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LRT Expansion Planning

Windermere said:
I don't work anywhere near Whyte Ave or Downtown, by your logic, do I need to live central to live in an apartment? Or if I want to be close to work in the Southwest, I must buy a house??

Believe it or not, there is a world outside of the core.
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This is a classic argument. But a few issues I’d say:

1) many jobs are located in our sprawl because of our sprawl. “I work in windemere at jayman”. Ok, and why is jayman located there and not around gateway, 170th, etc? Because of sprawling development in the SW.

2) for the other municipalities like Leduc, Devon, stony, etc, if people work in those places, they should either live in those cities, or be prepared to drive from the city. Why should the city unsustainably sprawl out to there on the subsidies of other taxpayers who didn’t choose to work and live so far apart? (Same reason I hate the terwillegar widening. If you don’t like your commute from windemere to downtown, MOVE. Don’t make taxpayers blow 300mil for 30k people using it daily).

3) there’s a difference between “some” apartments and the current amount we’re building. And someone can always find a job, or give an anecdote of where it makes sense. But by in large, we know our employment is clustered downtown, UofA, hospitals, WEM, mainstreets, and our 2 industrial areas. Those are the vast majorities of our jobs. So we should prioritize housing close to those. Do people work outside the henday? Yes. Do significantly more than in our central city? No.

The opportunity cost is just tiring. The financially unviable, tax negative sprawl is unfair and stupid. Make people pay for their commutes, don’t make all taxpayers pay for infrastructure to have whole neighborhoods next to satellite suburbs.
 
It's not that simple. People will choose communities based on a bunch of determinants. Affordability, proximity to jobs, schools, family and other factors. These factors also change over time. Sometimes schools get built years after the community. With population comes the need for services like fire, ambulance, police and hospitals. Edmonton needs another hospital in the south, which may not arrive for another decade.

Edmonton has taken advantage of urban renewal in core areas. Cases in point include Griesbach and Blatchford, which will be supported by LRT.. A lot of urban renewal has occurred on former industrial sites. BC Place and development around False Creek is on former industrial land. Toronto and Downsview. If you're a senior living in the core of Edmonton, it's difficult to give up your house.
 
The_Cat said:
It's not that simple. People will choose communities based on a bunch of determinants. Affordability, proximity to jobs, schools, family and other factors. These factors also change over time. Sometimes schools get built years after the community. With population comes the need for services like fire, ambulance, police and hospitals. Edmonton needs another hospital in the south, which may not arrive for another decade.

Edmonton has taken advantage of urban renewal in core areas. Cases in point include Griesbach and Blatchford, which will be supported by LRT.. A lot of urban renewal has occurred on former industrial sites. BC Place and development around False Creek is on former industrial land. Toronto and Downsview. If you're a senior living in the core of Edmonton, it's difficult to give up your house.
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All of those factors you just listed don’t exist in areas until the sprawl gets there. No one wants to live in Heritage Valley rn cause it doesn’t exist. But once the city builds all the roads and developers add houses, it’ll become its own place with the cyclical impacts of residents, business, jobs, residents.

All I’m arguing is that we should focus that cycle in established areas that aren’t drowning us in debt. Add more housing to central areas and you see more jobs and businesses, that attract more residents.

There are very few jobs outside of where we have sprawl and many of the people who live in new suburbs don’t even work in those areas (and of those that do, it’s often jobs that only exist out there because of the sprawl (schools, restaurants, service businesses). Those people could have easily lived and worked in more central areas too).

I’m tired of seeing schools in mature areas closed while we build new ones 10 minutes outside the henday. I’m tired of us having to service new suburbs with transit while many that rely on transit in central areas continue to see worse transit or at best plateaued. I’m tired of snow clearing being worse because we have 2x as many roads as Montreal and 1/3 the population.

The costs of building out instead of in/up are hurting us greatly.
 
Greenfield development will always exist given the neighboring municipalities. One thing Edmonton could do though is build new neighborhoods with a "rail-first" approach, kind of like how Tokyo grew out. Instead of building roads, you build rail. Radical, but to me would really transform the city in a good way.
 
occidentalcapital said:
Greenfield development will always exist given the neighboring municipalities. One thing Edmonton could do though is build new neighborhoods with a "rail-first" approach, kind of like how Tokyo grew out. Instead of building roads, you build rail. Radical, but to me would really transform the city in a good way.
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I would also accept a "bus-first" approach if it's too far from the LRT route, with everything focused on a central corridor that's easy to service by a high frequency bus line/access on foot.
 
occidentalcapital said:
Greenfield development will always exist given the neighboring municipalities. One thing Edmonton could do though is build new neighborhoods with a "rail-first" approach, kind of like how Tokyo grew out. Instead of building roads, you build rail. Radical, but to me would really transform the city in a good way.
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It’ll always exist, but could exist at a slower pace. Say 30-50% or new growth benign greenfield. Not 70-80% like it has been.

Sure, some people will live in other municipalities. But most want to be in Edmonton. Not like all the people in windemere would have chosen to live in Devon if we didn’t sprawl that far SW. Imagine the TOD around the south capital line we could have encouraged instead of building and servicing while new neighborhoods?

And I very much agree to the rail first approach. We should have done Lewis farms and a train down terwillegar to create radial hubs before letting development happen there and now shoehorning in trains.
 
I can think of the following as potential locations for redevelopment:
(1) Boyle Street (95-97 Street)
(2) Eastwood west of the LRT tracks (across from the Coliseum).
(3) Belvedere east of the LRT tracks.
(4) Downtown (105-109 Street)
 
Another item of interest, thanks to Google Maps:
(1) The distance from Jasper Avenue to Whyte Avenue is 2.5 km, the same distance from Front Street station to Bloor Street station on the Toronto Subway.
(2) Bloor to Eglinton is about 3.6 km.
 
Why isn't the rail right of way from brewery district to the SE corner of Blatchford ever explored as a tramway branch off the valley west line? It seems to me that it would be a very affordable extension to 118th ave. It would also serve all of 124th st.

I know I'd prefer a 124th branch, but I'm aware of the difference in cost vs what is essentially a greenfield build.
Screenshot_20230806-141504~2.png
 
Barnaby said:
Why isn't the rail right of way from brewery district to the SE corner of Blatchford ever explored as a tramway branch off the valley west line? It seems to me that it would be a very affordable extension to 118th ave. It would also serve all of 124th st.

I know I'd prefer a 124th branch, but I'm aware of the difference in cost vs what is essentially a greenfield build.View attachment 498044
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Bringing back the Original Edmonton tram system in general would fix a lot of transit problems that the city faces today.
 
Barnaby said:
Why isn't the rail right of way from brewery district to the SE corner of Blatchford ever explored as a tramway branch off the valley west line? It seems to me that it would be a very affordable extension to 118th ave. It would also serve all of 124th st.

I know I'd prefer a 124th branch, but I'm aware of the difference in cost vs what is essentially a greenfield build.View attachment 498044
Click to expand...
Why not run it all the way down 121 street to Jasper east to 95 street up to 188 avenue. Operation and maintenance in Blatchford. New trams can run on batteries through downtown. There is great potential for redevelopment dow the 121 industrial lands which are under utilized and 95 street.
 
I imagine that in a couple of years, there could be a circular shuttle route along 104 Avenue going east from 116 Street (Valley Line West), past MacEwan and Rogers Place (MacEwan Station), City Hall (Churchill Station), east to 95 Street and Jasper Avenue, going north to 82 Street (Stadium Station), continuing north to 118 Avenue, turning west to 97 Street and NAIT/Blatchford (NAIT Metro Line), crossing through Blatchford and onto 120 Street. The bus could continue south to 116 Street and meet up with 104 Avenue. The bus will go through downtown, but it won't be necessary to go to Churchill to transfer LRT routes.
 
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