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Downtown

Honestly, I'm always incredibly surprised to see these types of posts. I have lived downtown (not centrally, properly downtown) for 9 years now and I can honestly say I have never felt safer than I currently do. Obviously, there are clearly people who have had a different experience to mine but I can't help but feel there's some strong recency bias occurring with these perceptions. I will say this year has been particularly difficult with COVID and the rebuilding of the Herb Jamieson Centre and there has been a noticeable uptick of visible homelessness, but I would expect it to be fairly temporary.

At the risk of generalizing (a sure sign I'm about to unfairly generalize!), I also tend to find people who really fixate on railing against homelessness and the uncomfortable activity surrounding it seem to mostly oppose meaningful investments/programs to address systemic issues of poverty and tend to default to supporting higher enforcement instead - which has failed pretty spectacularly to actually address any of these complex, challenging social issues.

McKeen has disappointed me on a lot of portfolios, but he's generally been one of the strongest advocates on Council on mental health issues (and to a lesser degree, poverty and homelessness). My greatest critique is that he says a lot of great things without really championing the programs and spending to back it up.
 
^ ^^ ^^^

i find this to be a difficult topic because there are so many related pieces but that's never stopped me from jumping in so far. i have worked downtown for more than the last two decades and live adjacent to downtown (riverdale) and have for more than two decades so i live a lot of this every day, all day.

while working downtown i have also developed and managed commercial real estate downtown (and in every other ward in the city and in some of our surrounding municipalities for that matter but this is a downtown discussion).

off the top of my head in no particular order or prioritization:
  • there is a big difference between homelessness and criminal activity even though there is some overlap between the two.
  • we perpetually talk about ending both of them but we perpetually focus on the symptoms and not the root causes.
  • we are so concerned with being seen to give dignity and respect to individuals who have not earned it that we no longer provide the dignity and respect of a safe environment to tens of thousands of edmontonians who no longer feel comfortable downtown. i think you can trust me when i say the person sleeping in a cardboard box in our loading dock isn't looking for your dignity and respect, he's looking for a warm place to sleep where everything he owns will still be there in the morning. the person sitting in his or her own bodily fluids beside a pile of ashes and soot from cooking their meth or their coke isn't looking for your respect - trust me, that isn't where their mothers want them to be or where they wanted to be when they grew up. we need to enable those who respond to that and we need to provide support for those who who can't. but more than that, we need to stop the pipeline that continues to put people there like that.
  • we need to stop the consequences of bad drugs and the petty theft that is needed to support the addictions because the drugs are illegal. in the middle of one pandemic that seems to dominate every headline and conversation, there are 5 people dying in alberta every two days from drug use.
  • we continually and endlessly embark on "new projects" and ignore the impact on pedestrian and vehicular movement and this doesn't just apply to private development. 104 street was a project, jasper avenue was and remains a whole series of projects, capital boulevard was a project, the bike lanes were a series of projects, 103 avenue is a project, the dog park was a project, the armature is a project, the lrt along the length of 102 avenue is a project, the convention centre roof is a project, sir winston churchill square is a project (again), the library is a project, winspear is a project, the citadel is soon to be a project, our scramble intersections are projects... layer these on to the disgraceful way we allow developers to co-opt sidewalks and street lanes and it's no wonder the dba's new slogan should be "it's downtown, you can't get there from here".
  • then you have this strange demarkation between those who do the projects (public and private) and those who maintain them (or more accurately refuse to maintain them). is there a paved sidewalk anywhere that doesn't look like this:
    1601594434725.png
  • our downtown streets and our downtown sidewalks in particular seem to be considered a long-term warehousing option for barriers and signs and traffic cones that seem to go up and then get moved aside and abandoned in place. some stretches of sidewalk have more asphalt patching than concrete and we are the only major municipality i am aware of that still has gravel lanes downtown (and i'm not talking about lanes that have deteriorated, i'm talking about actual gravel lanes).
  • we allow grass to grow knee-high and then seem surprised to see it criss-crossed with paths leading to spaces where people can hide without being seen.
  • we spend multi-millions of dollars on a funicular and then not only can't we find the money to provide enough security to keep the glass from being perpetually smashed, we can't even seem to find the money to stock enough replacement glass to fix it when it does get broken.
  • we have tree grates without trees and sometimes we'll replace the grates with boards until they are replaced but sometimes we don't.
  • we have traffic lights that are so long that you can spend more time sitting at lights on a 12 minute trip than moving which would be okay if there was any cross traffic but for too many times in the day there isn't any.
  • we have traffic lights that are timed for cars downtown when they should be timed for pedestrians.
  • ...
this is not caused by any one person or councillor nor can it be fixed by any one person or councillor. this is a set of problems that is cumulative and that we all need to take ownership of or be prepared to see get a lot worse before it will get better. it's not one single thing that needs to be fixed, it's a litany of things big and small that we all need to take ownership of look for solutions and all of those solutions won't come from ward 6 or even from the city. many of them will need the support of province and the federal government but it all starts with taking ownership, not walking away.
 
IanO said:
Bistro 99 in the Omega (old Starbucks) is open as of today with a variety of baked goods, treats, sands, soup and looks great.

They plan to have a limited appetizer menu and wine in the early evenings at some point.
Click to expand...
Excellent to see. I ate way too many baked treats/breakfasts from that Starbucks - it was clear with how long it lasted that it was a good location.
 
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