Go west … all the way west

City officials say top LRT priority is extending service to Lewis Farms

City officials said Thursday building LRT to Lewis Farms in west Edmonton is a priority.

“It’s a great day, a great day,” said Andrew Knack, the city councillor for the area, which relies on bus service.

Beaming, he said he hopes Edmonton can start detailed design immediately with recently announced federal funding. The move would promote redevelopment along Stony Plain Road and serve West Edmonton Mall, one of Alberta’s top tourist destinations.

Officials ranked administration’s top five LRT projects, based on the line’s ability to connect major employment hubs and destinations, encourage new ridership and spur development.

Going west would bring the most ridership, said Rob Gibbard, head of transportation capital planning. But the second priority should be extending the Metro Line one station from NAIT into Blatchford.

The third priority should be taking the existing Capital Line south to Ellerslie, then building the downtown circulator from the University of Alberta main campus to Bonnie Doon.

The fifth priority should be extending the Metro Line from Blatchford to Castle Downs.

That had Bev Esslinger, a northeast councillor, sounding glum.

“I was disappointed. It’s important to give access to the different quadrants of the city,” she said.

Much of Griesbach is just waiting for LRT before being developed as a high-density, transit-oriented neighbourhood, she said. The current bus service is poor. “It takes an hour to get from some areas to the university.”

Setting priorities for building the

It’s important to give access to the different quadrants of the city.

$9.4-billion LRT network is high stakes that can’t avoid creating winners and losers. Councillors asked administration for its opinion earlier this year.

“We’ve tried to keep a very unbiased, technical approach to hopefully get away from the potential pet project that each might have,” Gibbard said

Coun. Bryan Anderson was glad extending the Capital Line to Ellerslie ranked high. “The pace of development is putting extreme pressure on all the north-south roads,” he said. “The only way we’re going to be able to control congestion is to get LRT into Heritage Valley. … Plus, it’s already conceptualized. The routes are picked and the stations are designed.”

The route will give Edmonton space for a new maintenance and operations yard for the high-floor system, and solve the problem of what to do when the agreement for park-and-ride at Century Park expires.

Gibbard said the downtown circulator segment from the university to Bonnie Doon ranked high because of the potential for increased, high-density development in that corridor. But staff pushed it lower because little design work has been completed. It would be a low-floor system that ties into the new Valley Line to get across the river west of downtown.