Things are looking up for Edmonton’s urban future, with council setting the right tone for LRT expansion and airport redevelopment.
As far as LRT goes, NAIT is the first priority, followed by the combined west and southeast lines – a decision that prioritizes strengthening existing urban areas. Extensions to Gorman and Heritage Valley in the outer suburbs are lower priorities, even though they’re further along in the planning process.
There’s some danger in putting them off, but Edmonton’s too far behind in existing areas.
While council hasn’t yet begun to rein in sprawl, deciding to close City Centre Airport last summer was a hint of things to come.
The motion promised “ecologically-advanced, transit-oriented, medium- to high-density, mixed-use development.”
Still, I was worried council didn’t really mean it. Administration must have gotten the same idea, with their draft principles including uninspiring goals like “providing higher densities than typical suburban developments.”
Thankfully, the token gesture was panned by council. Coun. Karen Leibovici dismissed it as typical filler for any greenwashed suburban development proposal, while Mayor Stephen Mandel proclaimed that “this is going to be the the most creative, innovative, and sustainable development that exists in the world.”
Creating such a neighbourhood will, of course, require tossing the typical approaches to transportation planning.
Along with prioritizing walking and bicycling, transit has a huge role to play.
To make it work, autos can’t have the run of the place. The benefits of concentrating housing at stations are all but erased when the two are separated by multi-lane roads, parking lots, and poorly designed transit centres.
LRT must be the focus, but LRT alone isn’t enough. Extending the discontinuous 118 Ave. through the site with frequent bus service or a streetcar (and few private cars) would help knit the city back together, while on-site schools, stores, and jobs are needed to ensure that walking will take a healthy share of daily trips.
Coincidentally or not, three alternatives for the LRT extension from NAIT to the northwest are to be announced shortly, with a decision in June.
Whatever the route, it needs at least one stop on the airport site — centrally located and preferably underground.
Then it’s time for council to make good on their promise for a design competition.
To the city on behalf of a new generation of city planners and urban designers: Give us development principles daring enough — and a station around which to implement them — and we can move the world.
