Can we just build west LRT already?
It would be madness to abandon project with planning done and money available
No. No. No.
Please tell me we’re not about to re-litigate the west LRT line.
Edmonton, why do we chew our public policy cud this way, regurgitating old political arguments that should long have been settled? Sober second thought is one thing. Picking scabs is something quite different.
With just months to go before the West Valley LRT line is put out to tender, a bunch of Ward 5 city council candidates have declared their opposition to its construction.
As my colleague David Staples reported this week, a number of candidates running in the western ward have come out publicly against building the new LRT leg over fears it might snarl vehicle traffic. Several suggested the city build a bus rapid transit system instead.
It’s madness. Three previous city councils have spent more than a decade consulting, debating and planning this route. There have been open houses, public hearings, all kinds of public discussion.
Just this June, council dedicated $24 million to fine-tuning the design. And it’s got another $130 million earmarked to start buying up properties along the route, where land is needed for construction.
The new Liberal federal government has already signalled its willingness to pony up a good share of the funding. Negotiations with the province are proceeding.
Andrew Knack, who is running to retain his Ward 1 seat, said he expects the Notley government to announce its financial support in the next couple of months and for the contracts to go out to tender in 2018, with construction to start in late 2019.
But if the province and Ottawa sense that the Valley Line West LRT isn’t a priority? That it isn’t what Edmonton really wants? Well, believe me, they have many other places they could invest their infrastructure dollars.
If we lose our resolve now, even if we start sending mixed messages, this moment to push mass transit to the west end might be lost.
“This is not the moment to say we should be holding off on the west LRT,” said Knack. “Not when we’re getting close, after long, long, long waits.”
The case for a west LRT line remains as compelling as ever. It will be a catalyst for infill and redevelopment all along Stony Plain Road and down 156 Street.
It will connect west Edmonton’s suburbs, filled with young families, to the downtown, to Rogers Place, to NAIT and MacEwan and NorQuest and the University of Alberta.
It will give commuters from farther afield, in Spruce Grove and Enoch and Stony Plain, a point of access to the LRT system. It will connect the Misericordia Hospital to Edmonton’s three other health campuses.
And it will serve West Edmonton Mall, our city’s largest tourist attraction, its largest retail hub, and one of its largest employment centres. That’s particularly important because WEM is a draw seven days a week, until late into the night, providing a constant stream of riders, even on weekends, evenings and holidays.
This isn’t just a west-end issue. The west leg is just half of the Valley Line proper. The southeast leg of the line, to Mill Woods, is already under construction. But that route won’t function as part of an integrated rapid transit network if it doesn’t get its northwest arm. A failure to build the west LRT would turn the southeast LRT into an amputated orphan, without enough riders to make construction worthwhile.
The cold feet of Ward 5 candidates seem particularly perplexing given how little of the west line actually runs through the ward. The vast majority of the inconvenience and dislocation created by the construction will be borne by the residents of Ward 1 and Ward 6.
Absolutely, it’s important that we learn from the mistakes and bottlenecks of some of the other lines, and get the interchanges at places like 149 Street and 178 Street right. But we can tweak the design of those pressure points now, without giving up on LRT altogether.
The city estimates the LRT line will move so many people, it will be the equivalent of adding six lanes of roadway. If we get the interchanges right, the west LRT might actually make driving easier, not harder.
Yes. The city messed up the Metro line. Badly. And yes, there are problems with traffic on the south leg of the main line, too.
So let’s learn from those mistakes. Let’s screw our courage to the sticking place, and we’ll not fail. Let’s make our next LRT leg the best yet.