River valley renewal shows city can be a good steward
Edmonton’s proudest accomplishment in the past decade? How about more than doubling the amount of public walking trails along the North Saskatchewan River? It’s surely on the short list.
In 2007, the Edmonton region had just 31 kilometres of public trails along the river. By the end of next summer — due to a determined push by the River Valley Alliance and $46 million in funding from the federal and provincial governments and seven municipalities (with $22 million spent on trails and $24 million on the Terwillegar Park Footbridge) — we will have 80 km of linked trail going from the Anthony Henday in the southwest to Strachan’s Landing near Fort Saskatchewan (with one 1.6-km gap where you still have to use public road).
An 80 km public path through the heart of a city represents a bold vision to entice people into our most beautiful space. It’s also proper stewardship of a precious natural asset. That stewardship piece is key because we’ve generally done a terrible job with river valley development.
We like to deceive ourselves about how well we’ve handled things. We like to brag we’ve got it right, that we’ve left the valley in its natural state, open to all the public, preserved for future generations in pristine form.
In fact, much of what we’ve done in the river valley is pollute it and put its choicest locations into private hands. We’ve allowed dumps, mines, gravel pits and other industrial development and major roads throughout the valley, especially in the downtown.
We’ve allowed private residences in some parts of the valley and along most of the top of the bank, including large sections where the public is completely cut off from river views by large private homes. We’ve also allowed for a half-dozen major private golf and recreational clubs on the valley flats, which are great if you’re wealthy enough to be a member, but far from a best use for that land from a public perspective.
We’ve made a mess in many ways. We’re just lucky there’s so much land on various river flats, as well as so much flooding and unstable bank, which has made many areas unsuitable for private development. Great swaths of relatively untouched and fully public land remain up and down the valley.
Slowly, we’re figuring out ways to create suitable public access to and use for that land. Our two great achievements are a series of major public parks, stretching from Terwillegar in the south to Hermitage in the north, and our Ribbon of Green public trail system. So what’s next? We need nuance and commitment to push ahead on two fronts. First, the River Valley Alliance wants to finish its Ribbon of Green system, adding 30 km of valley trail and seven new bridges. The trail system would then run 110 km from Devon to past Fort Saskatchewan.
The trails are relatively cheap to build, but the necessary footbridges aren’t, costing more than $20 million each, says Larry Wall, the alliance’s executive director.
The plan is to build the new trails and bridges over the next decade, an ambitious goal, but at a cost of $20 million per year, it’s a worthy project. If we can turn Edmonton into more of a city of hikers, cyclists, boaters and swimmers, that’s a huge boost for our collective health and happiness.
The need for nuance is for our downtown river valley flats in Walterdale and Rossdale. In this highly but often poorly developed spot on the river, we need to push hard to create our most public, urban and accessible river valley experience. We need more residential highrises in Rossdale, more public footbridges from top of bank to water’s edge, new waterfront restaurant and food truck areas, and more walkways and piers over the water or right at the shoreline.
The alliance has already put $34 million to building a new Touch the Water park at the Rossdale power plant and a new footbridge and funicular from the Hotel Macdonald to the river bank.
“I suspect it’s going to be very, very popular and it’s going to replace something that was fundamentally dangerous,” Wall says, referring to the old wooden stairs that dropped people off in the valley beside a busy arterial road.
The remaining Rossdale redevelopment is up to Edmonton civic and business leaders, not the alliance. For its part, the alliance has demonstrated its merit with this recent trail expansion.
It’s got us on the right path by building the right paths.
We’re just lucky there’s so much land on various river flats, as well as so much flooding and unstable bank, which has made many areas unsuitable for private development.