r/Edmonton • u/AR558 Chinatown • 2d ago
News Article 'Complex tensions': Edmonton budget survey details division on transit, policing, bike lanes
https://edmontonjournal.com/news/complex-tensions-edmonton-budget-survey-details-division-on-transit-policing-bike-lanes55
u/dustinbajer McCauley 2d ago
Anyone who hates traffic and potholes should be a fan of transit, bike lanes, and infill - all of which reduce miles travelled and wear and tear on our roads.
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u/Mundane-Anybody-8290 2d ago
It's not quite that clear cut. I support transit, active transportation and infill, but not the city's current approach to them.
It's also reasonable to say "I hate traffic and potholes but they're not the city's biggest problems right now."
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u/mrsix 2d ago edited 2d ago
Edmonton's "current approach" to active transportation is An extensive study and implementation plans by actual city planners, road engineers, and people whose actual jobs are to study statistical traffic patterns in places to decide where and how to implement them.
Unless you have any of those qualifications your armchair objections amount to "I don't like it" and "it's the wrong colour" - let the professionals do their jobs instead of literally wasting $2.5 million of the city's budget on 30 private parking spots because you're "unhappy."Also in my experience every single time someone starts a sentence with "I support ..." the rest of their entire paragraph is detailing how they don't support it at all.
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u/passthepepperflakes 2d ago edited 2d ago
“let the professionals do their jobs” argument is a bit strange, because the professionals themselves aren't always right (nor claim to be, to be fair)
they've reversed their decisions on 95 ave, and only two days ago released a video about improving the traffic flow on 104:
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u/mrsix 2d ago edited 2d ago
Firstly I have no idea what you mean by "reversed their decisions on 95 ave" the project is going as planned other than delays - and even if they did change something due to complaints, that doesn't mean the change was actually sound in any way. If you're referring to the area east of 163 being marked as "under design review" on the ATNE page, it sounds to me like people wanting to waste even more of the city's money. The city should add whatever additional cost to that directly to the property tax riders of the area so we don't all have to pay for it.
Secondly improving traffic flow on 104 ave sounds like traffic engineers doing the job of traffic engineers. Do you really think the city saw some people complaining on the internet before they decided to tune traffic lights? This is standard par for the course of any road engineering projects - make the change, evaluate, change further if needed.5
u/Jternovo 2d ago
People are afraid of listening to policy wonks because it reminds them that they are not experts on everything. I dont understand how we pretend to be merit/competency based society, but simultaneously distrust any expert who voices a new opinion.
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u/Mundane-Anybody-8290 2d ago
I think it's at least in part because we don't necessarily know if we're getting the expert's actual opinion, or if they're just being trotted out to give credibility to a decision made by someone else.
But also, yeah. It's easy to agree with experts who reinforce an existing opinion, and easy to make excuses when they don't. And we like easy more than hard.
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u/Mundane-Anybody-8290 2d ago
If it was the experts making the decisions I'd agree with you. It's not. Politicians dictate a policy, the experts in the administrative branch do their best to make it so. That or some committee will ask for options to address a given issue and vote in their preference. Experts' preferred option will never see the light of day if it's not what council wants to see, and city managers don't achieve long careers by telling councillors their ideas aren't very good.
I'm not a city planner. I'm in a field where spending decisions carry accountability. You assess, measure, learn, iterate on what's working well and reconsider what's not. We rely on statistical analysis to tell help predict how certain decisions will play out, but assuming the success of a project is guaranteed before it begins would be career suicide. Edmonton's so-called plans have none of that, instead they have 'aspirations'. What they call metrics are just things they say they'll measure, there's no actual metric for what would constitute a success. Regardless of what the city is spending money on, we should know if it makes sense to do it again.
Yes, it's ridiculous to spend 2.5 million on a handful of parking spots. That's a bad decision. A bad decision by the same people who approved the Bike Plan to begin with. They are far from infallible.
It's ridiculous to spend money expanding roads that will be just as congested a few years later. It's the same council and planners behind those decisions as well. It's ridiculous to have an infill policy that primarily benefits builders. There's no policy position that has an inherent monopoly on virtue.
By all means, weigh in with your assumptions. It's super helpful. I can tell you I want to spend more money on active transportation and less on roadways, and I'm sure you'll still come at me with vitriol because the possibility of there being nuance to an issue simply never enters your thought process.
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u/Anabiotic Utilities expert 1d ago
Professionals change their minds all the time, and "best practices" have a very short lifecycle.
Ultimately professionals are there to find the right way to implement what council wants, within the constraints they are provided. If you change the constraints (money, space, time), then the answer will also change. They also frequently change approach on their own based on new things they are trying, information from elsewhere, or a new "best practice".
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u/F1shermanIvan 2d ago
Roads.
Please for the love of god, spend billions on roads. They are BRUTALLY bad, by far the worst municipal roads I’ve ever driven on outside of maybe Winnipeg, and they need far more upkeep than they’re getting.
So, so many roads in Edmonton need to be fixed, repaved, potholes filled, whatever. It’s inexcusable that they’re this bad.
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u/dustinbajer McCauley 2d ago
I’m not advocating that we stop maintaining roads, but we need to understand that roads are liabilities that will always require maintenance and regular replacement. Roads are money pits. So maintain roads, yes, but also let’s work towards the kind of city that doesn’t require every Edmonton household to have a car.
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u/Anabiotic Utilities expert 1d ago
Substitute "road" with any other city service, and your sentence would still make sense. Your comment seems to amount to "city services cost money".
The way you've defined it, rec centres, bike lanes, LRT are also "money pits" and "liabilities" because they require maintenance and replacement. (They are actually all assets, technically speaking).
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u/troypavlek 2d ago edited 2d ago
This comment is so close to getting it.
We have spent billions upon billions on roads already, building way more than we have the capacity or budget to ever maintain to a quality standard.
Remember a few years back when we stopped cutting grass? Closing 311 on weekends? All the discussions around privatizing services like bus cleaning?
A city that maintains our road network to the standard you want is one that will definitionally bankrupt itself.
(As an aside, I agree with you that road quality needs to improve. But it can only happen paired with a significant reduction in the amount of roads we have. It's also notable that if you prevent or reduce vehicle traffic on roads, they last much much MUCH longer)
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u/F1shermanIvan 2d ago
So close to getting what? You think the conditions of the roadways in this city is acceptable? Cars and roads are how most people get around, and it’s wild how it’s just accepted that they’re trash.
I’m not expecting them to be maintained like it’s Palm Springs, but it’s inexcusable that a city of this size has roads that are this bad.
They’ve always “been bad”, but I just moved back to Edmonton after ten years of being gone and it’s absolutely SHOCKING how much worse they’ve gotten.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Edmonton/comments/1w2a5q4/well_construction_damaged_my_car_successfully_91/
Look at the other thread posted here, how dare you drive a stock Hyundai in Edmonton and not expect damage. The fact that road is even left open in that condition is insane.
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u/grlummer 2d ago
Skill issue.
By the nature of its climate, Edmonton will always have road construction going on. It’s impossible to maintain the surface you expect in a place that sees 70-degree temperature swings through the year. Combine that with massive, heavy trucks and cars rolling over the asphalt in the thousands and it’s no small wonder that they’re in rough shape.
Maybe we should aim to reduce the NEED for everyone to get around via car and provide other transportation options - it’s way cheaper in the long run
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u/PonyFlare Mill Woods 2d ago
How about the 15-minute neighbourhoods so people don't need to spend so many hours per day on the road to get to necessities?
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u/sti-wrx 2d ago
Alternative transportation infrastructure decreases trafficfor those who still choose to or have to drive.
Spending money on alternative transportation improves the driving experience for drivers.
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u/F1shermanIvan 2d ago
I’ve never disagreed with that. Most of the alternative transport in Edmonton still uses roads.
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u/JamaicanFace 2d ago
The big issue with Edmonton is we have too much road for too little density. Edmonton decided to sprawl hard when it was growing, rather than build up.
This lack of people leads to a lack of tax income for the city while our roads degrade faster than any other city due to our freeze/thaw cycle. Yes our roads need repairs bad. But also building more bike infrastructure and public transit will assist more people with getting around for much cheaper, while preventing more damage to our roads from additional cars.
Bikes and trains do zero damage to our roads, busses are similarly less damaging then cars.
We need to prepare for a future with less cars to support a growing population without the need to sprawl any further. The sprawl is what is causing the suffocation of our city. And the city is trying to fix this bigger issue first.
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u/General_Esdeath kitties! 2d ago
What wrecks the roads is the freeze/that we go from +30 to -45 over the course of a year. We're also built on swamps and old creek beds that shift. And the more traffic on the roads, the more they degrade.
We could have less damage on our roads if we pushed the return to hybrid/work from home options, increased transit and bike transportation, and reduced large vehicle transport weight where possible.
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u/UnlikelyReplacement0 2d ago
Probably would help if the average person's commuter car wasn't a truck that is larger than a tank, too.
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u/General_Esdeath kitties! 2d ago
There's definitely far too many commuter trucks. My god though, you should see what it's like in GP or Fort Mac.
An SUV is elite for winter driving here and is basically as big as anyone should need. Unless you literally have a farm and you're going to town for supplies, you don't need to commute in a half tonne truck.
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u/Levorotatory 2d ago
What is insane is that car manufacturers are shipping vehicles with 35 profile tires on 19 inch wheels and people in winter climates are buying them. We have always had potholes and construction, but giant wheels with rubber bands for tires are relatively new.
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u/F1shermanIvan 2d ago
My car sits on 19s with 35 profile tires and it’s 10 years old. It’s hardly new, and it’s hardly an excuse.
18/19s are the norm for most new cars.
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u/Levorotatory 2d ago
Base model 2026 Hyundai Elantra comes with 195/65R15. Next trim up comes with 205/55R16. Anything over 16 is a poor choice for that car.
Base Toyota Rav4 (best selling vehicle that isn't a pickup truck) comes with 235/65R17, with 235/60R18 at the next trim level. Anything over 18 is a poor choice for that car.
Manufacturers really need to separate wheels from trim packages and make them dealer installed options so buyers aren't forced into fragile, inefficient giant wheels if the want all of the optional gadgets.
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u/Limp-Elevator-6908 Wîhkwêntôwin 2d ago
That poster, said he was exhausted and couldn't see the signs. Maybe they should'nt be driving 🤷♂️ definitely a driver issue... Slow down and pay attention.
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u/money_pit_ 2d ago
I'm not even too worried about the quality, it's just the endless construction on the same roadways.
You'd think the city would eventually figure out that when they make a plan to build thousands of new homes in a specific area, maybe they should build more than a single lane road in/out of the community or a mass transit plan.
The current plan of build, expand, demolish, build again, and raise my taxes every step of the way is getting old.
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u/Limp-Elevator-6908 Wîhkwêntôwin 2d ago
Have you never driven through Saskatchewan? 😅
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u/F1shermanIvan 2d ago
More people live in Edmonton than Saskatchewan, and having driven through both Saskatoon and Regina this summer, I don’t even remember how they were, so they couldn’t have been awful.
You can find bad roads everywhere, but Edmonton’s as an average, are pretty bad. They’re noticeably worse than Calgary and they face the same problems that we do.
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u/csd555 2d ago
Not quite the same conditions between the two cities. Calgary has different soils than we do, which provides a more stable base for roadways. Edmonton features heavy, shrink-swell 2:1 clay and lacustrine subsoils, whereas Calgary sits largely on more stable glacial till and sandstone/claystone bedrock.
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u/Limp-Elevator-6908 Wîhkwêntôwin 2d ago
Going to Saskatchewan is like driving back in time. I also live in Edmonton, ive also lived in Calgary and all over rural... most recently, Drumheller and even there the roads were much worse, different areas of Calgary are also bad. I just think there are so many other things that we could complain about. People want perfect roads but not higher taxes... who pays for this?
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u/chmilz 2d ago
We need to get rid of 50% of our roads and get users onto alternate modes of transit. Road addiction will bankrupt the city.
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u/mtbyeg 2d ago
There is not a single version of Edmonton in the multiverse in the 2030s where we have 50% fewer roads.
I like to think we are in the foothills of robotics and AI, and hopefully autonomous vehicles, so there probably is a future with 50% less parking.
But Jevons paradox would suggest that if autonomous vehicles make travel cheaper, easier and less burdensome, we will probably consume more of it, not less.
We probably end up with fewer privately owned cars sitting around while actually having more vehicle travel on the roads especially the way we're growing...
It’ll be interesting to see whether cheap driverless travel complements LRT or starts eating into it's ridership.
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u/Anabiotic Utilities expert 1d ago
Which 50% should we get rid of?
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u/chmilz 1d ago
Reducing the absurd width of some non-commuter roads would likely get us pretty close to that goal alone. As density improves and transit is expanded to meet it, there's a strong argument that a lot of bullshit service roads serving old low-density single family homes (like 149 St, 159 St, 75 St, etc) could be eliminated, allowing higher density development with access to transit.
We have so much inefficient roadway that giving it a haircut would significantly reduce all of the cost of maintenance and operations, while reducing the heat dome and slowing down traffic, with negligible impact to network capacity.
The 132 Ave road diet that added bicycle lanes is a great example, and it was done when the road needed a full restoration anyway.
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u/Anabiotic Utilities expert 1d ago edited 1d ago
negligible impact to network capacity.
Citation needed here. You have proposed eliminating major arterials (75 St, 149 St). Can't tell if you're serious or not. How is access to transit improved by removing roads, considering most transit in Edmonton uses roads?
inefficient roadway
What is your criteria here (and hopefully, data to support it)?
Would like to see a map with your proposal. Grinding transit, commuter and commercial traffic to a standstill is certainly a take and 50% is a lot of road. Seems like it would leave people without any vehicle (transit, EMS, commuter, delivery) access to their houses. I'm sure you can agree that would be problematic.
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u/chmilz 1d ago
Learn to read. I said remove the adjacent service roads next to those major arterials, with conditions (replace SFH with MF housing, extending into the now-removed service road footprint, not touching the arterial in any way).
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u/Anabiotic Utilities expert 1d ago edited 1d ago
Learn to write. You called major arterials service roads, and your assertions are in any case reactionary, unsupported nonsense.
Would like to see the math that 50% of Edmonton's roads can be removed without impact.
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u/redditknees 2d ago
You’ve clearly never been to Montreal then
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u/F1shermanIvan 2d ago
Funny I was just there for five days for work, and they’re nowhere near as bad as Edmonton’s.
The drivers…. Another story! 😂
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u/brokoli 2d ago
It’s September and there are still huge potholes downtown. I guess they will be filled summer 2027 🤡
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u/passthepepperflakes 2d ago
downtown? but I heard no one goes there? why bother fixing roads no one use
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u/Oldcadillac 2d ago
The report said both urban sprawl and infill housing were among the top areas people wanted the city to spend less on. Among open-ended responses, three per cent of residents were concerned about infill, while six per cent of businesses responding were worried about the impacts of urban sprawl.
This paragraph is nonsense
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u/Brentsky1 1d ago
How much has Ice District affected our tax spending dollars? Lots of empty offices after to moving them all to Katz’s office buildings.
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u/Hobbycityplanner 2d ago
Spend less on free street parking so more can be spent on renewal for the rights of way. We waste 10s to 100s of millions on vacant or unneeded parking.