Gondola project is inspiring, bold and revolutionary

Crazy dreams do come true, says Jeffrey Hansen-Carlson.

Edmonton, The Edmonton Project was for you.

Sure, we are entirely committed to demonstrating the feasibility of a commuter gondola that will shape our city in new and positive ways, but we are also humbled, grateful and inspired by you.

We have a heck of a lot of work to do but we want you to know you did something special for us. You probably don’t even realize it.

The Edmonton Project was a crazy idea. No community has ever embarked on such an upside-down and backwards process to come up with one single but grand idea to make it better. To reposition it. We dared to do it. You ran with it. You made it your own.

The craziest part of all this is we committed to do something for our city yet had no idea when we started The Edmonton Project what we committed to.

If you asked me a year ago if it was going to be a gondola, I would have laughed and slopped my wine. I never slop my wine. But here we are. It’s a gondola and we are thrilled and it’s going to happen.

Through the complexity of all that is before us, I see a path forward.

If we commit to each other to keep it simple, humble and transparent, there is no reason we can’t be the first city in Canada to have the sort of gondola system that seems to have stolen the heart of Edmontonians.

It is one thing to have an idea. It is another to share it. What will define us, though, is the courage we demonstrate to each other to make it real. We did not start The Edmonton Project to find a reason not to do something big. We started The Edmonton Project to give us reason to do something big.

Go walk down Jasper Avenue with a swagger. Look around, point at some part of our city, turn to your friend, tell them what you are going to do to make it better, and do it.

We dared to do it. You ran with it. You made it your own.

If The Edmonton Project is not proof enough that this place wants to hear from you, and wants to help you, then move to Vancouver.

There are two parts to The Edmonton Project. One was to collectively identify that tangible “thing” to be built for our community’s benefit. The other was unlocking a spirit of confidence, the sort I believe we all owe every idea that floats around between our ears.

We trust you are inspired to wake up tomorrow and do that crazy idea. But we also appreciate you are as much a part of The Edmonton Project as each of us, so you deserve to know what’s going on.

We are going to be working closely with Amber and Gary Poliquin, who made the compelling pitch to the Idea Den for the gondola. We already have a series of working meetings scheduled.

Together, we are going to immerse ourselves in engagement and good planning. We are going to work with experts from all over the world. We are going to do this right. We realize our commitment will span years, not months, and all of us are OK with that.

Here’s the thing. We will write a world-class plan that engages our Indigenous communities, private individuals, companies from all over the world, and all levels of government.

You will be a part of this. We will demonstrate this makes sense for numerous social and citybuilding reasons.

But we need you to just believe Edmonton deserves this. We need you to know we love this place as much as you do. This is fuzzy stuff but it’s also very real. Like a gondola.

Edmonton, go do your crazy ideas.