Thread by @WBrettWilson

Hey @CITYofCALGARY - its time to slow down & reassess the #GreenLine - for many reasons:

1) timing - not now - not during COVID, not post the collapse of oil prices - lets wait 5 to 10 years.

2) costs - are exploding - the cost per mile ESTIMATE - has more than doubled!! DELAY!

3) Ridership forecasts are just a guess - given COVID & ENERGY - there isn't a hope your forecasts are close to accurate - you can't rely on them - you can't. #DELAY

4) Your boffins (paid public servants and councillor assistants) are plugging social media with misleading job

forecasts - they keep saying 20,000 jobs - we all know that isn't permanent - some might be for a week - its a lie to plug that number - you all know better. #JustDelay

5) Planning is a fail - you announced the routing - but didn't realize you had to be 7 stories below downtown

w/ a tunnel - in a flood plain / river below Calgary's downtown - a city planner said - I quote - we didn't realize it had to be that deep - which is why routing changed and change and changed. #DelayToPlanProperly

6) Funding - some paid boffins (ie the mayor's assistant) says

that if we don't go now - we lose the funding - first - the money isn't free - its questionable now - and nothing in that justifies spending stupidly NOW. #DelayTheGreenLine

7) Like the Olympics fiasco - this is about Mayor @Nenshi's ego - poor planning - doesn't mean go now.

8) the West LRT costs DOUBLED after construction started - doesn't give you much confidence in the current estimates does it.

9) I love infrastructure - that benefits Calgary - when the costs and timing are right ... things like the Entertainment Complex, the FieldHouse - yup.

10) don't forget the dumbest $400,000,000 you spent under the Mayor's guidance - the fucking tunnel that said his voting block 5 minutes driving time - should have been a toll tunnel if there was value in the project - same guys are now saying damn the torpedoes - lets build the

#GreenLineToNowhere now. Doesn't compute does it?

11) Squirrel moment - with the Entertainment Complex and a great FieldHouse built - we would bid on the 2030 Olympic Winter Games from a position of strength - not desperation as proposed by @Nenshi (there were 7 other bidders!)

12) the timing - is a guess - which is a fail on a $5B project - with costs escalating - it was once 2024 - now looks like 2028 - that a long and lonely wait for the GUESS of 65,000 average daily riders (test that number eh? 20% of working adults in Calgary are to ride daily?)

13) The folks at @CityOfCalgary fought against @UBER - remember that madness?? They tried to protect the taxi industry - who clearly had our Mayor blindfolded & tasered into submission - our bureaucrats fought #RideSharing - while hundreds of cities already had figured it out eh?

14) The economic analysis is misleading and misguided - they added in "external" benefits - but conveniently forgot "external" costs - read it - its all online - Council should be embarrassed even accepting this report. Its smothered in bullshit.

15) the folks at City Hall (including council - maybe especially council) have failed for the last decade to control escalating costs (salaries keep jumping), tax sharing has been inequitable (which is the fail now that downtown is 30% EMPTY - 30% or more FUCKING EMPTY.

16) thus business taxes have already doubled - putting many businesses in - for example - Inglewood and 17th Avenue OUT OF BUSINESS - before COVID - this will only be worse - if the Costs Double (ie West Line) - the cost per property tax payor will be north of $30,000 each.

Yup - you read that right $30,000 each - to be paid for out of your taxes - as its captured over time - it will be $50,000 for each and every property tax payor in the @CityofCalgary.

17) Best of all - when you digest the City's report - its a fact "The City's own report, without adjustments, says the Costs outweigh the Benefits by almost 2 to 1".

Why would any councillor support this madness - none will be around to be accountable when this thing trips ...

into the greatest white elephant our city has ever seen.

18) I love this City - I could live anywhere in the world - but chose to be here - to invest serious coin here (even now - building a new restaurant) - I pay taxes on many properties - I believe in Calgary - but not the

GreenLine at this time. Park the file - seal it in concrete - jackhammer it open in a decade - run the costs - the benefits - and see if it computes then.

It doesn't compute now. Council knows that - all of them do.

Please RT to get their attention - please message #CityHall