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Keating said the notice of motion will state that in the tendering process the city must look at how far past 16th Avenue and Shepard a company bidding could build the line within the designated timeline and price.

“One of the very weighted components of that bid should be, the (least distance) is Point A to Point B, but if you give us more than that and we’re still in our budget, that’s where we would determine who is going to get the contract,” he said.

Keating’s idea comes after community members and federal politicians have expressed outrage that the first phase of a project initially described as a 46-kilometre, $4.5-billion transit line will be built in stages and won’t reach transit-starved suburbs north of 16th Avenue and past Shepard on opening day.

The city’s general manager of transportation told Postmedia on Tuesday that while there are no guarantees the first stage will extend beyond 16th Avenue or Shepard, the city will pursue that possibility.

“We can guarantee Stage 1 for the money that we have available and then say, (to consortiums,) ‘OK, what can you do beyond that?’ and let them be creative, let them be innovative and let them take the risk,” Mac Logan said.

Ward 10 Coun. Andre Chabot said he plans to amend Keating’s notice of motion to encourage the city to live within its means and only build what it can afford in Stage 1, a number he has calculated at $3.82 billion not $4.65 billion, because of the massive cost of debt servicing.

Elected officials heard Monday a “conservative scenario” pegs annual debt servicing for the 20-km first phase of the project at $56 million annually, or nearly $1.7 billion over 30 years, on top of the $4.65 billion price tag.

“This was a sell job to get money, and the fact that we’re misrepresenting the true cost of this is a sell job to try to convince Calgarians that this is a good project,” Chabot said Wednesday.