Valley Line LRT/ Valley Line West | ?m | ?s | City of Edmonton

Edmonton will have costs to incur to be sure and I wish some of those costs and expectations coming from these governing bodies wasn't so huge, but keep in mind one of the key reasons the North American bid won was that it was pitched as low cost in terms of infrastructure - the bid had a much lower budget compared to the losing bid. All the stadiums of host cities are already built versus other world cups and most certainly the Olympics where so much new project work is always required which heavily eats into the economic return.
There will be costs but I think this event is a big win for Edmonton and Alberta.
 
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Many of the hotels are downtown or in South Edmonton, with some around West Edmonton Mall. With the World Cup, much of the media will be based downtown. Much of the Valley Line West LRT will be residential past 124 Street. If Marigold could complete a couple of critical path tasks early, it may be possible to achieve early completion. If Stony Plain Road could be closed for a similar year of construction like 95 Avenue was done, it may be possible to make headway.
 
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Many of the hotels are downtown or in South Edmonton, with some around West Edmonton Mall. With the World Cup, much of the media will be based downtown. Much of the Valley Line West LRT will be residential past 124 Street. If Marigold could complete a couple of critical path tasks early, it may be possible to achieve early completion. If Stony Plain Road could be closed for a similar year of construction like 95 Avenue was done, it may be possible to make headway.
It is all or nothing. The extra rolling stock needed hasn’t been ordered there is no where to store or maintain it or test it properly.
 
Where is the report that states $450M? I've seen it in news articles, but haven't seen the official report/breakdown. Back in 2018, the original estimate was $170M.

$450M erodes pretty quickly when you are speeding up a $2.6B infrastructure project. Some of the reports I have read on the costing required of hosting say that it does not include security costs. We all know how that went for Vancouver in the 2010 Olympics. I think the primary issue I have is that there doesn't seem to be detailed costing for Edmonton hosting (likely because it a. isn't complete yet or b. isn't public). The issue of hosting large sporting events such as FIFA and/or the Olympics, is the cost normally balloons.

It is fine for people to be excited at the prospect of hosting; however, that shouldn't exclude the public from seeing the business case/financials to understand what type of due diligence was done. Too often, reports come out close to the event and/or afterward when enormous amounts of money have already been spent.

I agree with your point $450M sounds high. Not sure how many people can fit in the stadium but lets say we have 50,000 visitors for 9 days. Each person would have to spend $1000 per day. I was very close to going to Russia and we were budgeting $250 per day, 4 friends in a hotel room that was like $300 per day plus meals, beer etc. Press and VIP may spend a lot more but not that much. Of course there will be a lot of people from Alberta without tickets just attending the public areas and spending in restaurants and bars and maybe some hotels but not to make up for $450M.

I think your $170M maybe $200M may be more accurate.

Sorry to disagree with earlier posts about being chosen by a big team as training center. Not going to happen, the quality of facilities here is just not up to par to what is available in hundreds of pro and college facilities in the US, plus footballers and their wives love their shopping and know where the deals are. Also it would be a long flight anywhere for their games. I think Florida and Texas will get most of them with some south Atlantic and Midwest states taking the rest.

Not sure how the LRT fits into the picture, there will be a lot of buses, there always are, people go to world cups in groups so UBERs will be popular and so will be rental cars.

If I was setting priorities I would invest in improving public spaces around the stadium, change our silly liqueur laws and leverage our proximity to the mountains and other attractions to try to make people plan longer stays or maybe make another trip soon.
 

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