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Southwest Transportation Improvements

ChazYEG said:
This widespread wish to live in new communities is simply a fruit of social conditioning, nothing else.
As for nothing stopping infill, legally and formally, in there isn't anything stopping it from happening, but greenfield development is cheaper, easier and mote lucrative in the short term, for both the city's coffers and the developers, albeit extremely damaging for the city, overall, in the long term. Continue to allow unchecked greenfield development and suburban sprawl is going to break the city's finances, worsen our transit, increase congestion and the need for investment in car infrastructure, etc...
And there's no way back from this if we reach a certain threshold, it just becomes a snowball rolling forever down the hill. The city doesn't need to forbid or make it impossible to develop new neighborhoods, but it could very well start by rebalancing property taxes, so that new suburban developments are not a burden for the entire city. It's ridiculous that people living in central neighborhoods have to subsidize the suburban sprawl with property taxes.
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Your logic of drawing circles around certain communities in the city to be exempted from a portion of taxes or charging a tax penalty for so called "new unnecessary" developments ... is a hoot. Good luck with that! Your apparatchik comrades will have a hard time pushing through that type of legislation in this Province. Don't look to Edmonton City Council to do much ... the proposed City Charters were axed by Kenney as you know full well and the City was left without a scrotum and thus incapacitated.
 
EdmTrekker said:
Your logic of drawing circles around certain communities in the city to be exempted from a portion of taxes or charging a tax penalty for so called "new unnecessary" developments ... is a hoot. Good luck with that! Your apparatchik comrades will have a hard time pushing through that type of legislation in this Province. Don't look to Edmonton City Council to do much ... the proposed City Charters were axed by Kenney as you know full well and the City was left without a scrotum and thus incapacitated.
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I'm done debating this with you. The moment you started with the ad-hominem.
 
EdmTrekker said:
Your logic of drawing circles around certain communities in the city to be exempted from a portion of taxes or charging a tax penalty for so called "new unnecessary" developments ... is a hoot. Good luck with that! Your apparatchik comrades will have a hard time pushing through that type of legislation in this Province. Don't look to Edmonton City Council to do much ... the proposed City Charters were axed by Kenney as you know full well and the City was left without a scrotum and thus incapacitated.
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Bro...what. do you know anything about sprawl and urban planning? ARTIFICIALLY low pricing for Greenfield developments is a HUGE issue.

If you want to race to the airport with a bunch if single family homes, go ask the GTA how much they LOVE the culture devoid suburban sprawl and congestion. Most people there hate it, but its all they can get.

Young families...all my friends and I are in this category...want diverse housing options, affordable housing, good schools, safe communities, and good amenities.

The city can't redevelop run down core areas when it spends hundreds of millions to widen roads to sprawling suburbs...roads primarily used by people buying those artificially cheap homes, yet they use EVERYONES taxes to pay for it. How is that fair?

Also, lots of young people would love to not have to own 2 vehicles for a family and drive 30+ minutes everywhere. But the suburbs are great at attracting people with low housing costs, but making them spend 5-10k more a year on a car...
 
EdmTrekker said:
Your logic of drawing circles around certain communities in the city to be exempted from a portion of taxes or charging a tax penalty for so called "new unnecessary" developments ... is a hoot. Good luck with that! Your apparatchik comrades will have a hard time pushing through that type of legislation in this Province. Don't look to Edmonton City Council to do much ... the proposed City Charters were axed by Kenney as you know full well and the City was left without a scrotum and thus incapacitated.
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I'll ask you back: What's the logic behind encouraging suburban sprawl in a large city? I haven't heard many reasons past the anecdotal "it's nicer in the suburbs" or "everyone drives anyway". If you're so keen on defending this position and willing to use borderline-offensive language like this you clearly have some solid logical points to back it up.
 
IanO said:
It's a bit of backwards thinking being applied to maximize yield though. Density should increase as you get closer to your core, as should public amenities and support that density.
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I like the idea of having nodes. Of course our central business district should be downtown, but if we can increase density as housing gets closer to those node centers, and those nodes have some employment opportunities and amenities, I think this could have some benefits for us.

It could take pressure off of roads and public transit leading to downtown, it could increase walkability and the tax revenue in those areas, and it could help to reduce car dependence and Edmonton's car-centric culture. I don't want to see towers south of the Henday, but I don't think that downton is the only neighbourhood where we should be orientating our housing density from.
 
Nodes are fine, but what I am seeing is density without much of an actual node to support it. Elements are there, but it is akin to a Toyota Venza that delivers poorly at everything and is strong at very little.
 
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Drove the S.W. Henday today for this first time in years……not gonna lie…had a real hard time to gather enough imperical evidence of a “3rd lane” in each direction under construction over the N.Sask. Year 3 now and not even a attempted pier extension ala the Quesnel bridge? Sorry folks, not happening. Does look as though the Wedgewood is getting an extra lane. Hard to tell of the Blackmud was though….
 
MacLac said:
Drove the S.W. Henday today for this first time in years……not gonna lie…had a real hard time to gather enough imperical evidence of a “3rd lane” in each direction under construction over the N.Sask. Year 3 now and not even a attempted pier extension ala the Quesnel bridge? Sorry folks, not happening. Does look as though the Wedgewood is getting an extra lane. Hard to tell of the Blackmud was though….
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You can see "imperical" evidence from the trail underneath the bridge. It's happening.
 
Windermere said:
You can see "imperical" evidence from the trail underneath the bridge. It's happening.
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I think that I read somewhere (can't quite recall) that supply issues with regard to Covid had delayed the bridge work. All the shoulder extensions/widening are pretty much complete by now, though, in addition to the widened 111 St interchange (exiting EB). Surprised that we haven't seen any public updates on the contractor's website, though.
 
Extensions and widening are done? Really? Ok, we’re still gonna have to add 3+ years to add the girders, bridge decks etc….wasn’t it supposed to be done next spring?
 
MacLac said:
Extensions and widening are done? Really? Ok, we’re still gonna have to add 3+ years to add the girders, bridge decks etc….wasn’t it supposed to be done next spring?
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The contractor website has Fall 2022 as the original timeline. Unsure how the reported bridge supply delays may change this.
Timeline.jpg

From: https://carmacksent.com/swahd-project-information/
 
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