HIGH LEVEL BRIDGE AND TUNNEL

Currently, the top of the High Level Bridge is only for streetcar riders, while pedestrians and cyclists crowd the narrow shared-use paths on either side of the traffic below.

Creating a walkway above would allow residents to linger.

“It could be the postcard view for Edmonton,” said Thomson.

On the south side of the bridge, the streetcar runs through the old railway tunnel to get under the 109 Street/Saskatchewan Drive intersection. That’s an incredibly cool, almost eerie space.

“It’s also so wonderful that you have layers and layers of graffiti art,” said intern architect Izak Bridgman.

“They’re like cave paintings,” said Rivest.

The team thought room could be

You can’t mix the two ... We shouldn’t have to be chasing people off the tracks.

made for pedestrians by shifting the tracks to one side, but there’s very little room around the streetcar. It hangs several feet over the side of the track, especially around a curve, said Chris Ashdown, president of the Edmonton Radial Railway Society.

“It’s too dangerous to have anyone walking through there,” he said.

The volunteer society runs the streetcar, which takes passengers from the Old Strathcona Arts Barns to a stop just south of Jasper Avenue. It runs roughly every 40 minutes during the summer.

Even letting people on top of the High Level Bridge will be difficult, he said, adamantly opposed to allowing pedestrians and the 15-km/ h streetcar to share space.

“You can’t mix the two ... We shouldn’t have to be chasing people off the tracks.”

That will be a key issue if this idea goes forward. The High Level Line team wants to share space. But if the tracks have to stay in the middle of the bridge with a fence on either side to keep people off, there is likely no room for a linear park.

OLD STRATHCONA GARDENS

The wide, green right-of-way runs past one community garden in Old Strathcona but little else. There’s just a footpath worn by residents looking for a quiet place to walk.

High Level Line planners see turning this stretch over to the community to expand those gardens. A proper boardwalk could give better access and encourage more laneway housing overlooking the park. A small, naturalized stormwater pond would support more native birds and other wildlife in the area.

There could even be a community chicken coop, said Zabinski, wondering what else could be done with urban agriculture here.

“How many households could be fed out of this piece of land? It would be interesting to find out,” said Dieterman.

REACHING WHYTE AVENUE

The Edmonton Radial Railway Society is already finalizing plans to push the streetcar tracks to Whyte Avenue. They have the funding, are finishing the traffic analysis and hoping for construction this summer.

They’ll have a new station to improve visibility just north of the public washrooms off Whyte Avenue and Gateway Boulevard, where the Ice on Whyte Festival is held, said Ashdown.

Others in the neighbourhood would love to turn all or part of that surface parking lot into a park, which could host more Edmonton Fringe events and let the Old Strathcona Market grow outdoors in the summer.

It would be a perfect terminus to the High Level Line but with CP Rail gradually pulling back and giving up land along its right-of-way, maybe one day the High Level Line could reach even further south, said Dieterman.

“The line just keeps going.”

The High Level Line team is not the first to imagine what a cool view people could get strolling along the top of the High Level Bridge.

A map of the proposed High Level Line through Edmonton.

Streetcar volunteers are already working on a development permit to extend the tracks to Whyte Avenue. With small improvements, the High Level Line would tie right into that popular shopping and entertainment district.

Adding a boardwalk along the streetcar line in Old Strathcona and developing the area with community gardens, a communal chicken coop and laneway houses is the vision High Level Line planners drew up for this stretch of the line.