Speaking Municipally

We look at a proposal for that beloved downtown pit, also known as the former BMO site. Plus, provincial workers are back in office full-time, and they might soon have a new bike lane to get there!

Here are the relevant links for this episode:

BMO site
Return to office
Wîhkwêntôwin neighbourhood renewal
This episode is brought to you by Accessible Acupuncture. Neuropathy and chronic nerve pain can affect daily living, sleep, mobility, and independence. Symptoms often include numbness, tingling, burning, and pain. At Accessible Acupuncture, our Doctor of Acupuncture — Dr. Melanie Morrill, Dr. Ac. — designs custom treatment plans to address both symptoms and underlying causes, support nerve health, and help patients return to their activities. Call 587-879-7122 or book online to schedule your consultation.

This episode is also sponsored by Let's Find Out. Did you know Edmonton once had a save-the-whales club, and it made a big splash? Learn more at a live recording of Let's Find Out, a podcast about history. Chris Chang-Yen Phillips will speak to Candas Jane Dorsey and Kathryn Ivany about this moment in Edmonton's past and other treasures in the city archives. Join us on March 3! Get your tickets today

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Creators and Guests

Host
Mack Male
Co-Founder and CEO of Taproot Publishing Inc.
Host
Stephanie Swensrude
Stephanie is a curator and reporter at Taproot Edmonton. She attended NAIT's radio and television program and has worked at CBC, CFJC in Kamloops, and 630 CHED.

What is Speaking Municipally?

Taproot Edmonton presents a weekly discussion on key stories in municipal politics. We pay attention to City Council so you don't have to! Join us as we delve into conversations about the context surrounding decisions made at City Hall.

Mack:
A destination parking lot. This week, we look at a proposal for that beloved downtown pit, also known as the former BMO site.

Stephanie:
Plus, provincial workers are back in office full time, and they might soon have a new bike lane to get there.

Mack:
Hi. I'm Mack.

Stephanie:
I'm Stephanie.

Mack:
And we're…

Both:
Speaking Municipally.

Mack:
Welcome back to Speaking Municipally, Episode 342. I'm a little under the weather, Stephanie, but the show must go on, so…

Stephanie:
Indeed.

Mack:
Let's keep going. It's been a interesting week. We've launched our audience survey, so I just want to mention that off the top. There's gonna be a link in the show notes. If you're a listener, regular listener of Speaking Municipally, or even just a new listener, we'd love to hear from you, so please take a moment and fill out that survey. I can't remember when we set the deadline for that, but it's coming up in a couple of weeks. Kind of coincides perfectly with the Olympics, which I think you're getting pretty excited about. I see the jersey.

Stephanie:
Yes, I got this jersey, this vintage jersey a few weeks ago when I was watching the women's hockey team. I was like, "I need a jersey," and I'm really excited. I've been watching the Snowboard Big Air event. It's been on the TV in the background, and it's so funny because, like, you watch people do these tricks that are literally amazing, and you're like, "Oh my God, it's so cool," and then the announcer's like, "An epic failure from the Canadians. They will never recover from this," and I'm like, "Dang, I don't know anything, actually."

Mack:
Well, the Canadian women are definitely the ones to cheer for. I'm not so sure the men are gonna do it, but, you know, the women are They'they're a favorite, right, every time. So I'm looking forward to that, definitely.

Stephanie:
Yeah. I can't wait.

Mack:
All right. Well, we have a lot to get into this episode, but first, let's kick off with paying the bills.

Stephanie:
This episode is brought to you by Accessible Acupuncture, where Dr. Melanie Morrell, doctor of acupuncture, treats neuropathy and chronic pain. Neuropathy and chronic nerve pain can affect daily living, sleep, mobility, and independence. Symptoms often include numbness, tingling, burning, and pain. Melanie designs custom treatment plans to address both symptoms and underlying causes to support nerve health and help you return to the activities you love. In the February 6 edition of the Pulse, you'll see the story of Murray, a retired teacher whose active life was severely limited by pain from peripheral neuropathy. Now, he can walk without pain, and his balance has improved. "I have my life back," he says. If you're in pain, call 587-879-7122 to book a consultation, or visit accessibleacupuncture.ca. Again, call 587-879-7122 or visit accessibleacupuncture.ca.

Mack:
All right. Thank you, Stephanie. One other thing before we get into this week's items. We have a follow-up from last week. So I love this. You said you were gonna check with admin about something, and you did. So what did you, follow up on, and what did you learn?

Stephanie:
Yes. So we talked at length last week about, generally, suburbs, how they get approved and how they typically don't make money for the city, right? And a small part of that discussion was this, bit about terms of reference. So, you know, listen back to last episode if you didn't, if you're interested in this conversation, but a brief summary is that when council's approving the creation of a new plan for a neighborhood, in the past, they would have received five pieces of information: what infrastructure exists and what's scheduled to be constructed, the current population capacity, availability and timing of supportive city infrastructure, the relationship of the proposed neighborhood to transit, and environmental impact. So those are the terms of reference. Admin recently changed this so that developers no longer need to provide this information at this beginning authorization stage. It's in the later in the process. Now, the boring update is that administration said they just changed this to align with reality because, more often than not, they didn't really have that detailed information at the beginning of the process anyways. So this, yeah, was just to kind of align with reality, and I spoke to admin, some and a senior city planner, and he said they're If, like, if council wants that information, we will just provide it, that general information, at the beginning. So that's your boring update. I promised you that I would look into it more, and, of course, this doesn't change the wider conversation about like the financial, drain that suburbs cause to the city, but this specific detail, I just wanted to be clear about that. So thanks to the city for, talking to me about that.

Mack:
Well, and it's a good reminder that, you know, often the simplest explanation is the right one.

Stephanie:
Yes.

Mack:
And there's no malicious intent here, necessarily. It's just…

Stephanie:
Exactly.

Mack:
"We don't have the information, so-"…

Stephanie:
Yeah.

Mack:
"… let's change the process to match reality." Okay, so that's interesting. Probably still information that council will want to get, and so hopefully they can improve that over time, but…

Stephanie:
Yeah.

Mack:
Thank you for the update.

Stephanie:
Of course.

Mack:
All right. You messaged me this week all excited about something else you saw, and this is a topic that I've talked about several times on the show in the past and I complain about on social media, though I'm not really on social media much anymore. Anyway, we have an update on the BMO site.

Stephanie:
Yeah. (sighs) I'm gonna try so hard not to be a hater right now, because at first glance this looks like a crazy idea. So our favorite downtown pit could be getting a makeover. Westridge Pacific, a developer that has a lot of projects around town, a lot of like multi-story like six-ish story, maybe some bigger. Westridge Pacific has proposed to turn the BMO site into a pedestrian-driven arts-focused parking lot. No, we have not revived the rapid fire segment. This is real. That is basically what they said verbatim, a pedestrian-driven arts-focused parking lot. So how I how I knew about this is that Westridge went to the Edmonton Design Committee to get this design approved. Now, it's a bit rare because they don't actually own the site yet, but they only wanna buy the site if they can get this vision approved. So, what are your thoughts on this right off the bat, Mack?

Mack:
Well, I'm listening. I'm willing to hear out the proposal. So a parking lot doesn't thrill me off the top. But Westridge Pacific is a pretty reputable developer and anything is better than the pit that currently exists. So, I'm gonna try and keep an open mind. Can you tell us a bit more about what they're planning to do?

Stephanie:
Yeah. So, they kept saying over and over again that they sort of whipped this very preliminary design together because they need to purchase, like, they need to do this quickly. So, what they have right now is on the northwest corner, there will be, like, a small cafe or maybe cafe during the day, bar during night, and then on the northeast corner there will be a public art gateway, and they're gonna add, like, trees around the perimeter and some bike parking, and there will be about 70 parking spots. It will be paved, as according to this plan, which is better than I guess a gravel one, and the thing is that Westrich is proposing this as an interim use before they eventually build a mixed-use tower, which, (sighs) well, we've seen the history of interim surface parking lots in this city, have we not?

Mack:
We have, but I can also appreciate market realities, and so this is a better, this is a better thing than just leave it, you know, as an empty lot with trash and rebar and nobody looking after the site, right? Like, right now it is really difficult to go around that site in the winter because nobody's looking after the sidewalks. You know, it looks very unsafe. It doesn't look like it should be in the center of our downtown. So, I think this is an improvement if they're proposing to at least make it look good and functional. Maybe you're right. Maybe that eventual tower is never built. But that would still be better than what we've got now, and I suppose we shouldn't design our city, with that approach, like, "Well, anything's better than an empty lot." But the reality is, it's been a horrible part of our downtown for several years now, and yeah. I think this would be a good thing.

Stephanie:
Okay, there you go.

Mack:
But 70 parking slots sounds like a lot given the size of that site, especially if they're also gonna have a cafe. It's like, there's gonna be some kind of a building on there and then…

Stephanie:
It'the cafe is, like, a sea can. I'm not, like I'm not sure if it's literally gonna be a sea can, but it's gonna be the shape of a sea can.

Mack:
Yeah.

Stephanie:
If that makes sense.

Mack:
Okay.

Stephanie:
Yeah.

Mack:
Well, I'm not on the Edmonton Design Committee, so I don't really get to have a say. I'm speaking as a person who passes that site on the regular and ha and has for the last several years. I would love to see something other than what is there currently. The Design Committee should probably hold them to a higher standard. So, what did they say?

Stephanie:
Yeah. So, I a lot of them had kind of the same idea of it's better than what's there right now. One EDC member, Raj Subramanian said, you know, "This is right next to LRT. Isn't there something better you can do?" essentially, and Ian O'Donnell was the representative there, former head of the Downtown Business Association, and he said that they're in talks with the DBA, the Downtown Edmonton Community League, and the City of Edmonton to have programming like sports, vendors, like a maybe a farmer's market, food trucks, on the parking lot, especially what's near Rice Howard Way. And like I said, this is just like the very preliminary design because they had to whip it together and more could be coming, and, you know, it being a parking lot, it's flat and clear, lots of room for activities, lots of adaptability, and several of the members also said, "Well, lean into that adaptability. Lean into the temporariness. We…" Like, a beer garden, temporary beer garden, more food trucks, more of that stuff to really show that it's, temporary.

Mack:
I think those arguments are, on the surface, good. Like, okay, let's use this space. We have if we pave it, if it's clean, if it's looked after, we can program it. But where's the food trucks gonna come from? Where's the farmer's market gonna come from? Do we have a bunch of latent demand for these things that isn't being served by all the other empty spaces that we have downtown? Like, this is lazy thinking to me. Let's just put some food trucks there. Let's just put a farmer's market there. Like, we already can't support effectively all of the food trucks and farmer's markets we already have. We already have a bunch of empty space in Churchill Square, in ICE District, the other places downtown, 102nd Avenue. Like, I'm not sure that we have a big demand for another empty space that we then have to program, and as I've said before about in discussions about these empty spaces, we don't always have to program them, especially if they're not designed for cars. If we make it so that people could just go sit there, and there was the cafe and some seating, some greenery, some anything that would just make that space more welcoming. Cars is not gonna make that space more welcoming, right? That is gonna make that space hostile. Less hostile than it is right now. Don't get me wrong.

Stephanie:
Still hostile.

Mack:
It will be better than it is right now. But it'll still be a hostile space because it'll be designed primarily for vehicles, right? And I think that's a big challenge. You have the LRT. You have major bus stop right there. You have Rice Howard Way, which the DBA has successfully closed in the past for some exciting downtown events. You know, there are opportunities to do some stuff here. But I don't think we should bank on, let's just throw some food trucks or a farmer's market on it, and I also don't think that what we need downtown is yet another beer garden. Like, really? I don'I don't see the need for a beer garden. I see I don't know who said this, but I see in your notes there's a comment, "Where do you go to get a late night poutine?" That's interesting.

Stephanie:
Yeah. So, I wanna quickly, just go back really quick to what you're saying about food trucks and farmer's markets. Farmer's markets, you've done a lot of reporting on this, or like, you know, blogging about this. It's hard enough for the one downtown farmer's market to operate…

Mack:
Yeah.

Stephanie:
And they're like, "Yeah, just a market." so with the late night poutine, you know, one of the members said something along the lines of, "We're expecting that lots more students will be living downtown with this new downtown student housing incentive that was, given out in the last six months or so." And he's saying, you know, "Yeah, where do you go to get a late night poutine after a night of drinking?" 'cause I don't think many places like that are open downtown very late. So yeah. You know, a lot of them were very optimistic if you could get these things that we mentioned, like the maybe vendors, maybe, more permanent vendors. Not necessarily food trucks, but, like, more something sort of like Station Park.

Mack:
Yeah. Or like…

Stephanie:
Which…

Mack:
I guess this is like Portland's idea of food trucks or food carts where they are…

Stephanie:
Yeah.

Mack:
These semi-permanent spaces.

Stephanie:
Exactly.

Mack:
They don't really move around. But I just, I challenge everything about that. Do a bunch of young people go out late night drinking? Like, the stats show that far less people drink now than before. So, I'm not sure that's a big problem. And yes, it's true about the downtown housing incentive, hopefully we get more students living downtown, but they're not gonna be living near Rice Howard Way they're gonna be living near the schools. NorQuest has already built a brand new square on 109th Street that they could put food trucks in. Like, why would you go way over there when you're gonna be closer to the school and the, and the housing that is right up near the school sites? So, I'm not sure about that either. I'm finding myself being very critical of this, which is perhaps not surprising considering what they wanna do is build a parking lot, and nobody goes for the parking. But I also don't think we should stand in the way of this if it means we get to turn this central and historic corner in our downtown into something that is even just marginally more usable than it is now. Maybe there's an opportunity to work with the developer to try to accelerate their plans, move things along, and turn that space into a proper mixed-use building rather than, you know, a parking lot forever.

Stephanie:
Yeah, it's definitely a thorny issue because on one hand, don't let perfect be the enemy of good. But on the other hand, should we accept bad because it's not worse? I think that there are many things that could be done to make this better, but I'm not the developer and I'm not on the EDC and I'm not on council, so that's not really up to me now, is it?

Mack:
So if the EDC supports this, or did they support this?

Stephanie:
Yes.

Mack:
Okay, so they said, "Okay, we might have some reservations. You should think bigger, but go forward. If you purchase the site, we'll support it," essentially, is what EDC said?

Stephanie:
Yeah, so I'm a little just because they have done this design presentation before they purchase it's a this is very unique and rare. And in their acceptance, they did give, They always give recommendations for, "Hey, we like this, but you should just change this, do this a little bit better." Typically for a building it's like, "We like it, but you need to add one more color across the facade to break it up a little bit." So for this one, they supported it and they kind of had, you know, some of the ideas that we've just been talking about. And so I assume what's gonna happen next is that Westrich will acquire the building, I guess. I guess we can't really know, but that's what I'm assuming. And then I think it would have to be rezoned because I don't I think it would have to go to a direct control zone because I don't think that you can have a parking lot in the city center zone, like, in downtown anymore.

Mack:
That sounds about right to me. So I guess Westrich, over to you. Also very interesting, right, that they would put this out there before doing the purchase. Like as you say, it's a pretty rare circumstance. Usually we hear, "We have to keep this confidential because negotiations are ongoing and it could affect the purchase, you know, process," and that sort of thing. Regency put the site up for sale back in November, right? And they were looking for, I think, $6 million or something like that. So we'll see, I suppose they could say, "No, we don't wanna sell it to you for your parking lot." But, we will find out and we will keep you posted.

Stephanie:
Yeah, there was a real sense of urgency, so I suspect that maybe they're not the only company interested. But again, these things are usually kept really under wraps, so I can't say for sure. But yeah, I thought that the listeners of the podcast would be interested in this development.

Mack:
Well, thank you for bringing us that update. Maybe a tiny little bit of vibrancy could come to downtown as a result of that, and that is the argument that is being made about back to office, return to office this week. Thousands of provincial employees are back in the office. Some of them may be complaining about the commute. Some of them saying didn't really make a difference. The business community has been pretty adamant that we need to have government workers back in the office downtown because it'll support businesses downtown. It will, it will support vibrancy and economic development. There's been calls as a result to have the City of Edmonton also mandate a return to office. They have not decided to do that thus far. And Mayor Andrew Knack has said, "The world has changed. The world has evolved. Hybrid work is basically here to stay. We need to continue to provide flexibility." And so it doesn't seem like the city is going to mandate a return to work anytime soon. But, did you notice anything different this week, Stephanie, with this return to office?

Stephanie:
Well, of course, as many of our listeners know, Taproot is fully remote, so I don't leave the house typically. I mean, what's always worse for me is when it's a snowy day and like, let's say I have to drive out to see my Or I get to drive out to see my sister and my nephew all the way on the West End, that like going from Whiteout to the West End is so bad, but it's more like when it's snowing, that's when it's gonna take like an hour for me to get there. But also I think it's important to note that this return is not like five days fully remote to five days fully in office. Most people were only working two or three days, remote. It's more of an incremental change, and I wondered, what, have you noticed that being a resident of downtown?

Mack:
Yeah. No, not really. And I think, like you said about the snow, the best news for this return to office this week is that it's been, what, 10 degrees today, seven degrees? Like, super warm, and so there hasn't been weather-related impacts on the commute, right? I mean, if you look at Reddit, there's a thread, some people saying, "Yes, it seemed busy." Other people saying, "Eh, it seemed the same to me." If you look at the news articles, which we will link in the show notes, you're talking to local business owners, most of them saying, "It's not gonna make a difference for me. Any little increase is nice." Like people are pretty mixed about this, right? And I think that reflects how complicated this issue is, right? Like, I wanted to talk about this because on the one hand, I get it. I think having a lot of people downtown in general will lead to greater vibrancy. Now, I don't know that it necessarily leads to greater spending, right? 'Cause all those folks who are coming downtown maybe have to pay for parking if they didn't before. Depends how many days a week they were, you know, maybe their costs have increased such that they're not actually gonna go out and spend money at a coffee shop or a restaurant when they're here. So it might not translate into that economic growth that the business community is looking for. And the other thing is that I don't think we should assume that people were unproductive before. I think they've been working hard over the last several years remotely or in a hybrid situation they're gonna continue to be productive, whether they're in the office or not. And I don't know, research around the world is demonstrating that sometimes you can be quite a bit more productive when you're not distracted with all of the nonsense that goes off, goes on in a face-to-face office, right? So, I think that's, you know, just some of the various challenging aspects about this whole thing. I suspect over time this will just moderate and, you know, there will be exceptions and some people will figure out different working schedules and, you know, it'll all work out in the end. But I kinda wanted to say that I appreciate the mayor's steadfastness on this. During the campaign he said, "No, I don't think a return to office mandate is what we need to do to help downtown," and he remains consistent in saying that. And I think he's right. What would help downtown is getting more people living downtown. That's where our energy should be going, and I think the business community that has been pushing hard for this return to office would be better served by putting that energy into how can we get as many people living downtown as possible? To say nothing of the fact that there are challenges for the City of Edmonton here. So, one of them is, it's not up to Mayor Nack. It's the city manager who will decide. To my knowledge no one's had an opportunity to interview the city manager about this, so they've been pretty quiet. There are union agreements in place that would need to be considered in any return to office for the City of Edmonton, and then there's also concerns about a lack of office space. If they did mandate all the city employees to go back, there might not be enough offices for them all to work in if they were back in the office all at the same time. So, I think there are some real challenges here and given that it doesn't seem like this is going to be the silver bullet, maybe we should be putting that energy into something else. And as I've said about, on this podcast before, we learned during the election with the Taproot survey, pretty universally people agree that what would be best for downtown is more people living downtown. So let's not get distracted by these other things…

Stephanie:
Yeah.

Mack:
That's my plea this week.

Stephanie:
Totally.

Mack:
All right. We're gonna move on to that potential new bike lane to get people downtown, but first, we have one other thing to tell you about.

Stephanie:
This episode is brought to you by Let's Find Out, Taproot's podcast about Edmonton's history. Let's Find Out has come out of hibernation again for a three-part miniseries on the intersection of Alberta environmental groups and the media in the 1970s and '80s. The first episode is out now, so make sure you're subscribed to Let's Find Out in the podcatcher of your choice. We're especially excited to tell you that the final episode of the series will be recorded live and you're invited. Join us on March 3rd at the city archives for Let's Find Out about the Whale Society of Edmonton. Host Chris Chang-Yen Phillips will speak to author and activist Candice Jane Dorsey about Edmonton's own Save the Whales Club, which was active from 1979 to 1984 believe it or not. And city archivist Catherine Aveni will reveal what records from the club are stored in the archives and what else you can find there. Tickets are $15 but Taproot members get a discount, so if you're one of those special people, look for the coupon code in the newsletter we sent on January 28th. The ticket link will also be in the show notes, and you can find it at letsfindoutpodcast.com. It's gonna be a great night. I'm so excited. I love Let's Find Out. It's like such a cool, nerdy, interesting podcast. Hope to see you there.

Mack:
Yeah. This is so interesting to me. In landlocked Alberta And Edmonton we had a Save the Whales Club, and it lasted for five years. That's really impressive.

Stephanie:
Yeah. Edmontonians are caring about things happening outside of our city, I guess.

Mack:
I look forward to learning more about that.

Stephanie:
Yeah.

Mack:
Okay, well, the new bike lane that might help some people come downtown if they've been, forced back to the office, might take them through Waquingtoon, and we talked a little bit about this last week. We wanted to dive in a little bit more to the neighborhood renewal in Waquingtoon. The city has been running a survey and collecting feedback. They've had some in-person sessions. The survey is open until February 8th on the draft design, so you've got a couple of days after this episode comes out to go and take a look and fill out the survey. But Stephanie, you kind of put together some notes you've heard so far. Some points of view, some feedback. Where are we at with this project?

Stephanie:
Yeah. So I've been following this for a couple of years now. This is such an interesting neighborhood 'cause it already has such strong active transportation links and it's already so It's the most dense, most densely populated, neighborhood in Edmonton, and I, when I spoke to Councilor Stevenson about it at least a year ago, she's like, "It's kind of like low-hanging fruit." So if we can really help Waquingtoon be even better and even more, like, focused towards pedestrians, it can kind of be an example for the rest of the city of like this is what It's like a, it's like a good use case, right? So, there's a couple of standouts, that I wanted to touch on. So first of all, we all remember the Victoria Promenade bike lanes, a few years ago. So the current design is on the south side of the road, there is an eastbound bike lane, and then anyone going west just shares the road with cars in the middle of the, you know, in the middle of the road. And a few years ago, the city installed, one-way bike lanes on each side to, as like a pilot project, and then they ended up taking them down because, no one was really happy with them I don't think. So what they've proposed now, 'cause this is part of neighborhood renewal, is a two-way protected bike lane on the south side of the avenue between 116th Street and 121st Street adjacent to Victoria Promenade, and the proposed bike lane would require the city to remove many of the existing trees along the promenade. So and it said, it had been said that they would replace most of the trees, and the design keeps most, if not all, of the existing parking. And that was a big issue that, you know, residents raised during that pilot project is that it got rid of almost all the parking on the north side of the avenue.

Mack:
So just to clarify, the existing eastbound bike lane essentially would just be widened. So that there's a two-way bike lane there.

Stephanie:
Yeah.

Mack:
And on-street parking on, I suppose, the north side of Victoria Promenade would remain?

Stephanie:
Yeah.

Mack:
Okay, got it.

Stephanie:
Most of it. At least that's what it looks like from the, from the pictures. Yeah.

Mack:
Yeah. I mean, Victoria Promenade is a challenge, right? Because of the residential buildings there and limited access to some of those buildings, and the city, as you pointed out, has experimented with a few different things along Victoria Promenade, and it's pretty hard, I think, to appease everybody. And we do wanna make it so that everybody gets to enjoy that really unique view of our, of our river valley. And so, we don't wanna limit that. But this, to me, just gets back to the overall issue I have with this whole Withlawin design, which is that it, I think, puts too much of a priority on maintaining on-street parking. I think up and down the plan, you look all over, this desire to maintain as much on-street parking as possible is really one of the things that holds it back from becoming that thing that Councilor Stevenson talked about, right? That we could really double down on this place as an active transportation densely populated neighborhood where we don't need a whole bunch of on-street parking. And I understand there's, you know, a need to get people in and out to different businesses and things like that within the neighborhood. But I don't know that you always need so much on-street parking in order to make that possible. So, I expect this Victoria Promenade one will be quite controversial regardless of what they do. Although, I do think a two-way bike lane is a much better solution here. That is what it should've been all along, and I think that'll see a lot of use actually. And so, I'm really looking forward to that. Tell me a bit more about the trees.

Stephanie:
Yeah. So, based on the last time I went there, it's not like these are, as far as I know, like, 200-year-old mature historical trees. I'm pretty sure most of them are not that old. So it's not like we're I don't think it's like we're losing much. A lot of the trees are, like, those relatively, probably, like, I don't know, like, 10 to, 10 to 15 inches across? Like, not humongous, gorgeous trees. And the city did say that, yeah, they would be replacing most of them. And then you wanna think, like, this is supposed to prepare the neighborhood for the next 30 to 50 years. If they replace the trees, just imagine in 50 years when there's the nice Victoria Promenade, a big, wide, bike lane, the beautiful trees, plus a drive lane and parking. Like, if you kinda look into the future more, yes, it sucks that we're losing some of these young trees, but I don't know, maybe They're not I… Like, as far as I know, they're not that old in the first place.

Mack:
And the overall plan talks about removing I think it's 137 trees in various parts, but adding 370. So, that's good. We'll have a net increase in the number of trees. Now, hopefully we can be selective about the ones we're removing and, as you say, remove the younger trees that aren't as, you know, providing that canopy that everyone loves and everything so far. But, on the whole, having more trees here is better than not. So, that's a good thing.

Stephanie:
Yeah, definitely. And then I also want to touch on, there's So, like, Victoria Promenade kinda leads into 100 Ave proper, and between 116th Street and 109th Street, there's nothing there. It's just driving. But…

Mack:
It's horrible as a cyclist actually 'cause you're like, "Do I go on the road? Do I go on the sidewalk?" It's really unclear.

Stephanie:
Yeah.

Mack:
The road has this weird width change too. Like, it's really wide near 116th Street, and then it gets narrower as you get close to 109th. So I hope they're gonna address that.

Stephanie:
Well, not very soon. The So, the design includes designs for a, for two one-way bike lanes, like, on both sides of the road. But this will not be constructed as part of neighborhood renewal. It'll be included in a future project. I believe it's a part of, arterial renewal or, like, another renewal project. But again, this is gonna come with the removal of many trees. Most of the trees on the south side, which those ones are actually pretty old, which…

Mack:
Those ones are more mature trees, for sure.

Stephanie:
Yeah.

Mack:
Yeah.

Stephanie:
That kinda sucks. I used to live right off of 100th Ave and 112th Street. Like, gorgeous, amazing, beautiful neighborhood. Love it to death, and it would That's gonna suck.

Mack:
Yeah.

Stephanie:
If this if the Remember, these are just draft designs, but typically they're probably not gonna change much, I don't think, before the final design.

Mack:
But we would gain a two-lane two-way bike lane all the way down basically 100 So the from 121st Street then, you know, you could bike all the way down Victoria Promenade, cross 100th Avenue, and then join up with the existing bike lane, which from 109th Street East, already goes, you know, into the core of the downtown.

Stephanie:
Yeah.

Mack:
So, I think that would be a really positive change.

Stephanie:
Yes. Once it's eventually, done 'cause again, there's no, information on when this is actually gonna be built. And, you know, an interesting thing is that So, east of 109th Street, it's two-way on the north side, and then you'd switch from one-and-one between 109th and 116th, and then you'd switch back to two-way on Victoria Promenade, and then you'd switch back to one way. So, it's gonna be If you're going from all the way over in Withlawin, like 124th Street area all the way down to the legislature, if you work there, for example, you're gonna be switching from two-way one way, two-way one way. It's gonna be That's gonna be a bit of a pain. But I guess when you're, like, what's the word? Like, modifying an existing Retrofitting a neighborhood that already exists with all these different, like, baubles of infrastructure, it's gonna be, kind of annoying.

Mack:
It's gonna have a bit of a challenge, right? For sure. One other thing I wanted to talk about in the plan 'cause I experience it every single day is the area around Withlawin School. And so I've said on the show before, my daughter and I bike to school. Not in the winter. We're not generally winter cyclists. But the rest of the year, and it's really awesome 'cause on 104th Street all the way down to 118th, it's basically door to door on the bike lane. And I say that a lot, but it's not exactly door-to-door because once you get to the school, there are no bike lanes on, you know, 117th Street or 118th Street, either side of the school. And so kids who are cycling end up going either on the busy road with all of the other cars dropping off dropping their kids off at school, or on the sidewalk, which is also very busy with people, you know, walking to school. And so it's a bit of a challenge, and so I was very excited to see in the plan that, 118th Street would have a two-way bike lane, basically all the way from 100th Avenue, so Victoria Promenade, all the way up to 103rd Avenue, where the community hall and outdoor pool and arena and everything is. So, I think that would be a pretty incredible change. I also love that on 118th, Street, between 103rd and 102nd Avenue, we would have a mid-block crossing. Stephanie, I just cannot tell you how much I love mid-block crossings. They are such a great design feature for pedestrians. It means you don't have to wait at a traffic light to cross, and as a result, they cause the traffic to slow down on the street. We've got one here on 104th Street between 102 and 103, and I use it all the time. You know, it kinda juts out in front of, the Fox Towers there, and I much prefer to cross at the mid-block crossing than at the intersections. And so I'm glad to see some of those in this plan in Wiikwemitoong as well.

Stephanie:
And is this like rapid flashing beacon ones that just you press it and you can go?

Mack:
The one on 104th Street doesn't have that. It's just a, there's no, there's no signals. There's just a painted crosswalk.

Stephanie:
Okay.

Mack:
But presumably, hopefully the one by the school would have some flashing lights, just given the amount of traffic that goes there.

Stephanie:
Yeah.

Mack:
I think some folks would've appreciated closing that street entirely to traffic, but I understand the challenges of that because, I mean, they have the school bus that needs to get there and there's a loading zone and that kinda thing, so they, you know, gotta maintain some traffic. But, mid-block crossings, with or without those flashing lights, I think can be pretty awesome.

Stephanie:
Yeah, I brought that up because by my place, on my way when I'm walking to the gym every morning, usually through, like, rush hour traffic, there's, like, the scramble crosswalk that I can do or I can do the mid-block crossing on Gateway Boulevard. I will always do the mid-block one because I don't have to wait, and I'I make the traffic stop and I feel very powerful.

Mack:
Yeah.

Stephanie:
And, you know, it's a nice little way to start my morning by making all the cars wait for me.

Mack:
Absolutely. Absolutely.

Stephanie:
Yeah.

Mack:
All right. Well, there's lots of good in here, like I said. Overall, maybe bit too much of a focus on-street parking. We've heard some feedback from other organizations. You noted, the Edmonton Bike Coalition has some feedback.

Stephanie:
Yeah. I will start by saying, like, all of these advocacy groups, all advocacy groups will always say, "Make it better, make it better." And like I've…

Mack:
Could go further. Yeah.

Stephanie:
I've even heard, like, directly from their mouths that they will, like, never say that they like something. But anyways, in this case, in particular, the Edmonton Bike Coalition said that some of the most ambitious ideas in the previous draft designs have been watered down or replaced with compromises that prioritize vehicles over active transportation, just like you said. So, the designs, according to Edmonton Bike Coalition, leaned too heavily on local street bikeways, that's sharrows, that is paint on the ground and not infrastructure, which they don't offer protection or separation from vehicles, and then also shared use paths which create conflicts, of course, between people walking, rolling, and cycling. You know, they make a, they make a good point that the city deems it so dangerous to ride on a sidewalk that it's illegal and has a, what, $150, $250 fine? But if it's a shared use path, go right ahead. Maybe that's simplifying the issue a little bit too much, but that's that is the message that they're saying.

Mack:
Yeah. I share that frustration, definitely. I mean, there's so many things that are in place because of cars that are inconsistent, and that riding on the sidewalk seems to be one of them. Although, as a pedestrian, everybody's a pedestrian first. I suppose there's people with accessibility challenges and they roll, but most people are pedestrians first. We should, we should prioritize pedestrians first. We should prioritize that experience first. It makes every subsequent decision better for all of the other mode users, I think.

Stephanie:
Yeah.

Mack:
50% of people using active modes, either walking, biking, or taking transit is what Councilor Stevenson said about Wiikwemitoong.

Stephanie:
Yeah. So just wanna help those people and, you know, maybe even get the get the number up.

Mack:
Yeah.

Stephanie:
Yeah.

Mack:
Well, you wrote about this in The Pulse last week, right? So…

Stephanie:
Yes. If you wanna check it out, it's on Friday. Then you have, like, until the 8th, which I think is Sunday, to put in your feedback. And then we're not, admin says that it will take the feedback and its kind of, like, refine little things, but it will be pretty small changes at this point. And then construction is still to be determined.

Mack:
Well, Stephanie, that's our show for this week. Thank you so much for bringing us those updates. Once again, if you're a regular listener, you wanna fill out the audience survey, you haven't already done that, you should've got an email about it. But if you're, just a listener to the podcast, we'd still love for you to fill out that survey. So the link will be in the show notes. Please go and take a few minutes. Should take about 10 minutes, and, it just really helps us plan our coverage for the year ahead and also, helps us with the revenue side of things because we have a bit of information to tell our advertisers and sponsors, so we appreciate that. And then, if you are a member, check your inbox for that discount code for the Let's Find Out show coming up on March 3rd. We look forward to that. Stephanie, you're away next week. Although you might be here by the magic of editing.

Stephanie:
Yes.

Mack:
In some ways. But enjoy your week off, and the start of the Olympics.

Stephanie:
I'm so excited. Yay.

Mack:
And we'll be back next week with another episode of Speaking Municipally. Until then, I'm Mack.

Stephanie:
I'm Stephanie.

Mack:
And we're…

Both:
Speaking Municipally.