'Lack of provincial leadership': Calgary city councillor pushes back against province's letter
CTV
A Calgary city councillor is urging Calgarians to write to Alberta's transportation minister, their MLA and even Premier Danielle Smith to tell them to reverse course on their plan to scuttle the Green Line project.
A Calgary city councillor is urging Calgarians to write to Alberta's transportation minister, their MLA and even Premier Danielle Smith to tell them to reverse course on their plan to scuttle the Green Line project.
Ward 8 Coun. Courtney Walcott says the province's decision to pull their funding for the multi-billion-dollar project will cost jobs and waste taxpayer dollars.
"(Alberta Transportation) Minister Devin Dreeshen and the governing UCP have put thousands of Calgarian jobs at risk, jeopardized hundreds of millions of public dollars spent on work so far and most importantly, denied Calgarians a city-shaping transit system," Walcott said in a newsletter on Thursday.
On Wednesday, the City of Calgary said it received a letter from Dreeshen's office, which stated the province was pulling its funding from the Green Line pending "a new alignment from an independent third party."
"There are serious concerns with the City of Calgary's new business case for the Green Line LRT project that was submitted to the province on Aug. 15," Dreeshen said in a statement.
"The new alignment serves too few Calgarians, reducing ridership by 40 percent while the total project cost has risen by about 14 per cent."
In his comments about the decision, Walcott said 96,000 people move to Calgary each year and losing the project will cause serious development issues.
