Nobody should be surprised that the province of Alberta has formally pulled out of the Calgary Green Line LRT expansion boondoggle. The usual suspects are howling bloody murder at the Smith government over the issue, but there really wasn’t a choice left in the matter. The project has gone out of control in cost and timelines.The City of Calgary mused for over a decade about building a new LRT line reaching from the North Central part of the city, down through the city core, and terminating in the deep suburbs of Southeast Calgary. The plan called for about 46 kilometers of track to be laid.During Naheed Nenshi’s tenure as mayor of Calgary, the project was given the go-ahead and was coined as the “Green Line” expansion. Nenshi was tickled. In 2015, Nenshi announced the Green Line would be completed by 2024.But the Green Line has been a debacle since its inception. The plans kept changing, while the prices kept rising, and the scope kept shrinking. Years have passed, well over a billion tax dollars have been spent on it, and not a single inch of track has been laid. Rather than shock Calgary’s taxpayers with seeing an increasing bill for the project, the city kept shrinking the scope of it. From the original planned 46 kilometers, it went down to an 18-kilometer plan which would just run from downtown Calgary to the Southeast at a cost of $4.5 billion. Then last August the city planners sheepishly announced the project would be cut in half again to about 9-kilometers and the cost was going to rise to $6.3 billion.The latest revision to the Green Line plan was the final straw for the Smith government and they have thankfully suspended funding for it. Alberta Transportation and Economic Corridors Minister Devin Dreeshen pulled no punches in a letter he sent to Mayor Gondek in saying: “To be clear, we recognize your and the current Council’s efforts to try and salvage the untenable position you’ve been placed in by the former Mayor and his utter failure to competently oversee the planning, design and implementation of a cost-effective transit plan that could have served hundreds of thousands of Calgarians in the City’s southern and northern communities,” To get an idea of how badly the costs had been getting out of control, one needs to look at the rough cost-per-metre to lay the tracks. With the 18-kilometer plan set a few years ago, it was to cost about $250,000 per meter for the tracks. With the revised plan for a stub of a 9-kilometre line along with a budget increase, the cost per metre rises to about $700,000. That’s almost triple the cost in just a few years and they haven’t even gotten a piece of track down yet.The timeline for the project is another question altogether. Even if taxpayers could keep up with the constantly increasing costs for the line, at the rate the construction is going people could be travelling by teleportation before the train starts running.For those unfamiliar with Calgary, the track's terminus is another issue. The revised project runs through sparsely populated light industrial areas to end at a small residential community. The ridership on that portion of the line would be miniscule if it were ever built and no costs could possibly be recovered.The City of Calgary is currently under strictly enforced water use restrictions due to successive mayors and councils deferring maintenance and upgrades to the water system. In 1995 it was reported that the city would have to work on its water system to avoid a future disaster. So why did the city ignore the water issue for so long?It’s because water lines are boring. Vanity-driven mayors like Nenshi don’t envision themselves cutting ribbons for water lines or freeway overpasses. They want grand projects named after themselves with fanfare like Olympic games or train lines. Now, every Calgarian is paying the price as they have neither a new LRT line to enjoy, nor a reliable water supply.Nenshi's other personal legacy project had been getting the 2026 Winter Olympic Games to Calgary. Unfortunately for Nenshi, Calgarians thought otherwise and rejected the bid in a referendum.The infrastructure mess in Calgary will take a generation to sort out. Most of the city council and city administration needs a turnover and a change in priorities. They need to get back to providing essential services while resisting the temptation to create shiny new things to mark their time in office.Nenshi is surely enraged as his prime, pet project appears to be on the rocks. Had Nenshi stuck to what’s important when managing the city rather than pursuing trophy projects for himself, he would be much better placed in his pursuit of the Alberta premiership. Instead, he is wearing egg on his face as his vanity projects are falling apart before they are even constructed.A city election is set to happen in a little more than a year and the electorate is grumpy. Chances are good there will be a big change in faces appearing in council and as mayor. Along with the orientation process for these new civic leaders, they should read Ozymandias by Shelley and be tested on their understanding of it. If leaders could put duty ahead of personal vanity, we would all be better served. They will be forgotten in a couple generations anyway.
