Speaking Municipally

Mack Male: One last thing before I go. This week, we dive into all the last-minute motions that city council squeezed in during its final week of meetings this term.
Stephanie Swensrude: Plus, we talk about construction woes on the west end, inconsistencies between different rezoning applications, and a candidate's proposal for free transit.
Mack: Hi, I'm Mak.
Stephanie: I'm Stephanie.
Mack: And we're...
Both: Speaking Municipally.
Mack: Welcome back to Speaking Municipally, episode 324. This is the final episode of the 2021-2025 council term.
Stephanie: << Forever young, I wanna be forev- >>. Aw, congrats everyone. We made it, four years!
Mack: (sighs) Another four years in the books. It's gonna be all election from here on out, Stephanie. I don't know if you're ready for that.
Stephanie: Uh uh no, I'm excited. This is this is exciting for me. This is, um... I feel like I am reaching a personal milestone because, I think I've mentioned this before, but my, I, my first, like, bit of actual journalism work was helping out CTV News on Election Day in 2021, at Mayor Sohi's campaign headquarters. So I got-
Mack: Mm-hmm.
Stephanie: ... to be there when everyone kind of heard that he was announced, and it was very exciting as a little mini baby journalist to be in a environment like that. And now, here I am, four years later and g- I've s- seen the whole cycle of a council has been very illuminating and I just can't wait to apply all of the things that I learned as a journalist to this next four years. I'm really excited.
Mack: Yeah, I'm looking forward to that as well. I wish you had a more successful first term maybe? I know the current councillors won't like me saying that very much.
Stephanie: Mm-hmm.
Mack: But, you know, it's been a, I think it's been a challenging four years. I think back to that election night and seeing the diversity, the new faces, the excitement, the hope that people had for this council. And now, with the benefit of hindsight, just feeling like it didn't live up to the hype, you know?
Stephanie: Mm-hmm.
Mack: And I, I don't mean to say that these folks have not done their work or whatever. It's a hard job. I respect anyone who's in the chair and who's put in the effort for four years. Like it's a really hard job, I think, and we should all be grateful that there's people in our community that are willing to stand for election and put their name forward and serve. Uh, but I just am feeling that sense of, like, hmm, letdown a little bit compared to... Maybe it was unrealistic hope. I don't know.
Stephanie: Y- you know, because this was kind of the first full full-year cycle that I was very much tuned into politics and journalism and municipal stuff, I think that I don't really have anything else to compare it to. I also think that maybe it's a bit of a generational difference because I'm very used to politicians being disappointing- (laughs)
Mack: (laughs)
Stephanie: ... as someone who is 20, late 20s we'll say. Um...
Mack: Yeah.
Stephanie: So yeah, but I, I, I can understand because I remember, again, when... So in tw- late 2021 I was still in school, still at NAIT, and one of my little TV stories that I made was on how big of a deal it was that there were so many women on council.
Mack: Yeah.
Stephanie: It was a historic election and now we're here. (laughs)
Mack: Maybe it speaks to the challenges that council faces regularly no matter who's on council.
Stephanie: And I think that the world and the environment, and specifically municipalities, has faced many struggles in the last four years. So maybe it's um, two, a two-pronged thing is that it's gotten a lot harder to be a politician as well.
Mack: Yeah, I think that's fair. Maybe I'm, maybe I'm not being as fair to our current council as I, as they deserve. It, it is a very different world in 2025 than it was on election night back in October 2021.
Stephanie: And, and that's why I'm so surprised that so many of them are running for re-election. Again, I would have thought that so, that a lot of them would be very tired out from politics but it's almost all of them are running for re-election.
Mack: It's a calling. They wanna serve.
Stephanie: Yep.
Mack: Well, we'll get into some more election stuff, but first we've got to deal with some of that end of term business that council had to deal with this week, and before we do that, we're gonna read this ad.
Stephanie: This episode is brought to you by The Well Endowed podcast, an award-winning production from Edmonton Community Foundation. The Well Endowed podcast shares the story of people and organizations making our city thrive. Each episode reveals how generosity and community support help build an Edmonton where everyone belongs. One example is Encompass, which has a transformative tattoo removal program that gives people with troubled pasts a second chance. Here's Kayla Hendra, director of client experience, recalling a story that has always stuck with her.
Kayla Hendra: I was working with young offenders at the time. He was 16 years old, and he had a gang tattoo from his wrist to his mid chest, and because that tattoo existed on him and he made that choice, he decided that was his destiny and that would be his life.
Stephanie: Thanks to community support and programs like Encompass, second chances become possible and Edmonton becomes stronger for it. Listen to The Well Endowed podcast to hear more stories of resilience, generosity, and the people shaping a brighter tomorrow. Search for it wherever you get podcasts, and if you're subscribed to Speaking Municipally, which you should be, watch your podcatcher next week for Second Skin, The Well Endowed podcast's full story on Encompass.
Mack: Yeah, we're gonna do a little bit of a feed drop, something different. So hopefully you enjoy that, listeners. All right, Stephanie, we both had a lot on the go this week.
Stephanie: (laughs)
Mack: A lot is election-related, but we were paying some attention to city council. You more than me maybe.
Stephanie: Yeah.
Mack: And one of the things that, ah, I feel people have been talking about a lot lately, West End construction woes.
Stephanie: Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Mack: What happened this week?
Stephanie: So on September 15th, which I think is, would have been Monday, yeah, they, the city closed down Wellington Bridge. So now that is the bridge that has those cute little pillars on the side. It's like historical but it's very narrow, and if you're riding your bike you have to dismount. And it's not over Groat Road, it's over the ravine. And they closed that down because it is... If you've ever traveled under it on the multi-use path, you've seen all the scaffolding that's holding it up because it is, like...... seconds away from crumbling. If you recall, last year, the going a few blocks north, the Stoney Plain Road Bridge was closed for a while, I think over a year as well. So, this is kind of west end traffic part two electric boogaloo (laughs). Um, because it just, as it seemed like everyone was recovering from having to funnel from 104 Ave, now all of a sudden, 102 Ave. Now, the thing is, is that no one is ever going to be like, "Yes, I love construction." Um, everyone is always going to complain about construction, and no one's gonna like having their commute disrupted. I do think that this is pretty valid. It does seem like things have been truly bungled. I was looking at Reddit, and one of the posts about the construction had a lot of people saying that their commute that's normally, like, 20 minutes long, turned into, like, hour and a half, two hours.
Mack: Mm-hmm.
Stephanie: So it's not just, like, "It took me five more minutes to get to work." Like it's, it's a truly messed up. Like it's, you know, when sometimes there will be a winter day where we get some snow, and it literally, randomly out of nowhere takes like two hours? I think that's ma- like, yeah, so that's what happened. Another reason why there's an issue here, so Wellington Bridge is closed, and that's 102 Ave.
Mack: And that's between 130th Street and 132nd Street, so-
Stephanie: Yes.
Mack: ... a little bit further west there on 102nd Avenue.
Stephanie: Yeah, it's a, it's a route into downtown, and then also another route into downtown, Jasper Avenue, is down to, I think, one lane in each direction for the Imagine Jasper Ave project, and then going up to 104 Ave, that is down to one lane in each direction-ish for the Valley Line. So yeah, we've got 104, 102, and Jasper that all have issues going west, and then plus the Valley Line West, I mean, all of the Valley Line West is under construction. So I don't know, Mack. Do you think that this is a temporary problem? Do you think that people will disperse to other routes or has this congestion issue adding in the Wellington Bridge closure? Is this getting to a point where it's, like, truly unmanageable?
Mack: Well, and for a while there, we also had some stuff on 107th Avenue-
Stephanie: Yes.
Mack: ... which is, you know, further north but another east-west route. Uh, I think that's mostly gone away now, but, you know, coming into the downtown, that was also a bit of a challenge. I mean, this is something that a lot of folks have been talking about. When I'm out and about having conversations with people, it actually comes up, right?
Stephanie: Mm-hmm.
Mack: This, this is a conversation that has been coming up more and more frequently. I see it on social media as well. I see people posting about this in and out. I probably am a little bit hypersensitive to it just because I do go east-west every day into Wiquentowin from downtown, and so I can kind of see traffic volumes and things like that, and, and it is pretty crazy. It's not even just those main east-west routes. There's a lot of construction on the in-between roads and, you know, streets and avenues as well. Like there's just a lot of congestion around all of th- those places, and normally, you know, what comes to mind for me is short-term pain-
Stephanie: Mm-hmm.
Mack: ... long-term gain. My think, maybe people are feeling like it's not so short term right now, and you know, like, "When are we ever gonna get to the other side of it?" So you know, it's hard to say that all these people who are complaining are wrong 'cause I think enough people have started to experience this that there's a challenge here. What to do about it is a whole other kettle of fish, and I don't, I don't know that anyone's got a great plan or, or a great idea for what to do about it. It does seem to me to be one of those things that we have to get better at as a city, just not necessarily the coordination of these projects, but you know, lots of other cities do construction and maintain access, and this is a bigger problem, I find, for pedestrians than it is for cars actually, right? But you can do work without closing sidewalks, and in Edmonton, we just always close sidewalks. You can do some of this work if you, if you plan for it, I think, without closing quite as many lanes of traffic or at least as many routes all at the same time. So definitely, I feel like there's opportunity for us to improve on all of this. It also makes me think maybe don't drive. You know, you mentioned the winter thing, and that one drives me nuts because you get those dumps of snow, and everyone gets to the thing late and says, "Oh, I couldn't get here. You know, it was, it was terrible. The snow was so bad." And it's like, "Well, all the people on public transit managed to get there, and the people who had to plan their routes a little bit more intentionally than getting into their car and expecting to be there in five minutes, they all got there." And I feel like maybe there's a little bit of that (laughs) with the construction too, right? And then the last thought I have on this right now is, can you imagine how bad this would be pre-pandemic?
Stephanie: Mm-hmm.
Mack: Because so few people are actually working downtown every day right now that I think it must make the congestion problem less than it would have been in the past, you know?
Stephanie: Yeah, this is kind of one of those no one goes there, it's too crowded moments because we hear from downtown folks all the time, no one, no one goes (laughs) downtown because the traffic to get downtown is too bad. (laughs)
Mack: (laughs)
Stephanie: Make it make sense. The math is not mathing. No, I, I'm, I'm being a bit facetious but yeah. I'm, I'm like, where are, I thought that no one worked downtown.
Mack: Right.
Stephanie: Where are all these people going, coming from and going if no one works downtown? I don't know.
Mack: Well, you know, it's a good question. Like activities are downtown. Events are downtown.
Stephanie: Yeah.
Mack: I think people come for those things, and more people work downtown than I think we are led to believe, you know?
Stephanie: Yeah.
Mack: Although there is a very real rhythm to the week, right? Monday and Friday, very different than Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday.
Stephanie: For sure.
Mack: But-
Stephanie: Actually, my election story for this week is all about construction. So s- a lot of the people responding to the question said that they had, I loved the term that someone used, construction fatigue.
Mack: Mm-hmm.
Stephanie: Um, yeah, one respondent said that construction is mentally exhausting for residents and fiscally exhausting for local small businesses. They said, quote, "Focus on a few projects at a time and get them done within a timely manner rather than spreading funding thin on dozens of projects that take decades to finish. We do want road improvements. We do want LRT expansion, but not at the current price we have to pay to put up with how slow these changes are happening." And I agree, like-... when I'm driving around because, dear listener, I do drive, even though I'm on the Speaking Municipally podcast. I do drive sometimes. Um, the LRT, or like any construction is just like eyesore, just and kind of like, it just hurts, like I- I think it's just so ... And it's so irritating and annoying to be in. Like I totally get people's, get people's struggles, and I- I get what you're saying about the short-term pain, long-term gain thing. One thing I was thinking about when I was preparing for this episode was, you know how urbanists will share the photos of Amsterdam from like the '50s and say, "Look, there was cars everywhere and- and now Amsterdam is this great bike city. It wasn't always like that and it's proof that we can change." I think, I wonder if in, I don't know, 50 years, we're gonna look at photos of like how backed up Stony Plain Road is, for example, and the future generation will be like, "Look, we used to have such bad traffic on Stony Plain Road and now everyone just takes the train." Do you know what I'm saying? Like I- I- I- my- my optimistic self hopes that in- in future years, we will be able to look back on this period of growth and these big projects and be like, "Things were so bad back then. Traffic was so bad and now we're better." I don't know. What do you think? (laughs)
Mack: Well, I hope that is the case. I'm not confident though.
Stephanie: (laughs)
Mack: Two- two things come to mind for me. I always remember looking at pictures from the '70s of when the construction on our first LRT line was happening and all of downtown was ripped up because it was going underground. It was impassable. I don't think fast-forwarding 40, 50 years that we're in a situation where nobody drives down Jasper Avenue because everyone's taking the train. And to be fair, that was not a very big system back then and, you know, the better connectivity we're gonna have now is hopefully gonna make a difference there. So that's one thing. And the other thing is, I've got these photos on my wall that we had framed. These are historic photos of- of Jasper Avenue downtown when we had trolley buses and it's just full of people and these transit riders and it's just nothing like what it looks like today. So I'm not sure. Sometimes I feel (laughs) like I look back on those historic things with fondness and say, "Are we ever gonna get there?" I'm hopeful that you're right and that the Valley Line is gonna change that. And, you know, like I said, it's different connectivity today and different circumstances today, so there's hope.
Stephanie: Don't depress me, Mack. (laughs)
Mack: (laughs)
Stephanie: Um, I also just want to say one last thing is that Michael Walters posted an Instagram reel with dramatic music of him trying to drive-
Mack: Ooh.
Stephanie: ... from 149th Street to Wellington Bridge to kind of prove a point that it took him like a half an hour to get that, I guess that's only like technically what? Ten- ten blocks and it took him half an hour.
Mack: Yeah.
Stephanie: So if you'd like to watch him dramatically in his car, I would definitely recommend checking out his Instagram. (laughs)
Mack: Well, council didn't really vote on anything or do anything this week related to west end driving.
Stephanie: Yeah.
Mack: Right?
Stephanie: Not- n- not that I know of.
Mack: But they did do some stuff around rezonings and redevelopments. Uh, first one we want to talk about here is Windsor Park. So what happened there?
Stephanie: So there's a proposal on 117th Street and 87th Ave., so this is right beside the University of Alberta, right in Windsor Park, to build a 27-story apartment building. Um, and I'm ... This is on like a lot that currently has a little strip mall, and Westrich Pacific has applied to rezone the two properties to allow for 27 or 25 I'm not 100% sure. It's somewhere in that range, um-
Mack: Yeah.
Stephanie: ... the ... So it's up to 285 units. And something kind of mysterious happened when they tried to bring this up at public hearing on Monday. Council voted to send this back to administration for further consultation because there was a appearance of procedural unfairness. Um, this has obviously been a very contentious rezoning, almost 30 stories in Windsor Park. You're gonna have tons of people coming out to oppose this. Um, about 200 people in the council report alone expressed opposition. Normally for ... Just 'cause I read every public hearing report, normally you get like 10, maybe 20 if it's a lot of opposition. 200 is a lot of people writing in. There were ... They're ... The- the admin was kind of dancing around why they were calling this back for perceptions of procedural unfairness. They wouldn't really elaborate why. I think there's probably potential legal challenges in there. Um, but one thing they did say is that the expectation is that decision-makers are unbiased and they have no consultation with parties outside of the public hearing. So that's no receiving information, no talking about the rezoning. Um, like don't e- if your cons- constituents come down to talk to you at the lunch break, you can't even really talk to them then. And I th- 'cause there's that perception that if, you know, the councilor for the ward is seeing listening very, you know, understandingly, "Oh, yes. Thank you so much for sharing your opinion," during lunch break, someone could say, "Hey, that's unfair." Um, but yeah. I- I don't know. It's- it's- it's very mysterious and I want to learn more about this procedural unfairness piece.
Mack: I mean, that sounds ridiculous, that a councilor's listening to someone and that can be perceived as unfair? That's their job. They're supposed to listen to constituents, are they not?
Stephanie: Mm-hmm. Well, I think it's just within once- when the public hearing is open. So and as we know, public hearings can stretch over days and days, and they were saying even, like y- administration was saying you shouldn't even talk about, you know, is this ... Uh, am I on the speakers list? You should refer them to the city clerk for- for questions, even procedural questions. Um, I kind of get it. Uh, I don't know. I'm a very myopic person. Like I really like rules and especially with this sort of thing, I'm- I'm very like obsessed with procedure. So I kind of get it but I- I understand, I understand your point of view too, Mack.
Mack: Well, I also just think it seems really hard to enforce.
Stephanie: Yeah.
Mack: I mean, you're gonna get people texting and messaging and, you know, c- communicating that way and how are you supposed to enforce that? I mean, it seems pretty challenging.I think, at the end of the day, to me, councilors are there to make a decision that is in the best interest of the city regardless of, you know, what the opposition is or the proponents say, right? They've gotta weigh the pros and cons and, and make an informed decision. Uh, you know, I note here that some people, some residents did say they think the location is suitable for a tower 'cause close to the U of A, as you said, and lots of other amenities. It seems to me like an appropriate place to try to densify and to try to build, you know, more housing units. So, I think this is probably a good project for that reason. D- do we know what any of those 200 folks that were opposed were concerned about? Is it parking? Is it, you know, neighborhood character? Is it something else?
Stephanie: Yeah, it was a lot of the typical things you get for rezoning in a mature neighborhood. So, neighborhood character, parking, sunlight blocking, because like, 25-ish stories, that is going to, like, block a lot of sunlight for many properties. Like, honestly, 25 stories in that location, I'm gonna, I'm gonna have an opinion here. I know, as journalists, you're not supposed to, but I just think... I, I honestly agree. I think it's too tall. And here's the thing, is that if Windsor Park would allow a five-story building anywhere in the neighborhood, we wouldn't have to have to put a 25-story on the side on the, on the outside of the neighborhood. I do think that we need density in Windsor Park writ large. I don't think a 25-story... Because that would put it on the same level as, like, Edmonton Tower, our CN Tower, Sun Life Place, iOne, and... So these are, like, downtown skyscrapers that it's, it's, it's, it's leading to that Toronto-style development with skyscrapers on main roads next to the single family houses. Now, if we only had, in Windsor Park, if we were more accepting of three-story buildings, four-story, five-story, then we wouldn't need to put these huge 300-unit buildings on the outskirts.
Mack: I think there's an element of truth to that. You know, if we had some more of these smaller scale buildings, we don't need the mega towers. But I also understand from lot, ta- lots of us that have talked about this, that the economics of that are pretty challenging.
Stephanie: Yeah.
Mack: Right? And maybe, you know, one of the reasons the proponent is looking for a taller one here is just to try to make the economics work and, and maybe we've got to find ways to incentivize the kinds of development that you're talking about that is a little bit less intense so that it can go forward in places like this and be financially feasible. So, as you said, council asked that this be referred back to administration, so it'll come back to a future public hearing. We don't know when. Um, but that was carried unanimously at public hearing this week.
Stephanie: Yeah, very mysterious. Yeah.
Mack: We'll be hearing more about this.
Stephanie: Mm-hmm. There were other rezoning applications at the public hearing, of course. And there were accusations that council was being inconsistent with their, you know, approach to approving rezoning applications. So, there were a couple in Calder, which is on the north side, that were rezoning from RS, that's a small-scale residential zone. You can build about two stories, maybe three depending on how you orient things, and approximately eight units, depending on, like, the size of the lot. Uh, generally though, two-and-a-half to three stories, eight units, right? That's RS. They want to upzone to the RSM H12, which gives you a little bit more room larger site coverage. And in Calder they just kind of approved them. Wasn't too much of a debate, you know, pretty standard public hearing. Then there was a public hearing for a rezoning application in Avonmore, on the same street as the school and a short walk away from the Avonmore LRT stop. Same rezoning going from RS to RSM H12. You'd think it's r- right by an LRT stop, it's right by a school, is this not a great place to put more density according to the city plan and what the zoning bylaw was, like, meant to do? And it only barely squeaked by. The first two readings of the bylaw were seven-six, and then on the last reading, Aaron Poquette switched to voting to approve it.
Mack: Mm-hmm.
Stephanie: But anyways those who voted against this upzoning were Car- uh, Tim Cartmel, Amarjeet Sohi, Ashley Salvador, Jennifer Rice, and Karen Principe. Ashley Salvador, the ward councilor, said that the RS zone is sufficient, that eight units is fine in this place. So, first of all, what are your thoughts on this Avonmore rezoning?
Mack: Well, that's really interesting that, you know, you've got Sohi and Salvador voting in tandem with Cartmel, Rice, and Principe there.
Stephanie: Mm-hmm.
Mack: This is, you know, what we often talk about, that those votes at council, you can never quite guess-
Stephanie: Exactly.
Mack: ... who's gonna end up on which side, right?
Stephanie: Yeah.
Mack: Um, I, I agree with you, what you were saying. Like, it's a short walk from an LRT stop. It seems like it's in an area that, you know, we should be building more density. And if I'm hearing you correctly, they had literally just approved the same kind of rezoning, so.
Stephanie: Well, i- in Calder, the, it wasn't... Now, we'll get, well, now maybe I'll transition into this. In Calder, it was nowhere near transit, the- these bigger buildings. It was along, like, the bigger roads, so that you know, encourages council to vote for it. But so, Councilor Erin Rutherford, who I believe Calder is in her ward, was saying, "What the heck, you guys? We just... I can't believe that people are considering not voting for this, because it's, like, such a good location for more density, et cetera." Whereas in Calder, we barely even had a conversation about it.
Mack: Yeah.
Stephanie: And she kind of made, I don't know, the accusation or made the observation that, to paraphrase, "We're only saying no to this rezoning application because community members have the capacity to show up and complain." Because for Avonmore, there was, like, a handful of people that came. Like, one of the people said, "Well, I don't take LRTs, so I don't think that we should put more density, because I don't think many people are gonna take LRT." Erin Rutherford said that if this sort of thing continues, that all of the communities that don't have the capacity to come and show up at council meetings, those are the areas that are gonna get all of the housing developments that nobody wants, because they don't have the capacity to show up and express opposition at public hearings.
Mack: We've talked about that on the show before-
Stephanie: Mm-hmm.
Mack: ... right? That there's a definite advantage to having face time in council chambers or, you know, virtually or whatever so folks who have the capacity to show up.... you know, those opinions are weighted more heavily.
Stephanie: Mm-hmm.
Mack: It's a little bit of that recency bias maybe or- or something else that, you know, councilors fall prey to. I w- just taking a step back here.
Stephanie: Mm-hmm.
Mack: You know, this passed, right?
Stephanie: Yes.
Mack: There were 33 bylaws at public hearing.
Stephanie: There was a lot, yes.
Mack: Only one was defeated.
Stephanie: Hmm.
Mack: So, I mean, there were some close votes, there were some contentious discussions, but they got a lot moved forward, it's l- it looks like, which is interesting to me for the end of the term.
Stephanie: Yeah. Also, that one that didn't pass is a whole other story that dear listener, I'm working on. Um, uh-
Mack: This is the McKernan one, right?
Stephanie: Yes.
Mack: It failed first reading actually.
Stephanie: Yeah.
Mack: So nobody wanted to grant first reading.
Stephanie: So keep tuned. There's a- there's something... Actually, maybe I shouldn't say anything, 'cause I don't want anyone to start looking into it before-
Mack: Nope.
Stephanie: ... I have the chance to. (laughs)
Mack: D- don't scoop yourself.
Stephanie: Okay.
Mack: It's okay. Yeah, we'll get to it. (laughs)
Stephanie: Yeah. (laughs)
Mack: All right. Well, they approved all of those things at public hearing and then we had our final council meeting of the term, and they did a whole bunch of business there too, but there was also a surprising number of motions pending, 13 of them. So this is very much a, "I gotta get my thing in before the end of the term."
Stephanie: (laughs)
Mack: Or maybe less charitably, "You guys didn't do a great job agenda managing this term and so you're left with a whole bunch of stuff at the end." Seven of those 13, they were from Stevenson, Paquet, Rutherford, Janz, Knack, and Cartmel. Seven of those 13 were carried, three were defeated, three ultimately were not put on the floor. So I thought that was kind of interesting. Most of those are to get information and reports back. And then they made a few other motions alongside the other business at city council, and I just wanted to highlight a few of those. So 13-0, they voted to prepare an unfunded service package, which is a really easy thing to vote for. You're not actually doing anything except getting more information for the Whitemud Drive and 215th Street project that is being delivered by Enoch Cree Nation, and the idea here is that Edmonton would fund one third of the upgrades to that project. So, that's something that council can consider when it gets to the fall budget adjustment. Uh, another motion carried 12-1 which only Councilor Cartmel opposed, which is to get a report on how Edmonton can act as a pilot city for this approach to sort of combining housing, mental health supports, addiction services, and to bring a resolution to FCM, the Federation of Canadian Municipalities, to form the strategy to try to do this coordinated approach in Canada. So, a little bit of a parting, "Let's try to work together with other folks across Canada to do something about housing." And then the last one I wanted to talk about carried 11-2 with just Councilors Cartmel and Principe opposed, and this one was about sending a letter to Minister Nixon requesting collaboration to decrease occupancy size of the Bruce Reith Center and Herb Jamieson Center, quote, "Without decreasing Edmonton's overall emergency shelter capacity." So when I first saw that, and I saw some reporting about this, I thought that was pretty interesting because in- in Ward 8, I'm in here in the center and it was Councilor Stevenson who made this motion. Her, one of her challengers is Steve- Steven Hammerschmidt, who's part of the Better Edmonton Party, and if you look at his platform website, he talks about encouraging the shelters in downtown to relocate to smaller, more manageable facilities. So a letter to the minister saying, "Help us work with these guys to move to smaller, more manageable facilities," seems like a thing that the leader of his party, Councilor Cartmel, would be in favor of and his fellow party member, Councilor Principe. Turns out that Councilor Cartmel's o- opposition here was mostly about a lack of action, which I kind of understand. You know? His- his point of view is like, "Why do we have to send another letter? Let's just go and have the conversation." And, you know, those who voted in favor of this said, "Well, there's some transparency there when we have some policy and some public letter," just, like, to your point about following procedure. It- it creates a bit of accountability if we do it that way. So, you know, I'm sure we're gonna see more about that, and- and I think it'll be one of the things that comes up a little bit in this election, at least for the Central Ward. The province, by the way, doesn't seem keen on this kind of idea. It's a little bit like the teacher thing that's going on, right? It's like, "We wanna pay teachers more and we want more teachers," and the province is like, "You can't have both."
Stephanie: (laughs)
Mack: And- and with the shelters, we're kind of saying, "We wanna make sure the shelters are more manageable and not so big, like, follow best practice that we've now established, but also make sure we don't lose any shelter spaces." And the sense from the province is, "Well, you're not gonna get both," right?
Stephanie: Hmm.
Mack: There was one other thing that happened in council that you were paying attention to though. Uh, our favorite topic. Well, sometimes.
Stephanie: (laughs) Bike lanes. Yeah, one of the-
Mack: Listeners were trying to guess here. They're like-
Stephanie: Oh.
Mack: ... "Is it snow and ice?"
Stephanie: Yeah.
Mack: "Is it-"
Stephanie: Police? Is it-
Mack: "... infill? Is it bike lane?" It's bike lanes.
Stephanie: It's bike lanes. Yeah, one of the many motions that was... Or I guess notice of motions, attempted motions. I don't really know what the correct term is. One of the many ones was that Cartmel was trying to put a stop to those bike lanes, those pesky bike lanes. So this was Wednesday morning. It was actually, like, a couple hours of discussion and it was just kind of a procedural mess, and I was trying to listen to it to see if there was anything that I could kind of distill to bring to the podcast today, and just it was a lot of, like, going around in circles and trying to get a motion that would work that could actually pass. But Tim Cartmel did not seem to want to collaborate on creating a motion that could actually pass. So, here's what he said. The motion that all current construction work cease immediately on bike lane projects where a bike lane is intended to be construction- constructed on an existing road where construction has not yet started, pending a complete review of all individual bike lane projects at the next infrastructure committee meeting in February 26th.
Mack: So he's saying if we're planning to build a bike lane somewhere, but we haven't yet put shovels in the ground...... don't put shovels in the ground until we have a chance to review it.
Stephanie: I mean, that was, that's, you're trying to make it simple and people, they, they weren't able to answer whether that is actually what was going to happen. There was a lot of questions around when does construction start? When does construction season end, because technically we are still in construction season. Does construction start when you're painting lines on the ground? Does it start when you've made, made the contract with the cont- contractors? Does design-
Mack: Sure.
Stephanie: And it was just super confusing and vague. There was a few things that I was surprised that no one really brought up. One, one thing, it's, the motion says, "Stop all construction work on projects where construction has not yet started." Let's-
Mack: (laughs) Right.
Stephanie: An engineer introduced this and there's this question of whether construction has started or not. Like, okay.
Mack: Yeah. Like you, you know, charitably, like you were saying-
Stephanie: (laughs)
Mack: ... current construction work I guess could mean you're engaging, you're writing the contract. It's pretty unclear how construction work not yet started, and then also to use the same term construction work. Like you got to differentiate those somehow.
Stephanie: I was like genuinely so confused. And then the other thing, this came up at the very end of the discussion, but it was, it was clear the whole time that he was just talking about a handful of bike lanes, like the ones in Deltan and kind of the 132nd Ave ones maybe. It was super clear that he was just talking about a collection of bike lanes, and I'm surprised no one said, "Hey, just, just say you want us to not do these bike lanes and then we'll vote on it." But the way that it was worded and was, was so confusing because another thing that Aaron Paquette brought up was, "You know, there are bike lanes going into my neighborhood nec- or my ward next year that people are super excited for. I don't want work to start on those just because people in Deltan, for example, don't want the bike lanes." To the surprise of absolutely no one, this did not pass.
Mack: And w- we did get attempts, like you said to try to reword this.
Stephanie: Yeah.
Mack: So Councilor Wright tried, Councilor Knack tried. And you said Councilor Cartmel was just not having it.
Stephanie: No. Yeah. He, 'cause, you know, there's like this term, there's like friendly amendments where someone can kind of help you massage a motion to make it a little bit better. And both times Tim Cartmel was like, "That is not friendly in the slightest." So, okay.
Mack: (laughs) All right. Well, sorry for trying to get your motion moved forward here.
Stephanie: Yeah.
Mack: Uh, what else did you hear in this conversation that caught your ear?
Stephanie: You know, a couple of interesting things. Um, Karen Tang had an interesting i- kind of line of questioning to both administration and to the mover, Tim Cartmel. Out of the 1,100 kilometers of shar- of active transportation infrastructure, so that would entail sharrows, separated bike lanes, and multi-use path. So there's 1,100 kilometers, about 44 kilometers of that currently is separated bike lanes. And then next year, for 2026, we're gonna build about 30 kilometers and they're not sure yet if it's going to be separated or sharrows. Those are kind of the two options. Um, and then another thing in Amarjeet Sohi's closing remarks was that less than 1% of roads in Edmonton have a bike lane on it, essentially. So this is a very, very, very small issue that they spent like two hours debating.
Mack: I mean, they spent two hours on it, but I guess, you know, election coming up.
Stephanie: Yeah.
Mack: And maybe they think bike lanes are going to be a thing.
Stephanie: Yeah.
Mack: The theme of this podcast is one more thing. You got one more thing on this.
Stephanie: (laughs) This might be my f- one of my favorite things that I've ever heard in a council meeting, or it's up there in the top five, is apparently there's bike infrastructure going in on Candy Cane Lane. So they had to have a bit of a small discussion on whether or not horse-drawn sleighs can make it around bike lanes. And a quote was, from administration, quote, "We don't typically design for sleigh traffic," which I just thought-
Mack: (laughs)
Stephanie: ... I love this city. You could never make me hate Edmonton. (laughs)
Mack: Uh, that's amazing. I mean, the, the sleigh rides, the horse-drawn carriage rides, they don't go down the bike lane, they go on the road.
Stephanie: Yeah. But I think with like curb extensions, they have to make sure that like they're wide enough for a sleigh to get through.
Mack: (laughs)
Stephanie: I don't know. I'm not a traffic engineer. Um, and, and Candy Cane Lane is very important. I will, I will say I love Candy Cane Lane.
Mack: Oh, there's a pitch for anyone who's thinking about running for council. Look at the fun things you get to talk about-
Stephanie: (laughs)
Mack: ... at the city council table.
Stephanie: Yeah.
Mack: Well, council will wrap up on Friday as you're listening to this episode.
Stephanie: Mm-hmm.
Mack: One last meeting, essentially to rubber stamp the funding bylaws for the public event park and the site servicing at Village @ ICE District, right? That's the last thing of the term.
Stephanie: Yep. And also, Amarjeet Sohi did mention in one of the meetings this week that there will be a moment for everyone to share their reflections on the last four years. And I hope that they play some sad, dramatic music and everyone sheds a tear and then throws their hats up in the air and cheers.
Mack: I imagine it won't be quite so congratulatory. But I look forward to listening to that.
Stephanie: Yeah.
Mack: All right, we have a couple of quick election things to get to. Uh, but just before we do that, this episode is also brought to you by Life Sciences Week, which unites academics, entrepreneurs, industry leaders, and policymakers for a week of engaging discussions and exclusive tours of Alberta's cutting edge facilities. The festivities kick off on Monday, September 22nd here in Edmonton, and there's events all week long in both Edmonton and Calgary. For example, on Wednesday, September 24th, I'm doing a fireside chat with Kenn Battista where we're going to talk about the brains, builders, and boosters that are powering Edmonton's life sciences sector. Lots of other fun stuff happening. You can check out all the events and learn more about it at lifesciencesweek.ca. All right, Stephanie, we have a lot of election stuff to get to in the, the next few weeks, but we did have one thing we thought we'd talk about today. Uh, this is a new policy release from Rahim Jaffer who's candidate for mayor. I have seen a lot of policy emails come in. People have really ramped up, candidates have really ramped up what they're announcing. Uh, what caught your eye about this one?
Stephanie: Yeah. So Rahim Jaffer has proposed...... a fare-free zone for transit. Uh, this is something that if you've been down to Calgary, you know that essentially downtown you can kind of ride the train for free. It's pretty awesome. And there's no, there's no headaches about bringing out your card and all that. It's nice if you're... Like, when I was in Calgary for the Canadian Association of Journalists Conference in May I was very lazy and regularly rode the train for, like, two stops because I didn't want to walk, like, five blocks. It was awesome.
Mack: We used to have this in Edmonton downtown too, right? And I think s- some people remember that fondly, which is why maybe these proposals are coming back up again.
Stephanie: Yeah. So he proposes... There's a, there's a few things that once you start looking into it, it made me question it a little bit. Okay, first thing is that he proposes making it free between South Campus and Coliseum.
Mack: He talks about within a designated central zone, but then it says, "No more hassle. Just board and ride between South Campus and Coliseum."
Stephanie: Yeah. So-
Mack: That's a pretty big range.
Stephanie: It is. There's only two... On either side of the capital line, there's only two other stations. So there's Century Park and Southgate that you would be able to, that you'd have to pay. And then on the other side there's Belvidere and Clareview. So that's two, four stations that wouldn't be free. So that's the first thing. Also, I think that he also wants to make buses free, so then I think that's the MacEwan University and McNamee College. I don't know exactly where McNamee College is. And then the other thing is that he has, he says, "Hassle free. Just board and ride downtown." However, to ensure transit feels safe enough to ride again, Jaffer has committed to installing turnstile gates at LRT stations to ensure people boarding have valid tickets. So which is it? Would you like to have free transit or would you like to have turnstiles? I... Unless there's some sort of... Unless you still have to scan your ARC card, I, I don't understand what, what, what he's getting at here. What do you think, Mack?
Mack: I feel like he wrote these policies at different times-
Stephanie: (laughs)
Mack: ... and didn't take the care to coordinate them and make sure that they make sense together, because it is not sensible to have turnstiles and also just make transit free-
Stephanie: Yeah.
Mack: ... in those areas. (laughs)
Stephanie: Well, even if, even... You know, if you think about it for one second, you go, "Okay. Oh, yeah, scan your ARC card," but it doesn't take any money off of it. Sure. But then the whole reason that people have been championing turnstiles is that, so frankly, so that homeless people can't get into the-
Mack: Right.
Stephanie: ... the LRT station. And obviously, all that person would have to do is get a ARC card and scan to get in. And, and I'll say another thing, is that turnstiles famously have never been hopped over and no one has ever gone through a turnstile without paying for it. I will also add that.
Mack: One thing about Jaffer's plan that I did want to compliment him on is this free transit fare within a designated central zone. He put it in there as a one-year pilot.
Stephanie: (laughs) Classic. Yeah.
Mack: The man knows what's gonna get done in Edmonton.
Stephanie: (laughs) Yeah, totally.
Mack: Right? We, we don't do anything unless we call it a pilot, so-
Stephanie: Yeah.
Mack: ... someone's paying attention. (laughs)
Stephanie: Yeah, that's like when you, like uh, edit your resume to make it exactly match the job description. He's like, "I know what they like. They like one-year pilots. I'm perfect for this job."
Mack: Absolutely.
Stephanie: (laughs)
Mack: (laughs) All right. Well, enough about Jaffer for this week. We are going to be talking a lot about election, as I said. We sent out the candidate survey this month. We've been collecting responses. That's going really well. I've been in touch with a lot of the candidates this week actually. Nomination day is Monday, September 22nd. That's the last chance for anyone who wants to throw their hat in the ring. No. Is that the expression?
Stephanie: Yeah.
Mack: Yeah, throw their hat in the ring, to run for council, and you get 24 hours and you can-
Stephanie: Change your mind.
Mack: ... say, "Nope, I don't, don't wanna do that actually." But I, I feel like council's, or the the campaign is mostly set. We know who's running for-
Stephanie: Yeah.
Mack: ... all these different wards. We're up to 13 candidates for mayor now, which is interesting.
Stephanie: Geez. Lucky.
Mack: Um, so we'll talk more about that and we'll be able to go through the responses to the Taproot Edmonton survey and start to make sense of where the candidates land on that. And we'll be doing that on this podcast, we'll be doing that in our journalism, and we'll be doing that in person at lots of different events that are coming up. So let's plug a few more things-
Stephanie: Yeah.
Mack: ... uh, that are coming up.
Stephanie: This is all happening next week. So on September 24th at the Alberta Avenue Community Hall, I will be hosting a forum for the Ward Metis candidates and for the mayoral candidates. Um, so that's on September 24th. On the next day, the 25th, I'm going to be quiz master, co-quiz master for a municipal election trivia night at the Canadian Brewhouse on 97th Street with Edmonton City As Museum Project and Chris Chang-Yuen Phillips, a friend of the show. And then on the next day, the 26th, I'm going to be co-hosting a different mayoral forum at MacEwan in their, like, SAMU building, the Students Association building. Now, this is for both students and downtown residents. We'll touch on both kind of realms. So if you fall into either of those categories it's interesting. All of, um... The debates are free. The municipal election trivia night, it costs $5 to enter. And at the trivia night you can run s- win some cool prizes. So definitely check it out. You guys will love it.
Mack: We have lots of other election events in our calendar. Just head over to taproot.vote and click on Events, and you can see all of those. I'm gonna be at the Real Estate Association of Edmonton's f- I mean, it's not really a forum. I guess it's more like a candidate meet and greet next week. So if you're a candidate listening, love to talk to you when I'm there. I'm also doing CBC twice next week.
Stephanie: Hmm.
Mack: I've been doing a regular segment, Edmonton AM 7:30 AM on Wednesdays, and you can hear me talk about the election there, and then also Alberta at noon on Monday, September 22nd, on nomination day.
Stephanie: Hmm.
Mack: Uh, pan-Alberta panel to talk about the race and parties and, you know, nominations and stuff like that. So lots more opportunities to hear from us, and then of course, as you know, coming up on October 9th, Taproot Edmonton has collaborated with the Edmonton Public Library for its mayoral forum. Um, we've had a couple of those already, mayoral forums. There's more to come so look forward to that. And you can find the links to all these events and much more in the show notes.
Stephanie: Indeed.
Mack: Well, that's it for this week, except for the rapid fire.
Stephanie: City council approved the Fan Park deal on Friday which will see the Oilers Entertainment Group receive millions of dollars to construct the infrastructure for a 2,500-unit housing project. OEG leapt into action, using the funds responsibly to deliver on its promises and the housing units were built in the agreed-upon timeline. That's it. That's the joke.
Mack: University of Alberta physicists were in awe after mayoral candidate Raheem Jaffer introduced a new policy promise this week. Jaffer proposes both free transit and turnstiles at LRT stations. The researchers have called it Schrodinger's Transit Service.
Stephanie: And now a limerick. For years, council robes they've been wearin'. Decisions on zoning, they're share-in. Today's the last day that we can all say. We've four councilors named Karen or Erin.
Mack: Well done, Stephanie on writing that limerick.
Stephanie: (laughs) Thank you.
Mack: All right. Well, that's it for this week. We'll be back next week. We'll be talking about election, what happened on nomination day, maybe some other municipal stuff that's goin' on. It's not just city council, but I'm sure it'll be a lot of election stuff, so look forward to that.
Stephanie: Yes.
Mack: Until then, I'm Mack.
Stephanie: I'm Stephanie.
Mack: And we're...
Both: Speaking Municipally.