Merciful end for Edmonton’s gondola lunacy
IT WAS THE LARGEST SETTLEMENT OF NON-EUROPEAN REFUGEES UNTIL THAT POINT IN CANADIAN HISTORY.
— RAYMOND DE SOUZA
Common sense prevailed last week in Edmonton — a city with a not-so-sterling reputation for embracing half-baked ideas — when city council grounded a long-gestating proposal for an urban gondola. Yup, a gondola … in Edmonton, a city bereft of mountains other than the towering hills of snow formed every winter from plowing the streets.
Checks and balances at city hall usually filter out such preposterous ideas, but Edmonton’s feckless bureaucrats kept the idea alive for four years. In 2018, a competition was held by a group of local businesses to generate ideas for possible new attractions. A gondola over the North Saskatchewan River emerged as the winning entry, beating out a giant ferris wheel restaurant and a Nordic-style outdoor sauna.
Private company Prairie Sky Gondola was assembled to help shepherd the urban gondola idea. What emerged was a pitch so lofty it could swat magpies out of the sky: An approximately 2.5-kilometre route connecting downtown Edmonton to the Old Strathcona neighbourhood south of the North Saskatchewan River, consisting of five stops and 19 towers. It would run year-round, including through Edmonton’s notoriously frigid winter months, and somehow act as a component for public transit, all the while remaining completely privately owned and operated.
How could Edmonton pass up such a tantalizing proposition? It could be the highlight of a string of construction embarrassments, including the city’s long-delayed, bordering-on-disastrous Valley Line LRT extension; a highly criticized funicular to the river valley that is continually malfunctioning; and the controversial Rogers Place arena deal with Oilers owner Daryl Katz, which has left lingering bitterness among Edmontonians.
Non-albertans need to take into account how precious the river valley is to Edmonton. The North Saskatchewan River bisects the city, its fertile riverbanks rife with trails and greenery. Residents have fiercely protected the river valley, opposing development in and around it. Anything other than a traffic or pedestrian bridge crossing the river would be seen as obscene as spray-painting the Calgary Flames logo on a pillar. Allowing a private company to develop areas in the river valley for gondola towers was taken as an affront by conservationists.
Gondola proponents flooded social media with posts touting the project. Twitter users adopted a gondola emoji in their usernames as if it was a badge of honour for backing foolish ideas. Columns and letters were published in the daily newspapers, both slamming and hyping the idea. You couldn’t go six months without someone trotting out The Simpsons’ infamous Marge vs. the Monorail episode for an analogy. As the publicity blitz played out in Edmonton media, Prairie Sky’s pipe dream was given the thumbs up by a series of city committees. City councillors could have buried the project in the “bad ideas” pile at any point, but instead voted to have it fester and waste valuable time and resources within city hall.
Finally, in a resounding 12-1 motion last week, council grounded the gondola idea, declining to continue with the proposed land lease agreement. It wasn’t common sense that prevailed however, but a commitment to reconciliation efforts with the Indigenous community. A gondola station was proposed for the Rossdale Flats area, a recognized Indigenous burial ground, which rankled many in the city.
In fairness, Prairie Sky CEO Jeffrey Hansen-carlson had said his company would take part in local impact assessments and engage with Indigenous communities, but it wasn’t enough to sway city councillors, including Mayor Amarjeet Sohi, who pointed to the possibility of disturbing the ancestral burial grounds as a dealbreaker.
With Pope Francis having visited Edmonton a month prior, reconciliation was still a political hot topic, and kudos to city hall for not just adhering to the usual lip service but taking action. Yet one can’t help but wonder whether the project would have retained traction with city council if the route had avoided the culturally sensitive area.
It’s still unknown if the gondola was intended to court Edmontonians or tourists. Venturing across the North Saskatchewan River is not a difficult task as there are many bridges, including an LRT line, so accessibility was never a strong selling point. Few if any Edmontonians were also eager to pay the price of a bus ticket to travel downtown and then purchase a separate ticket to cross the river in a gondola.
Often, when a harebrained scheme is hatched in Edmonton, some wiseass will quote the notorious slogan that adorns a downtown building: “Take a risk: It’s the most Edmonton thing you can do.” It’s a message meant to bolster Edmonton’s can-do attitude, but it can also be used as a snide retort to whatever scheme some trickster is attempting to hoist on Edmontonians. Level-headed projects with a hint of vision often win over the most cynical Edmontonians, such as the replacement for the city’s Walterdale Bridge. The new version’s gorgeous arches now dominate every skyline photo taken of the city. But denying a company land rights to build an unnecessary gondola system isn’t stymying dreamers, it’s the sober, logical response to flights of fantasy.
Hansen-carlson has said council’s decision will not deter plans for a gondola, but to any sensible individual the project as it was pitched is dead. For Edmontonians who truly yearn to zip through the air in a gondola, there’s always the Jasper Skytram, a four-hour drive west from Edmonton. For a mere $57.30 per person, you can ascend to the top of the majestic Whistlers Mountain while imagining the North Saskatchewan River is below. No risk involved.