July 6 Edmonton Headlines
Who ya gonna call?
Welcome to the middle of the week, Edmonton. How’s your hump?
Edmonton’s Somali community appears to be turning within, including launching a new series of posters, to try and solve the many murders that have hit them. We’re probably going to need more crime prevention than just posters though; perhaps libraries and youth centres could stay open way, way longer.
“Maybe around here it would be like Whyte Avenue but with better access.” Umm, access is pretty darn good for folks who live in walkable neighbourhoods. Walkable shopping is a mall.
Our pals over at the Edmonton Flag Football Association played for a world record and raised more than $10,000 for the Stollery Children’s Hospital. All in all, a pretty good long weekend for that crew.
If you run a small business, the City is looking for the greenest of them all.
The artistic director of Edmonton Opera has resigned after nine years at the helm.
Edmonton composer Malcolm Forsyth has died.
An Edmonton landlord is not allowed to file any more lawsuits, without some permission from a judge.
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The Alberta government is being told to set up an independent oilsands monitoring panel, to watch over the pollution created by the industry. Your move, long-standing, terrible budgeting, energy-dependent Tory government, your move.
Speaking of provincial budgeting…the Sun wants to know where the Royal Alberta Museum debate is…
A workplace inspection blitz on places likely to have a lot of younger workers, like food courts, found many safety violations. None were serious enough to shut down the businesses. One thing I find interesting about the many workplace inspection stories this year, they almost always have more violations than inspections, meaning multiple violations and hazards at a bunch of them.
Leadership candidates are being pressured to bring in harsher smoking laws. On the campaign…the head of the Alberta Medical Association is being asked to resign, or get turfed, by former Conservative MLA, Liberal leadership candidate, and doctor Raj Sherman.
The Slave Lake fire is now Canada’s second most expensive disaster, according to the Insurance Bureau of Canada, behind only the Quebec and eastern Ontario ice storm of 1998. Oh, and while we’re mentioning Slave Lake, the royal couple is headed there. (I guess we couldn’t make it through their trip to Canada without a mention after all.)
The southern Alberta zoo lots of people are hating on is back open while court processes drag out. I guess this means the owner didn’t kill and stuff the animals just yet.
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Canada’s military role in Afghanistan is over. There are still soldiers over there, and they will remain so in mostly training capacities, but the fighting is now up to other countries.
Statistics Canada reports most of Canada’s eligible voters who didn’t vote in the last election were too busy or didn’t feel like voting. That just makes me sad. While political parties all try to figure out how to engage with youth, and more voters in general, I think it’s also time for news and information providers to think about dropping some of their “objectivity” and also find ways to engage voters.
May 30 Edmonton Headlines
Welcome to the end of May/beginning of June, Edmonton.
Make sure you let the City know what you think about urban agriculture. Especially if you want some chickens or bees around. Speaking of urban agriculture…Boyle Street’s getting its first community garden. Man, those things are popular.
Progress and freeways, vs. nature and fewer interchanges. Not a story that ever goes away.
Does Edmonton need a safe injection site? A conference about injection harm-reduction is on our city this week.
Edmonton Indy party tent: 2006-2010 – we’ll miss you, old friend. And the tent jokes that could have been.
A century-old church in Old Strathcona is in need of some serious repairs.
You ever just walk around the city?
Edmonton is losing six of its Blockbuster video stores. We’ll be getting some Targets though, if that helps at all.
An Edmonton-area salesperson has been banned by the Alberta Securities Commission.
St. Albert wants to limit the length of time RVs can stay in Wal-Mart parking lots. I had no idea this was a thing Wal-Mart encouraged.
More? Could there possibly be more to talk about?
You bet. (more…)
Where we’re going we don’t need roads
Roads aren't just for cars anymore.
(Actually we will need roads.)
I had a fantastic Saturday in Edmonton. Here’s where I’ll tell you why it was such a good day.
Of course, the weather was beautiful. Sunny, hot, blue sky with puffy white clouds, just a few minutes of rain early evening…perfect summer day stuff. That always puts a bounce in the step.
But it was more than that. I got a haircut. That’s always nice too, but not really what this is all about.
I saw an Edmonton that was for the urbanite. It was walkable, transit-connected, bike-orientated, local, for just about everyone, and fun.
I tweeted that it was a glimpse into what Edmonton could be in the future, at least on a regular basis, and I stand by that.
Let me walk you through what I did, to explain.
The main part of this story begins on the High Level Bridge Streetcar. I finally got to ride one of the streetcars that wasn’t the Australian one. That one is nice, but they have three of them and I’ve never been on the other two.
I finally got a different ride, on the German streetcar. It’s red and sleek and feels a little more modern than it’s Aussie counterpart. Riding an old, yet new, form of transit from the southside, across the picturesque river valley, is always fun. And it doesn’t take more than 10 minutes to get to the Grandin area (109 Street south of Jasper Avenue).
The streetcar is a good time, but it’s also a great example of re-purposing old tracks for something that can continue to be used. It also makes me sad that we had streetcars a long time ago and they’re all gone now. Especially when you hear about the new, low-floor LRT that will likely be running down the centre of main streets, mimicking that streetcar of old.
Edmontonians are even braving winter to commute to work on their bicycles.
Off the streetcar, I walked about six blocks to the Bikeology Festival happening in Beaver Hills House Park, at Jasper and 105 Street. This is one of Edmonton’s many, many, summer festivals. This one is all about the bicycle though.(June is bike month in Edmonton.)
I chatted with the Edmonton Bicycle and Touring Club about day-trips and evening rides they do in and around Edmonton. They’re seeing a surge in popularity. They also do a handful of rides between Jasper and Banff, some very rugged and others with stops and proper rest places on the way.
The Edmonton Bicycle Commuters’ Society was on hand, talking about the best way to get to work, dressing for the weather, and tune-ups. I really get the sense that Edmonton’s bike scene is growing. If it’s not expanding, people are certainly more open about loving their bicycles, and using them for more than just some summer exercise.
(Don’t forget to track down a map of all the city’s bike trails and routes!)
This year, if you headed just a bit northeast of Bikeology, you found more bikes and more options to driving your car on the road.
The City held its first Park(ed) event on 102 Avenue, between 104 and 100 Streets. In conjunction with Mountain Equipment Co-op’s Bikefest, you saw a lot of two-wheeled options to the automobile. You also saw that roads don’t always have to be for cars and trucks.
Besides bikes and walking, the point of Park(ed) was to take over parking spaces. People got to throw down some AstroTurf (if they wanted) and set up camp (as you can see to the right, sometimes literally) in a plot of pavement usually reserved exclusively for a car, truck, van or motorcycle. It was a great street party, and fun for the whole family, but it was also about re-thinking the city.
We have a few street parties through the summer, including the Art Walk on Whyte Avenue, but here we were, in the downtown core, walking down the middle of the street on a busy Saturday. I loved it. I hope people thought about that fact that we don’t have to build everything to suit the automobile.
We don’t have to turn every street into a giant sidewalk, but we can think about pedestrians, think about neighbourhood use, transit, bike lanes, all kinds of things that both move us around and get us outside to meet the community.
Fellow pedestrians, 104 Street can be ours!
Now, 104 Street, in my opinion, IS a street that could be pedestrian-only, between Jasper and 102 Avenue. If not all the way up to 104 Avenue.
The Downtown Farmers’ Market takes the street over every Saturday through the spring, summer and some of fall, it’s already narrow, it’s becoming one of the greatest examples of a busy core with high population density, and its got plenty of street-level interaction and retail.
The farmers’ market (and the many others in and around Edmonton) is a another example of something we can keep moving toward; local food. It doesn’t have to be local at the exclusion of all other foods, but when something can be grown right here it’s often better to buy it right here. It at least supports the local food economy.
It was great to see Bikeology connected to Park(ed) and the Bikefest, and all of it right by the always busy farmers’ market.
But that’s not all that happened Saturday.
Park(ed)’s reign on the street ended as you moved east down 102 Avenue, but I soon found myself at an energetic Churchill Square. The basketball nets were busy, people were making their way to the fountain at City Hall to cool off, ‘boarders were at the temproary skate park, street food was flowing (summer foods like ice cream and hot dogs), and there was even a rock show this weekend.
That all really melted together nicely, within a few, walkable, blocks. And it was another block to the bus, to ride back to the southside.
We talk a lot about making the city more sustainable, building more LRT tracks and getting more people out of their cars, revitalizing the downtown and older, core, neighbourhoods. There are certainly things that get in the way, like the Edmonton Public School Board shutting down central schools, and our endlessly growing roadways and sprawling suburbs.
But, I think this weekend proved we can become a different kind of city, without even changing all that much.
104 Street rocks my socks
Old buildings to the left of me, new ones to the right...
Sometimes, living near Whyte Avenue, I forget there are other pedestrian-friendly areas of the city that are totally sweet. It can happen in a city that so often reminds me that I shouldn’t venture more than 20 steps without something on four wheels carrying me around.
But 104 Street, between 100 and 104 Avenues, might be one of the best spots to enjoy a high-density, walkable urban area.
Thinking about it, I don’t know why the City of Edmonton doesn’t just make 104 Street pedestrian-only (say, the same blocks that are closed north-south during the market). Businesses and condos already have entrances in the back lanes, and people in the area have to adjust for Saturdays through the summer. I’d settle for pedestrian-only in daylight hours, but all week. (Points to e-mail my city councillors with, I guess.)
Great, fairly traded, coffee and yummy cookie.
Enjoying a fine latte at Credo Coffee, I had time to think about what this street is becoming. Of course, summer Saturdays, 104 Street is shut-down to traffic of the vehicular kind from Jasper to 103 Avenue for the City Market. You can’t get much more pedestrian-friendly.
The market’s not new, and while Sobey’s Urban Fresh has added a livability to the area, we’re now seeing a small business boom as work on new condos nears completion. The street is also retaining some of the older brick buildings, which is always great to see.
You’ve got one of my favourite stores, and one that speaks to a sustainable city; Carbon. It’s got plenty of stuff for around the home (and for every room) which makes it both a destination and a neighbourhood store.
You can't shop much more green than this.
There’s the Blue Plate Diner, always a great choice for local and delicious food. You’ve got tapas (Tzin), wine (deVine) and furniture and home decor at 29 Armstrong, all of which make the street a stop for those looking to shop.
Some of them cater to an evening out or a great brunch and other shops are for people living in the neighbourhood. There’s a tailor and hair dresser, which could be destination stores but mostly speak to living close by.
With an LRT stop right underneath Jasper and 104 it’s clearly an area that’s going to appeal to those looking to ditch the car a little more often, or completely.
104 Street might not qualify as a hidden gem but it’s worth a reminder to check out this strip, especially on a Saturday when closed to traffic. It’s nice to know that even in the city of cars we have places that cater to the walking public.
Could we go all pedestrian all the time?
