Edmonton Municipal Election 2010

[Phantasee]

I was actually referring to the LRT extension to NAIT also being used to go to the Muni. But I will be honest and tell you that I don't know a lot of the details about the airport and it's relationship with the International. I was 7 in 1995

[General Trelane (Retired)]

I guess I'm tipping off one of my pet projects. IMO, the LRT should be continued south beyond Century Park all the way to the international airport. Many cities have their major airport outside their municipal boundaries, but they have good public transit to move people to and from those airports. We don't. And taxis are terribly expensive.

[Phantasee]

Which is another issue: the restriction on new taxi licenses.

But yeah, I'd love to see the LRT go to the International. Stop off in Nisku would be a huge benefit for all the people who work out there. Personally I think Edmonton needs to stop fucking around and turn into a suburb eating monster like Calgary. Take the oil refineries to the east, Nisku to the south all the way to the airport.

I understand there's sketched out plans for LRT extension beyond Clareview out to the new "Heartland" industrial development by Fort Saskatchewan? I'm in favour of the LRT going everywhere. I go to Calgary and I see their C-Train going everywhere and I get overwhelmed with jealousy.

[General Trelane (Retired)]

I agree about annexing the industrial sector to the east (which includes refinery row), but Strathcona County is loathe to share the lucrative taxes from that. But I disagree about suburb gobbling; that would make the transit problem worse, not better. What's holding us make is the low population density, and increasing urban sprawl will only exacerbate the problem. Without a higher population density, we won't have the ridership necessary to ensure a healthy public transit system. This is one of the primary reasons Mandel and others are advocating densification (as an aside, the school closures of the past few years seem to be at direct odds to that densification plan).

Regarding 'sketch' plans for the LRT, I hadn't heard about plans to extend to the Ft Sask area. But it seems unlikely or at least far off based on the Capital Region Growth Plan.

An intermunicipal transit Service Plan was developed based on land use scenarios considered during the development of the Capital Region Growth Plan. When a final land use scenario is approved, the Transit Service Plan can be revisited and adjusted accordingly. The guiding principles considered in developing the Service Plan included:

-Recognize and understand the different transit markets and invest accordingly;
-Provide LRT only in congested, densely urbanized corridors;
-Provide non-stop or limited stop intermunicipal bus service;
-Provide Park and Ride lots and transit centres at LRT terminal stations and other strategic locations;
-Provide Transit Priority Measures on provincial highways and itnerchanges;
-Provide Transit Priority Measures, where needed, on intermunicipal bus corridors within municipalities; and,
-Avoid roadway investments that compete with transit.

I haven't had time to read the entire plan, but in light of the above considerations, it's more likely that bus service would be added with LRT being a long way off.

A secondary pet peeve of mine is that, for years, our city's Transportation Master Plan has used transit as a way of deferring capital investments in road infrastructure, yet the deferred 'savings' (actually yet another infrastructure deficit) were never included in ETS's operating budget. ETS, in turn, has had to jack up fares and sometimes reduce service, which can't help but be a detriment to ridership.

[Phantasee]

You'll note my idea of suburb gobbling stops at the end of the industrial zones. Nisku and International would be the limit, Leduc can stay independent. Same with refinery row. Actually refinery row would just clean up the border on the east, and match it to the Henday.

[General Trelane (Retired)]

Yes, I did note that, but expanding southward to include Nisku requires annexing a substantial amount of undeveloped farmland between us and them.

But we are in complete agreement about refinery row (out to the Henday), which should have been incorporated within Edmonton years ago.