War of words rages as council awaits cost of winding down Green Line LRT

Calgary city council is expected to learn how much it will cost to wind down the Green Line LRT project today.

It comes as the province and council continue to exchange bitter words on who is to blame for the project going off the rails.

In a video posted Monday evening to X, formerly Twitter, Transportation Minister Devin Dreeshen blasted the Green Line in its current form, calling it a "vanity project," saying it was poorly planned and "drawn up on a napkin."

On Tuesday morning on CBC Radio's Calgary Eyeopener, Ward 9 Coun. Gian-Carlo Carra said the province's decision to pull its funding from the project amounted to setting $1 billion "on fire," calling such a decision both "stupid" and "malicious."

It all comes in the wake of Dreeshen's announcement that the province would be pulling its $1.53 billion in funding from the $6.2-billion transit project if the city doesn't rejig the line's route and extend it farther south.

The city has already spent more than a $1 billion dollars on land acquisition, utility work and new rail vehicles for the project. The current city council approved an updated, shortened version of the Green Line LRT in July with an added $700 million in costs.

In an interview with CBC News on Aug. 1, Dreeshen said the province's portion of the funding was "100 per cent" secure.

Gondek says it's clear the Alberta government isn't willing to budge on its rerouting demands, and the city can't afford to pay for the LRT without provincial funding.

Dreeshen says the project's scope has shrunk while its cost has inflated, and the provincial government is getting an independent engineering firm to create alternative proposals for an above-ground alignment of the transit project. 

The dispute has become highly politicized, as former Calgary mayor Naheed Nenshi, who left city hall in 2021, became leader of the Opposition NDP in June.

Dreeshen has labelled the Green Line project the "Nenshi nightmare." He has said the former mayor is responsible for mismanaging the project from the start and that it was never properly engineered.

Nenshi, in turn, has blamed Dreeshen for turning the project into a political football and putting jobs at risk.

In a scathing thread posted to social media Monday, Gondek skewered the province over its decision to pull its portion of the funding for the Green Line LRT, calling it "political stunting."

Premier Danielle Smith has previously said the province thinks it can do a better job than the one currently proposed by the city.