will never be able to work from home. Those types of jobs tend to be on the fringes of the city where freeways make the most sense. Building roads would also employ a lot more people.

If we're forced to build the Green Line at least do it right.

[accord1999]

I think at this point, the #1 reason to spend the money appears to be that they're (City Council) afraid if they don't spend it, the higher levels of government will take their money back.

The 40 km Green Line for $4.5-$5B in 2015 might have been a good project for Calgary of that year; but I don't see $5B for 20 km of track with Transit having been gut-punched with the oil price collapse and COVID being the best use of the money in terms of transportation.

[outoftheice]

The argument that we don't need to invest in the Green Line because of COVID-19, the emerging trend of working from home, the oil price crash etc... can easily be applied to roads as well. Yes transit ridership is down right now but so is traffic in general. Drive the Deeftoot during rush hour right now and you barely have to slow under 100 km/h. If we shouldn't be spending money on Green Line, we shouldn't be spending any money on the road network either.

Projects like the Green Line and the ring road deliver their benefits over decades and take years to build. Yes Calgary is in a tight spot right now but none of us really know where the city and the economy will be in seven years when the Green Line has its opening day. If you asked Calgarians in 2013 where we would be today my guess is almost nobody would have accurately predicted our current crisis. The key question is where will Calgary be in 30 years? My guess is at some point in the next 30 years our economy will rebound, our downtown office space will be packed to the gills and we'll be extremely happy we invested in a new rail line to help move large numbers of people into downtown when we did.

[milomilo]

Originally Posted by outoftheice

The argument that we don't need to invest in the Green Line because of COVID-19, the emerging trend of working from home, the oil price crash etc... can easily be applied to roads as well. Yes transit ridership is down right now but so is traffic in general. Drive the Deeftoot during rush hour right now and you barely have to slow under 100 km/h. If we shouldn't be spending money on Green Line, we shouldn't be spending any money on the road network either.

Projects like the Green Line and the ring road deliver their benefits over decades and take years to build. Yes Calgary is in a tight spot right now but none of us really know where the city and the economy will be in seven years when the Green Line has its opening day. If you asked Calgarians in 2013 where we would be today my guess is almost nobody would have accurately predicted our current crisis. The key question is where will Calgary be in 30 years? My guess is at some point in the next 30 years our economy will rebound, our downtown office space will be packed to the gills and we'll be extremely happy we invested in a new rail line to help move large numbers of people into downtown when we did.

Exactly. If the argument is we don't need transit lines to downtown, then we don't need more roads to downtown either.

The idea that work is going to move to the suburbs is a convenient vision but it doesn't hold a lot of water. Calgary currently doesn't have any major secondary employment areas other than for specific things like hospitals and universities. But we do have lots of empty buildings downtown served by roads and transit. Why would new offices go anywhere other than there? And even if we did build new employment centres outside of downtown, Calgary is very easy to get around outside of the centre, for now. We'd have to wait a long time before deciding what roads need upgrading.

[Pegasus]

I don't think now is the time to embark on ANY major expansion projects. Calgary is swimming in debt, the province is swimming in debt, and so is Canada. (And so is the whole world for that matter). This will impact us for many years. And there is still no end in sight for this current crisis (either COVID-19 or energy prices). Capital expenditures should be restricted to fixing problem areas (i.e. widening Deerfoot at Glenmore Trail) and not building more capacity (until we are sure we will need it). We may NEVER fully recover from the current crisis - there will be a "new normal" (many businesses permanently closed, working from home, air travel never recovering to previous levels, people avoiding mass transit to avoid infection, quarantine restrictions at borders, etc.). Will most of us ever feel comfortable sitting in an arena shoulder to shoulder with 16,000 other people again?

[milomilo]

Calgary isn't allowed to take on much debt, Alberta barely has any debt compared to any other province and Canada has a debt to GDP lower than its peer countries. So none of those entities are "swimming in debt". Short term finances will be bad, but this should be temporary, and cancelling projects that have been in planning for close to a decade that will serve us for decades more is incredibly short sighted.

Why would the city cancel the Green Line, a project it deemed necessary, in favour of upgrading roads which it had not deemed necessary?

Nice Sea Harrier though!

[Pegasus]

I should clarify I meant to imply defer rather than cancel. I find the current discussion on what the new line should look like (all or part, above ground or below, street level or platforms, etc) confirms that with funding so uncertain we are far from making a decision, let alone starting construction. And funding uncertainty will continue for a quite a while yet.

What was cool about the Harrier were its unique Rolls-Royce Pegasus vectored thrust engines.

[MalcolmTucker]

Originally Posted by Pegasus

I should clarify I meant to imply defer rather than cancel. I find the current discussion on what the new line should look like (all or part, above ground or below, street level or platforms, etc) confirms that with funding so uncertain we are far from making a decision, let alone starting construction. And funding uncertainty will continue for a quite a while yet.

What was cool about the Harrier were its unique Rolls-Royce Pegasus vectored thrust engines.

Why defer? Debt prices can only go up from here.



As for the discussion of high floor, low floor, it is only a talking point by some rich dudes think going high floor for the greenline would mean we don't need another maintenance facility. It is not a discussion. It is flooding the zone with FUD.

[milomilo]

The only uncertainty of funding is the province, but as things stand it is still funded on their end. So I'd say that makes it even more imperative for the city to not blink, we don't want to give the province an excuse to unilaterally kill the whole thing.

That said, let's either shit or get off the pot. Quit the delays and make a decision, get on with it. It barely seems like we are closer to construction than we were 5 years ago even though we should be well into it by now.

[evolv]

Originally Posted by milomilo

Calgary isn't allowed to take on much debt, Alberta barely has any debt compared to any other province and Canada has a debt to GDP lower than its peer countries. So none of those entities are "swimming in debt". Short term finances will be bad, but this should be temporary, and cancelling projects that have been in planning for close to a decade that will serve us for decades more is incredibly short sighted.

Why would the city cancel the Green Line, a project it deemed necessary, in favour of upgrading roads which it had not deemed necessary?

Nice Sea Harrier though!

I think the points people are making is that the Green Line is not necessary anymore. I am not advocating more roads I am advocating not spending infrastructure dollars on something not needed.

[milomilo]

Originally Posted by evolv

I think the points people are making is that the Green Line is not necessary anymore. I am not advocating more roads I am advocating not spending infrastructure dollars on something not needed.

Other people were saying to cancel the green line and build roads. And the lifetime of the Green Line will be many, many decades, just because at this exceptional moment in time traffic is light doesn't mean it will always be so. The existing LRT is now almost 40 years old and will still be operating 40 years from now, I bet there were people all along the way claiming that it wasn't needed at the time.

[Pegasus]

CTV Calgary Poll result:
Is now the time for the city to be making decisions on big projects?
Yes: 806 34%
No: 1,573 66%
Total number of votes: 2,379

https://calgary.ctvnews.ca/more/poll-results

[MalcolmTucker]

Yes because online polls are the most awesome, especially when prompted right after a story which contains FUD about a big project.

[outoftheice]

Not to mention the poll question isn't that great. Ask each respondent how they define 'making a decision on a big project' and they would probably all give you a different answer. One could argue the decision to move forward with construction of Green Line was made back in 2017. The upcoming decision in June isn't about spending new money or expanding scope it's about what the final design of the project will look like.

[Pegasus]

"Is now the time for the city to be making decisions on big projects?" This seems like a pretty straightforward question to me. The current COVID-19 situation is so serious (medically and economically) with no end yet in sight I just don't see how any sensible decisions can be made at this time. Nobody knows what the future looks like . . . Even planning for the future is at best speculative and fraught with uncertainty. So the response to the survey (IMO) indicates that 2/3 of respondents "get it".

[Socguy]

Large infrastructure projects are the perfect government stimulus program. If such projects are ready to go when the government is looking for 'make work' programs as they try to restart the economy, then they're going to be put on the front burner.

[lucx]

Originally Posted by Socguy

Large infrastructure projects are the perfect government stimulus program. If such projects are ready to go when the government is looking for 'make work' programs as they try to restart the economy, then they're going to be put on the front burner.

This pandemic has significantly affected service industries and will continue to disproportionally affect them for the upcoming months. Government assistance may target services industries and infrastructure may not see the stimulus it did after 2008.

That saying, if the City can get North Central shovel-ready and the province can maintain their funding, I'm all for it.

[MalcolmTucker]

Originally Posted by lucx

This pandemic has significantly affected service industries and will continue to disproportionally affect them for the upcoming months. Government assistance may target services industries and infrastructure may not see the stimulus it did after 2008.

That saying, if the City can get North Central shovel-ready and the province can maintain their funding, I'm all for it.

This is a large recession. Even if infrastructure stimulus is maybe 15% of total stimulus, it will still be nearly as large as the stimulus a decade ago. For infrastructure I think making sure planned expenditures go forward is just as important--municipalities are really bad at short term capital spending above a certain threshold. They left money on the table in 2009, and 2016 because they aren't good at spending.



There will be multiple waves though. Since we just don't know how fast the recovery could be. By next March we will know whether we are looking at a 10% output drop, or 5%, or 15%.



If the sustained drop after the recovery from the big dip is big enough, even with the shape of the recession being different the infrastructure stimulus could be large and long lasting. It may be very different--aiming for retraining to increase capacity to divert people away from the service industry.

[milomilo]

Originally Posted by Pegasus

"Is now the time for the city to be making decisions on big projects?" This seems like a pretty straightforward question to me. The current COVID-19 situation is so serious (medically and economically) with no end yet in sight I just don't see how any sensible decisions can be made at this time. Nobody knows what the future looks like . . . Even planning for the future is at best speculative and fraught with uncertainty. So the response to the survey (IMO) indicates that 2/3 of respondents "get it".

We're not making the entirety of the decision on this project at this moment in time though. Almost all the decisions were made previously, we didn't create the whole thing in the last few weeks. What would be a much bigger, and more rash, decision would be to throw out all that work and cancel the project.

The people are morons and their opinion should only be asked every election cycle, we've already wasted too much time on worthless community engagement with this project. Thus we shouldn't waste time on their answer to the article's question either.

[Pegasus]

Originally Posted by milomilo

"The people are morons and their opinion should only be asked every election cycle . . . we shouldn't waste time on their answer to the article's question"

So, your personal opinion rates higher than that of 2,379 of your fellow citizens? The arrogance leaves me speechless!!

I am not suggesting cancelling - just deferring a decision until there is more certainty (and this is what the CTV poll was asking).

This pandemic will last many more months, perhaps even years. Furthermore, will downtown employment ever return to previous levels? There is no certainty Calgary will see employment levels enjoyed after previous downturns, and even if it does, working from home is proving to be very effective in the energy patch.