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Alberta Avenue (118 Ave)

Daveography

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Alberta Avenue business community believes more can be done to spruce up neighbourhood
EDMONTON — Community members and business owners in Alberta Avenue believe that while strides have been taken to improve the neighbourhood, more can be done and now it’s up to property owners to do their part.

“It’s not just the city, it’s the private owners on the avenue. They have to make an effort,” Melanie Dovale said.

Full Story (Global Edmonton)
 
Horsing around on the Ave...



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Arts on the Ave is proud to present the 13th annual Deep Freeze: A Byzantine Winter Festival featuring, Under the Frozen Sea.

Frozen it was!
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Serious fun time! I was there Sunday late afternoon until closing. The cooler weather didn't slow down the "Deep Freeze"! Good turnout. Last years pic's are posted in the "Around Edmonton" sub forum which are less cool to look at as it was about 30 degree's warmer (just imagine, it was a bloody heat wave!) and resulted in an absolute massive turnout of 60-70,000. This years crowd was somewhat less in numbers but better dressed and much more stylish...
That's me
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Here's some shots of the day, then I'll post some evening pic's, entertainment, structures and clowns...
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Another tour of Alberta Ave is due, @archited, have to start with the iconic big bat...
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A long shot of Alberta Ave. Some might say it will be a "long shot" to rethink the Ave but it's slowly happening.
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The Ave has been improving as you know. Goggle Maps still offers the best tour of the neighbourhood, unless there are some street life happenings. The Thursday Market has perked to life. The Ave between 94th to about 90th is showing its potential, (with spatterings of street life up to 82nd). Some shots around the community centre.
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The huge community garden behind the centre looks great, as does the park.
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I'll do some more tours over the summer - but I'm disappointed that Pho King is closed for Renos. I miss my soup!
 
@Kaizen excellent photogs as usual. I checked in with @Daveography about the idea of setting up an Alberta Avenue Thread and he said that we should go ahead, the idea being that we all -- every person on the Skyrise site membership -- could have fun making suggestions for improvements to Alberta Avenue. I am concerned mainly with the Avenue between the Coliseum and NAIT. We could look first at removing vehicular traffic from 118 and creating one-way westbound on 119 Ave and one-way eastbound on 117 avenue, changing the zoning between these two parallel streets to a Mixed Use category allowing medium-rise apartments (say 25 storeys max.) along the new one-way routes and preserving the "old west" character of commercial buildings along 118 (which would now become primarily pedestrian oriented). I think that we could provide a centre-avenue rail venue that would have two turn-of-the-last-century rail-car assemblages powered by embedded LSMs -- the rail cars might be four-units long with the two centre units being "double-decker" dining/bar/viewing cars where the meal ticket has a sustaining quality, allowing the end cars to provide free passage between the LRT station at the Coliseum and the soon-to-be LRT station at NAIT/109th Street. Some rail-cars from that era were very posh and we would pick up on that for this street-borne connection. The rail cars would have a stopping point regularly at every three blocks. The sidewalk and the street could be sub-terra heated during times of low temperatures combined with high humidities to sublimate frost and snow. The sidewalk, then could be a continuous boardwalk per the Old West. We could replace street pavement with bonded decomposed granite (to emulate the non-paved streets of old). Anyway, this could be a starting point for conceptualization.
 
OK -- here we go. This is a "hobby project" but who knows where it will lead.
I think there is interest in developing an historic Western-themed main street and I think that Alberta Avenue is an ideal candidate for that kind of venture. I don't believe that it needs to have "authentic period-style architecture"; we just need to develop concepts that emulate or "hint at" period styles -- I am not suggesting another Manchester B.S. series of efforts -- there are ways to emulate/acknowledge architectural styes without replicating them out of context. I encourage everyone to share their ideas going forward.
So, knowing that there is an LRT station at the old Coliseum and a planned-for-one at 109 street and 118 Ave., let's think about how we can link these two together. I would like to see an LSM-propelled series of cars (a group for each direction) -- no engine -- that includes simple passenger cars along with "money-makers" (high-end dining cars and second tier bar and viewing cars) -- these in conjunction with gamification elements that pay the whole fare -- construction and operation -- without any money from any of the levels of government (no conditional elements related to financing).
The LSM "train" would then feature a small centrally located "kitchen car" with dining cars on either side and "view levels" above the dining cars that are centered around bar features. Besides these there would be two outside "transportation cars" -- free to ride that enables Alberta Avenue residents to connect to LRT. The collector "cars" that would pick up Alberta-avenue adjacent peoples and deposit them at one of many stations along the A-Ave. route would be Olli electric buses --
-- that would be free to ride (again supported by advertising and holographic programming). All of the transportation modes would be driver-less controlled from a central monitoring station. The Olli buses would have, instead of a driver, a docent who would "entertain" passengers and would assist with embarkation and debarkation. More follow-up to come...
 
There is research being done for a new type of road surface/subsurface that mixes in iron filings to a paving substrate -- in the "Old West" Alberta Avenue theme I would imagine DG (Decomposed Granite) as a finish surface (more natural looking) and, because it comes in a range of colours, could be graduated to more resemble a natural "unpaved" street surface. Mixed with the proper ratio of iron filings with a low-wattage electrical field attached to temperature and humidity sensors working in tandem then, it would be possible to "read" snow events and the through-substrate electrical charge (activated in the right conditions) would sublimate snow falling on the surface -- no need for snow removal. Instead of being a "hazard" then, snow would become a street design element on trees and plant-groupings, on eaves and roofs, and on street sculptures and signs (beautiful if you think about it).
With the previous post underscoring the connection of LRT stations with a surface tram-train, I would then envision all vehicular traffic removed from Alberta Avenue and relegated instead to one-way west on 119 Ave. and one way east on 117 Ave., the land between these two avenues removed from the City zoning standards and placed in a "special" mixed use category, allowing greater densification.
The rail cars could then move along Alberta Avenue unimpeded. I would have all cross-street intersections closed except for 97th Street and 82nd Street. At these two points I would envision a 1:20 slope (walk-able grade that doesn't require railings) allowing both pedestrians and the tram to continue east-west unimpeded.
The Tram would take a shape like so... IOOOI--IOOOI--IOI--IOOOI--IOOOI (five cars in length where the smaller centre car is a kitchen/bar service car; the two cars adjacent to the centre car are double-decker cars -- dining below/viewing above; and the two outside cars at either end are straight-forward passenger cars. This format would never change. There would be two such assemblages -- one traveling eastbound, one westbound at any given moment in time.
The cars would be some version of a period style (modified) as pictured below. The three centre cars would be the "money-makers" where diner/imbibers pay for meals/drinks as per a typical eatery; passengers on the outside cars would ride for free (naturally the aromas from the dining cars would be mechanically wafted into those cars as an enticement). Interior games in the two outside cars plus advertising would engage fees, enabling the "free" transportation.
First a sample palette of DG colours:
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...and then opulent dining car images:
Opulent Dinign Car.png
Opulent Dining Car 2.png
 

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