It quickly becomes clear the two sides are not yet singing from the song sheet
You knew the Kumbaya love-in couldn’t last forever.
It would be unrealistic to think it would last for even 30 minutes.
We’re talking about the Green Line LRT and there are big issues on the table.
On this day your scribbler is at Calgary city hall sitting next to Mayor Jyoti Gondek.
We are both looking at the screen of a laptop as Devin Dreeshen, Premier Danielle Smith’s point man on the Green Line, joins the chinwag.
It’s just the three of us, one asking questions, two answering them.
When looking at the Green Line, both Gondek and Dreeshen make the point more than once about how they are trying to get the best possible value for Calgarians and how the province and the city are working together.
What happens if city council doesn’t go for any of the designs for the Green Line to be presented in December?
“When we hand off the ball to the city in December and they have the alignment in their hands, they have the ball in their hands, if they vote No and drop the ball then it’s game over. It would be the end of the line.
“We, as a province, are not going to pick up the ball. They need to be the ones holding the football.”
“On Sept. 3 we found ourselves in the position of Lucy pulling the ball away from Charlie Brown,” says the mayor.
The city is obviously Charlie Brown.
“We had what we thought was an understanding of moving forward with what was proposed in July. That disappeared. In spite of Sept. 3 the city has come back to say: What can we do together?”
It quickly becomes clear the two sides are not yet singing from the song sheet.
Gondek says city council wants to see the line go to Eau Claire so there can be a bridge to connect over to north of the river.
Gondek says she was thrilled as a resident of north central Calgary that the Green Line was going north.
“I was not impressed when the decision was to go south in 2017 rather than north.”
The mayor is just getting started.
“If you’re coming from the south and you’re ending up, let’s pretend, at city hall you just can’t take riders off of there and assume they’re going to get on the Red and Blue Lines because those trains are packed.
“And if you’re going to run more trains you’re going to be stopping traffic flow.
“We need to see what the impacts are, not only on the rider experience but for the people in their vehicles being blocked by a train because now there are more trains running to keep up with the people coming on.”
Gondek is really just getting started.
“Let’s not forget. As time goes by things get more expensive and market confidence being shaken means contracts may become more expensive.”
Dreeshen says those working on the new Green Line design and the costs of it are dealing with what the mayor is pointing out.
The mayor is not done.
“We carry all the financial risks. All the carrying costs are on us. All the contracts are in our name. We have the least flexibility in terms of finance. We can’t carry a deficit. All the borrowing is in our name. We are in a very difficult position right now.”
Then Gondek says it has to be figured out who is taking on the financial risk … and read this carefully … who is taking on the ownership of the project.
“We can’t take on the financial risk,” says the mayor, adding, “to date we haven’t increased taxes for this.”
Dreeshen says very clearly what he has said before. The Green Line is going to be a City of Calgary project going forward.
Let’s just say there was some tension in the air.
Dreeshen talks a lot about getting the Green Line as far to the deep southeast as possible as he waits to see how far the dollars will stretch.
“Rule of thumb it’s about a ten-to-one cost saving when you’re going above ground versus tunnelling.
“With the same budget, what we can save by not having to tunnel we can extend further to the south.”
Into the more heavily populated areas of the deep southeast of the city?
“That would be the hope,” says the province’s main man on the Green Line file.
Why do I think this yarn is going to get real interesting?