A project that could bring down a government.
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That's how former ACT treasurer Ted Quinlan described the Capital Metro project to The Sunday Canberra Times and he could be right.
In the popular US television show Parks and Recreation, accountant Ben Wyatt is haunted by his time as the fledgling mayor of his hometown.
He infamously bankrupted the town after spending its entire budget on a useless winter sports complex called Ice Town and was subsequently run out of the city.
At this stage, only time will tell if the ACT light rail legacy paints chief minister Andrew Barr as a visionary leader or becomes his own personal Ice Town.
As part of its special investigation on light rail, The Sunday Canberra Times has spoken to experts across the ACT and no one can agree fully on whether the Capital Metro project is a timely development or a waste of money.
As ANU professor Leo Dobes points out in today's edition, a lot of the uncertainty is due to the government's opaque business case.
Over and over again, experts have questioned some of the benefits the government has claimed the light rail will bring to Canberra.
Some, such as productivity gains, are speculative and taken across a huge, 30-year periods, while others such as land value have been double counted with transport time reductions.
As professor Dobes said, it's a mish-mash.
At the same time, the costs are very clear - at least $783 million of taxpayer money from an economy that is already fragile and deep in the red.
Quinlan calls the government's decision to build the light rail "courageous", and it's beginning to look that way in the Yes Minister sense.
Talking to residents in Canberra's south you can see a visceral dislike of the project, a symbol on which to load their dissatisfaction with other government services and programs.
In the 2012 election, the Labor government under former chief minister Katy Gallagher almost lost government after a backlash in Canberra's southern electorate of Brindabella.
Instead of trying to fix this discontentment, the government seems to have doubled down, assumed the south is lost and aimed to consolidate the vote north of the lake.
It might work - the light rail could be a great success. But as even the slim cost benefit analysis margin shows, it's line ball.
The question Canberra voters have to ask themselves is this: should $783 million be spent on such a decision?