Yes, it takes a long time to put lipstick on this pig.
They talked and they talked and they talked for hours upon hours behind closed doors, this city council and its experts.
Guess you’d probably talk that long if, after all the talking, you were offering Calgarians a stub of an LRT line and telling Calgary taxpayers it would cost more.
Yes, it takes a long time to put lipstick on this pig.
That got the votes in the north of the city, north of the river.
Then there was the big stretch from downtown to the southeast, the deep, deep southeast, to Seton where the south hospital is located.
The city hall politicians picked a number largely out of the air and picked your pockets for 30 years of a provincial government tax break intended for you.
The federal government gave matching money, so did the province.
But nobody, nobody, high inflation or no inflation, nobody who could pass a Grade 6 math test believed a Green Line from the far north to the deep southeast had a price tag of $4.5 billion.
That was fantasy math.
Over time others questioned the plans. Over time the Green Line shrunk. Then it would only go to 16 Ave. in the north.
There was chinwagging about how to go across the river or under the river.
Now, the city’s north side is getting diddly.
Then, in the south, the Green Line wasn’t going to go to Seton after all. Wasn’t going to the deep southeast where most of the people on the south route live.
The latest $5.5-billion price tag only took the south line to Shepard. Most Calgarians couldn’t find Shepard on a map.
On Tuesday, at the city council show-and-tell, we find out the Green Line is not even going that far. It’s not even going as far south as Quarry Park or Douglas Glen or Ogden.
The Green Line is going from Eau Claire to Lynnwood/Millican. That’s it.
The line shrinks further as does the number of riders and there’s a bigger price tag.
We’re talking over $6 billion. $6.248 billion to be exact.
Don’t bet that number won’t go up.
On this day there is a minority of council looking out for taxpayers, asking questions, wondering where this is all going to end up, thinking about how this will affect spending on other things important to Calgarians.
Those speaking up include Sonya Sharp, Dan McLean, Andre Chabot and Jennifer Wyness.
On the other side, more council members cling to the vision, the council majority led by Mayor Jyoti Gondek.
Gian-Carlo Carra is one councillor many readers love to see quoted and the man does provide material.
Carra talks about the good old days as this Green Line was born when politics was in full sentences. That’s a line from Nenshi, now the Alberta NDP leader.
A time, we are told, when citizens wanted to give their money to the Green Line and social media was positive and projects were on time and on budget.
On this day, Carra mentions inflation and “converging crises” and speaks of climate, democracy, capitalism, social justice, equity, inclusion, celebrating pluralism.
He realizes this Green Line, such as it is, is three times larger than any other project but it’s worth it.
Jasmine Mian is a councillor who says she is very excited and says the Green Line is “a beautiful vision.”
One day their vision may get built but it will be many years down the line and may cost $20 billion.
Or more. It could be more of a hallucination.
Of course, this whole state of affairs is the provincial government’s fault. It’s inflation’s fault. It’s the naysayers.
It’s former premier Jason Kenney who is the bad guy.
Kenney, who announced federal taxpayer dough for the project when he was in the Stephen Harper government, and always wondered why Calgary wasn’t getting the Green Line the feds helped pay for.
But not one smidgen of the blame is city hall’s fault and it sure as heck isn’t Nenshi’s fault. He’s made that plain.
A group of concerned citizens with a lot of smarts want city hall to pause, rethink and redesign the Green Line.
At city hall these folks are treated worse than lepers.
They suggest not tunnelling downtown and instead getting the LRT out of downtown on an elevated line and then heading out all the way to Seton for far fewer dollars.
City hall isn’t listening. Why won’t city hall even jaw over the idea?
Here’s Barry Lester, former Stantec senior exec, who knows his stuff and is well-respected among the engineering crowd.
“I’m an engineer not a psychologist,” he says.
“I think they’ve become very much invested in the idea of having a tunnel downtown, God only knows why?
“I don’t know. Maybe they’re not that smart.”
Bingo!
Of course, the Green Line board calling the shots assures us there won’t be any problems. Good luck with that.