Speaking Municipally

Mack:
This is the most dangerous podcast in Edmonton. This week, yep, we're still talking about snow clearing, or the lack thereof, though mother nature is helping.

Stephanie:
Plus, we look at an investigation into crime on Edmonton's transit system and more proposed changes to the zoning bylaw.

Mack:
Hi, I'm Mack.

Stephanie:
I'm Stephanie.

Mack:
And we're…

Both:
Speaking Municipally.

Mack:
Welcome back to Speaking Municipally, episode 339. Some of you might be seeing us right now. This is the very first video edition of the podcast.

Stephanie:
Yay.

Mack:
Stephanie, you're looking quite dapper.

Stephanie:
This is what I wear every time we Record the podcast. I don't know what you're talking about. I take this podcast extremely seriously. No, I had to like move around my computer a little bit because otherwise the listeners would be able to see my entire apartment, and I didn't That's a, that's a boundary that I'm holding. But you do get to see my Garfield collection, and I don't know if you can see my December calendar is still up, so…

Mack:
I love it.

Stephanie:
It's a little, just a little peak into my life.

Mack:
Yeah, some pictures and things on the wall. That looks great. I'm in the coworking space. I've just got the sound Thing behind me. It's kind of boring, but we've been recording on video forever essentially. We just have never edited and posted the video versions of the podcast, and sometimes that's, it's really challenging to do just with the way that we put the show together. But it's something we'd like to do for 2026. We had kind of hinted at this last year. There's a lot of people that really only consume podcasts on YouTube and, we want to be there. We want to be present for those folks as well. So, it'll still be great to listen to just in your ears. You don't have to watch it, but if that is your jam, if watching podcasts or leaving YouTube open is your thing, hopefully you can include Speaking Municipally in that rotation.

Stephanie:
Exactly. What's the saying? Video killed the podcast star? Is that what…

Mack:
Something like that, yeah.

Stephanie:
Something like that.

Mack:
Stephanie, you are getting excited. What's happening next week?

Stephanie:
I'm having withdrawals. There's been no council meetings for like three weeks, but next week, we're back to council and I'm very excited for that.

Mack:
Council maybe has been back at work, right? Councillors have been doing stuff, but…

Stephanie:
Yes.

Mack:
Meetings resume next week and that's…

Stephanie:
Yes.

Mack:
A whole different animal essentially.

Stephanie:
Yeah, and they actually were, they were meeting this week, but for just for private strategic planning sessions, and I'm assuming that, has to do with some of what, Mayor Knack told us before the break about how he wants to have that like public-facing strategic plan for the next four years. I'm assuming that's what they were doing. Of course it's a private so we won't know for sure, but, yeah, I'm really excited to be back watching and listening to the dulcet tones of, you know, city council and chitchatting about what's going on in our city.

Mack:
We'll have to see if they do a better job in 2026 at keeping on task and sticking to the schedule and getting through those really long agendas.

Stephanie:
I don't know if that's gonna happen.

Mack:
Fingers crossed.

Stephanie:
Fingers crossed, of course.

Mack:
Well, we got a lot to get to in this episode, so let's do that. But before we jump into the news, we have an ad for you.

Stephanie:
This episode is brought to you by the office of Councillor Michael Janz who is holding a series of events called City Hall Talks. The first one features Dennis Egger, executive director of MVMT, Metro Vancouver Transit Riders. Egger's coming to Edmonton on Monday, January 19th at 6:00 PM for an ask me anything session on building better public transit. "When riders have a shared vision and a shared voice, they can empower leaders to make transit fast, reliable, and abundant," says Councillor Janz. That's what he's looking to accomplish with this January 19th event. So again, you're invited to an AMA with Dennis Egger of MVMT to learn some transit lessons from Vancouver that could be applied to Edmonton. Register at michaeljanz.ca/movementama. That's michaeljanz.ca/movementama.

Mack:
Thank you very much, Stephanie, and thank you to the office of Councillor Michael Janz for supporting the show and spreading the good word about these really interesting events that you're bringing to the city. We appreciate that. Okay, well, the first thing to talk about, I was really surprised by this. I was looking at Reddit and I saw this post about the most dangerous transit system in Canada, and I thought, "Wow, that's a lot of hyperbole." But of course one of the rules of the Edmonton subreddit is that you're not supposed to change headlines. That was actually the CBC national headline. So, Stephanie, what happened this week around transit in Edmonton?

Stephanie:
Yes. Our national broadcaster, CBC, published a story in collaboration with the Investigative Journalism Foundation examining rising violence on transit systems across the country, and they found that a small number of repeat offenders are responsible for a disproportionate number of violent crimes. And that's especially seen in Edmonton where about half the crimes are committed by around a quarter of like the, suspects. So, they call them frequent flyers, and CBC did a little ride along with police in the Edmonton transit system down in the LRT, and within the first 20 minutes, I guess they arrested three people and two of them were banned from transit. So, not great. Public transportation consultant David Cooper told CBC, "A lot of times it's the same people really impacting detrimentally, the same cohort of people in a transit space." And he said, "What was very eyeopening to me going out with police in several cities and going out with frontline staff is that the police know who they are." so yeah. What are your thoughts on that, Mack?

Mack:
Well, I'm a bit surprised that anyone would find this surprising or eyeopening. I mean, this is what we hear from police all the time. Not just about crime in transit, but crime in general. It is a small number of people. They are generally known to police. They end up interacting with the same people again and again. This is why the police agencies across the country continually are harping about bail reform and other things like that, because they see repeat offenders. So, mm, it doesn't seem super surprising to me that transit would be similar. There would be a lot of people who use transit who are, repeat offenders. The other thing that's perhaps not surprising to me is that Edmonton would have some of this you know, violence or, disorder on transit. We have among the most active transit systems in the country. Edmonton Transit got back to pre-pandemic levels much faster than lots of other jurisdictions in North America. You're gonna have a lot of people using it. You're gonna see more of that. Now, I'm not trying to downplay the experience that people have on transit because certainly there are issues that we need to do something about, but the framing of this as kind of surprising is surprising to me I would say.

Stephanie:
Yeah, another fun thing that I thought was interesting is in this consultant, David Cooper's quote, he says, "It's the same people impacting the same cohort of people." And what I take from that is that it's the same kinda suspects targeting the same victims, which tend to be kind of other vulnerable folks.

Mack:
Right.

Stephanie:
So I, like, in, now this is kinda moving into more of my anecdotal experience, but, a vulnerable person is more likely to be a victim of crime than just, like, your average person riding the train into work at 9:00 AM on a Tuesday. And obviously that's bad…

Mack:
Yeah.

Stephanie:
For the vulnerable people, but I think that a lot of times people will see this, like, "Edmonton Transit is the most dangerous system in Canada," but not for just the average person. There's lots of assaults happening, but it's among a group of people. And I'm not saying that means we shouldn't care, but I'm saying most of the time the average person is much less likely to be impacted by that violence when you look at, you know, it's the same people impacting the same cohort, these other vulnerable people.

Mack:
Yeah, okay. Well, we've heard a lot in recent years about what the city is trying to do to try to improve the situation, make transit both actually safer and the perception of it safer. So what did the city say in response to this news?

Stephanie:
Well, you know, they made an announcement this week that actually was not necessarily and exactly, in response to this CBC story, this investigation, but they are adding 30 more transit peace officers, or TPOs, to the team. So it'll bring the total number of TPOs patrolling buses, LRT, and transit stations to 126. Now, transit peace officers, they definitely look like cops, they, but they do not have the same authority. They don't carry the same weapons, but they do have some authority. So they have the authority to enforce municipal bylaws and provincial legislation and they can intervene in certain criminal incidents. They can write tickets, issue fines, and arrest or detain people, and I'm like, okay, that certain criminal incidents thing, I am very curious about that. What does that mean? So I watched some of the press conference and the chief bylaw enforcement officer, David Jones, said, quote, "When there are crimes in progress without violence or weapons," that's when TPOs can detain or arrest people, and then they call EPS to take it over. So crimes without violence or weapons. I don't know, like…

Mack:
Exactly what that is? Yeah.

Stephanie:
Like, pick-pocketing? I don't know.

Mack:
Or just, I guess, general intimidation or shoving.

Stephanie:
Yeah.

Mack:
Those kinds of things. I don't know…

Stephanie:
Yeah.

Mack:
If that counts as violence, but you know, I think the biggest advantage of having those TPOs, those peace officers around is that they're visible, right?

Stephanie:
Exactly.

Mack:
And they, are a bit of a deterrent more so than someone who can intervene, and I guess the other advantage of having them there is if a crime then does start to happen, there's somebody who is connected and can call right away and make sure the police or the appropriate folks come to help. What about the transit peace officers themselves? How do they stay safe when they're out and about patrolling transit?

Stephanie:
Well, one thing I noticed in one of the stories I thought was interesting is that once this whole complement is, you know, put into place at the, in the middle of 2026, they're gonna move from two-person teams to four-person teams. And obviously that just increases the, visual presence of law enforcement even more and, maybe by, it makes them more safe as a group. I also think though that do you remember when, like, the Alberta sheriffs were deployed into the LRT stations and then you would see these pictures of, like, 20 Alberta…

Mack:
Yeah.

Stephanie:
Sheriffs walking around in a group together? I, that just, that's just what that made me think of because, I don't know, two police officers or two people that look like police officers walking around is intimidating enough for, like, a vulnerable person in the LRT system. Four is going to also be,…

Mack:
Quite intimidating.

Stephanie:
Pretty intimidating.

Mack:
Yeah. I agree.

Stephanie:
Right?

Mack:
I mean, I, this is anecdotal, but when I see police officers downtown, I very rarely see two or fewer at a time. Like, they're almost always in groups of four or six. I've seen them walk through the LRT station or, you know, hop into a coffee shop or something like that, but they tend to be in larger groups, which I find kind of surprising. So, maybe there's some, research behind the idea that there's, well, we know there's safety in numbers, but maybe there's some other benefits to having a larger group.

Stephanie:
Like we said, the full complement is expected to be in place in the middle of 2026 and, yeah, I guess expect to be seeing a little a quartet of TPOs coming your way in the transit system.

Mack:
And I'm sure this isn't the last we'll hear about transit…

Stephanie:
Yeah.

Mack:
Safety and security. It'll be a thing that council comes back to, I imagine, throughout the year.

Stephanie:
Yeah.

Mack:
Hopefully with less hyperbolic headlines though. So another thing that city council's gonna talk about, I imagine, quite a bit this year and it's coming up in the near future here, changes to zoning. There was a lot of discussion during the election about this, and it seems like it's gonna make its way back to council's agenda.

Stephanie:
Yes, indeed. So right now administration is collecting feedback until January 29th on some more proposed amendments to the zoning bylaw. And Joe Lesmar, you might be having some deja vu right now 'cause it feels like every two months it's, like, more amendments to the overall zoning bylaw. Now, of course, every time there's, like, an individual lot rezoning, technically that is also rezoning the zoning bylaw or amending the zoning bylaw, but this is to the overall thing to change the zones themselves. So I'm gonna go through the changes right now.

Mack:
Yeah.

Stephanie:
But in, they're essentially to limit the size, limit infill, limit units, et cetera. Okay, so they've proposed changes to the Small-Scale Residential zone, also known as the RS zone, which is generally what is used across most neighborhoods within the Anthony Henday. They've also proposed changes to the Small-Medium Scale Residential zone, AKA, the RSM zone, which, as you can infer from the name, is used next to the RS zone to kind of transition to larger developments that are typically along like a large road. So on a large road, you'd have like maybe six to 10 stories. Next one over, you have the RSM, which is usually about four to six stories, and then RS can be up to three stories for the rest of the block, right? So that's the idea. Okay, so amendments to the RS zone. Edmin has suggested once more to reduce the mid-block unit maximum in the RS zone from eight to six. Again…

Mack:
Didn't we already try to do that and discuss this?

Stephanie:
Yes, multiple times. So this was, if you remember back in, the end of June, beginning of July, right before, like, when council was about to go on summer break, and there were some…

Mack:
Yeah.

Stephanie:
Intense words said about going into summer break. And then, council ended up doing a vote on whether we should reduce from eight to six, and then the vote was a tie, and if certain city councillors at the time were there, it would've passed. But anyways, they wanted to bring it back with like a little bit more engagement, and that's what's happening right now, is the engagement part. But there's also more changes to the RS zone. So on top of that, administration is proposing to increase the minimum lot area required per unit. Stay with me. So for interior mid-block lots, that would rise from 75 square meters per dwelling up to 90, and for corner lots, it would rise from 75 to 80. So in plain language, even if the headline cap becomes six, the new lot size per unit rules could mean that fewer than six homes, on some properties are allowed depending on the size of the lot.

Mack:
So this is really about trying to scale these back, and it sounds like we're looking at two maybe complementary levers to do that. There's the…

Stephanie:
Exactly.

Mack:
The number, the overall number, but then there's also the size of each one. And given how big the lot is, you just might not be able to fit as many on there as you might have been able to in the past.

Stephanie:
So not every mid-block property can even have eight units right now because of that minimum lot size per unit rule. Yeah.

Mack:
Got it. Okay. And there's other changes as well potentially for the RS zone?

Stephanie:
Mm-hmm. Yeah. So in this report asking for these changes, council had also asked edmin to look into reducing the maximum height in the zone, and they suggest against that. And they also, I, and this is gonna be sad for you, Mack, but they, asked about a private tree protection bylaw, and administration has recommended against that because they are focusing on enforcing landscaping standards, which is like a whole other complicated subject that we don't have to get into.

Mack:
Yeah, that's disappointing to hear. I mean, I'm sure it won't be the last we hear about private tree bylaws and the desire to do something there. But unfortunate that administration took yet another opportunity to recommend against that. Okay, so that's the RS zone. Before we talk about kind of what this means and everything, how about the RSM zone?

Stephanie:
Right. So the second suite of changes are to the district policy in the RSM zone. So there are proposed changes aimed at bigger infill projects, especially four-storey buildings outside of nodes and corridors, which are the areas that the city plans for the most growth, like along major roads and near higher frequency transit. Administration is proposing updates to district planning policy, so rezonings for up to four stories. Outsides outside nodes and corridors would be mainly supported only in specific situations, so only near mass transit and on those arterial roads. Plus the city would shift away from a strict checklist that they use towards a more flexible set of factors that they use when evaluating rezoning. So instead of applicants coming and saying, "Hey, I reached these three, these three criteria. You better give me my rezoning."

Mack:
Yeah.

Stephanie:
It won't. It'll be more like, "Well, we'll consider it, but no guarantees." And then…

Mack:
So like a little more discretion in the approvals process.

Stephanie:
Yeah, exactly. And then they're proposing to limit where it's used, the zone is used. The idea is to focus that zone mostly in those nodes and corridors on large undeveloped sites or where a statutory plan supports it.

Mack:
So would this mean rezoning other areas that are currently RSM to something else if they wanna limit the use of this, or would they do this maybe more on a go-forward basis?

Stephanie:
Yeah, I think it's more on a go-forward basis. So at this, if this gets approved, let's say you're not in a node and corridor, you're not on a large undeveloped site, you're not near transit, you're not on an arterial road, but you still wanna upzone to RSM, it's very unlikely that administration will support the rezoning.

Mack:
Right. Council could…

Stephanie:
Okay.

Mack:
Of course still approve the rezoning…

Stephanie:
Yeah.

Mack:
But administration would recommend that they not.

Stephanie:
Yes, exactly.

Mack:
Okay. Well, that's a pretty good overview of the zoning changes. Thank you for breaking that down for us, Stephanie.

Stephanie:
Of course.

Mack:
When I saw that we were gonna be talking about zoning, and I, obviously kind of understood that it was coming back to council, I just can't help but feel like we just had a big opportunity to provide input on this, namely the election. And surprise, we reelected almost all of the councillors who were on the term last term, who were on council last term. And it doesn't feel like the anger that we heard about infill earlier in the year and even through the summer, as you mentioned, turned into actual change at the ballot box. So it feels like Edmontonians had an opportunity to say, "We need to go in a very different direction on infill," and they didn't. So I'm a bit surprised that administration seems to wanna take that forward, or maybe council does. So what has the mayor and some of the councillors said about this?

Stephanie:
Yeah. So Mayor Andrew Knack told CBC that he heard loud and clear during the election that we needed to revise our infill rules, but he isn't convinced that a fixed unit cap-… is the answer because of that, variation of lot sizes. And then Councillor Michael Janz said that he was surprised to see administration recommend restrictions on corner lots, 'cause you'll, listeners will remember lots of mid-block unit cap.

Mack:
Yeah.

Stephanie:
We should change it to six on mid-block because it's in the middle it's between two houses instead of just on the corner, right?

Mack:
Right.

Stephanie:
That's what Janz is saying. He says nobody has been talking about corners. Corners seem to be a generally acceptable areas for Edmontonians. They want to see the density on the corners, not mid-block.

Mack:
Yeah. That is really interesting. I mean, what the mayor was saying too is a little bit different than how I interpreted what happened during the campaign, right? I don't think in the end there was a large number of people that felt like we need to stop infill. I think there's broad agreement that infill is part of Edmonton's future. Even Tim Cartmel and others who are running in opposition to Andrew Knack basically were on board with the idea that we've got to densify. I think where there was a agreement on change was more about enforcement of the rules and, you know, some of the minor tweaks and things like that would make the whole experience better for everybody involved. So, you know, getting back to changing the caps on zones and changing the zones themselves feels like a step beyond that as well. And then just when I say all of that, I'm reminded that they did make some tweaks already, right?

Stephanie:
Yes.

Mack:
And have we seen the results of that yet even?

Stephanie:
Well, that's exactly another point that Michael Janz made in this interview with CBC is he said that council made some tweaks in the summer, including to change rules to improve the facades that face the street, so it's not just like a big, blank, ugly wall…

Mack:
Yeah.

Stephanie:
And limiting the number of side doors on residential developments so that, you know, you don't have a bunch of, doors into people's houses facing directly into your backyard. And he said there's a number of changes that we haven't even seen built yet. The infills that you're seeing today, the finished ones, are the version one infills. We haven't even seen, quote, "version two".

Mack:
Yeah. That's exactly what I had in mind. So it does feel a bit premature to then be trying to go further and go beyond those changes. All right. So where are we at in the process then?

Stephanie:
Well, so feedback is open until January 29th. We'll put a link in the show notes. And it's gonna be presented along with the proposed amendments at an urban planning committee meeting on February 10th. And administration said that the, feedback will not change their recommendations. It'll but, - but Council, it'it's for Council to consider. And, like, administration makes recommendations that Council ignores literally all the time, so…

Mack:
Yeah. Yeah.

Stephanie:
It'it's like fine that it doesn'won't change the recommendation. And then what could happen is that urban planning committee makes a recommendation to Council, such as, "Urban Planning Committee recommends to City Council that we pass all of these changes or follow administration's recommendation." Or, "Make this change, but change this change."

Mack:
Right.

Stephanie:
Or I think maybe the more likely option is that they just send it to Council without a recommendation because it's such an important thing that, all of Council deserves to have a vote. Well, and they will in the end, but all of Council deserves to like, you know, build the amendment, if that makes sense.

Mack:
Yeah, no, they'll want to have a more fulsome discussion about it…

Stephanie:
Exactly.

Mack:
At the council table and that sort of thing. Yeah. Okay. And then Council, of course, could also just say, "Nope, we need more changes," or, "We wanna investigate this further." So, far from the last we'll hear about, infill and rezoning in 2026.

Stephanie:
And that's not the only thing that we will not be hearing the last of yet in 2026. Isn't that right, Mack?

Mack:
Ugh, we'll never hear the end of snow because, you know, we're in the middle of it right now. People are still digging out. It is, oh, so especially treacherous walking around lately. We had so much snow, as we talked about last week, that now that we're above zero degrees for large chunks of the day, it's all melting and there are lakes, at all of the intersections that I need to traverse.

Stephanie:
I know.

Mack:
And then in the morning, it's cold enough that it's frozen and so it's lakes and ice and it's very slippery.and I know how this works, right? We're gonna talk a lot about snow right now because it's on the ground and then we're gonna get to summer and administration's gonna be talking about snow because it's gonna be falling again soon. And it just seems like we're always talking about snow, Stephanie.

Stephanie:
Always. It never ends. Yeah, and also, you don't have an alley, or I guess maybe you do have an alley.

Mack:
We do have an alley. Yeah.

Stephanie:
And mine is really bad. My apartment looks out into the alley and every so often, I just like look over and I see so many cars getting stuck because there's two construction zones in like sharing my alley, so there's just humongous trucks going through all the time that make the, ruts so bad. And every hour, there's a car getting stuck in the alleyway. I just don't think I'm gonna leave my house in my car for a at least a couple days.

Mack:
Yeah, my daughter's school sent a poem to teachers via SchoolZone actually because of all of the vehicles getting stuck and the poem was basically like urging patience because, you know, cars are getting stuck on the side roads and people having to push them out.

Stephanie:
Aw.

Mack:
And I guess the one saving grace about all of this is it does bring people together to try to, you know, help one another get through it.

Stephanie:
Mm-hmm. That's like in summer, we all get together behind the Oilers, and in winter, we all get together behind, how terrible the roads are.

Mack:
Pushing…

Stephanie:
Yeah.

Mack:
Each other out of getting stuck. Yeah.

Stephanie:
Exactly. So speaking of, let's get into the business. So…

Mack:
Yeah.

Stephanie:
They're trying, the city is really trying to clear the roads.

Mack:
They're working at it.

Stephanie:
They're working at it and you can't deny that, but there are a few things that people are upset about. You know, the priorities, the policy of the priorities of how they get to each of the roads, whether or not we should clear bike lanes before the roads, how much money we should spend. That's a big thing. And a lot of people online seem to be saying, "I don't care what it costs, just clear the darn roads."

Mack:
Right.

Stephanie:
And then when you say, "Well, you'd have to pay an extra $300 a year on property taxes," all of a sudden it's, "Well, no. Do it without raising my property taxes."

Mack:
Cut other things.

Stephanie:
Anyway, so…

Mack:
Yeah.

Stephanie:
Yes, exactly. Cut the bike lanes, which-You know, (stammers) let's not get it done. Okay, so first of all, I wanted to touch on a bit of a misunderstanding that I saw in some news articles about money for towing services, because some people, some stories said that the city had allocated $100,000 and they had run out by this by this time already. That's not true. They only paid I reached out to the City of Edmonton to confirm this, and they said, "An additional $100,000 was allocated for vehicle towing during parking bans in 2025 only. This funding was not extended past December 31st. Despite this, occasional towing may occur after the funding period if a vehicle is deemed necessary to remove for the safe and efficient work of city crews." And of course, you know, they didn't even start the residential roadway, parking ban until January 12th…

Mack:
Yeah.

Stephanie:
To clear the roads, so that's, like, the only time where there'd be towing. Yeah. And it also, the city said that, they have given out 245 tickets, eight warnings and 33 vehicles, but again, that's as of December 31st, so I'm assuming it's gonna be much more. Comprehensive enforcement numbers for the phase two parking ban will be released upon its completion.

Mack:
So if I understand correctly, the money that was in the news, the $100,000, was for 2025. And it doesn't mean that the city is not towing cars in 2026.

Stephanie:
That's what the city told me, yeah.

Mack:
They will still tow vehicles in order to clear those streets. The parking ban still exists for a reason.

Stephanie:
Yeah. Yeah, and I was walking around my neighborhood yesterday, and it was like every street before mine, I was like, "It's freshly cleared. No parking. Oh, this is so nice." And I get to my street…

Mack:
Yeah.

Stephanie:
Completely full of cars and huge windrows.

Mack:
Yeah.

Stephanie:
I was like, "Thanks. Thanks, guys. That's great." Everyone worked together to be terrible. But yeah, I just wanted to clarify that there, yeah, they're still gonna be towing. And oh, and another thing is that some people online were saying, "Why does towing cost money? Because it should be recouped by the impounding fees." But the city does not tow cars, like, away and lock them up…

Mack:
Right, like around the corner, right?

Stephanie:
Exactly, which some people…

Mack:
Yeah.

Stephanie:
Are saying they should just start doing that. I don't know if that's gonna happen.

Mack:
It doesn't seem quite as efficient to take it all away to some impound lot…

Stephanie:
Yeah.

Mack:
Than to just move it around the corner so the equipment can do its job, right? That'that's…

Stephanie:
Yeah.

Mack:
Really the point of it, is like get the car out of the way so we can do our job.

Stephanie:
Yes. So speaking of online, there's been a ton of, communications coming through about this. One thing is that the Snow and Ice Control Team didn't ask me anything on Reddit that we'll link in the notes. Another prolific Edmonton Redditor, Councillor Aaron Paquette, has been, on the comms offensive trying to get, you know, trying to educate people on snow and ice control. And I would say, like, as a fellow nerd for city stuff, this is so cool and interesting. So he put together this really well done web page about this season's snowfall. There's a couple of features on it. So you can go through each day of weather in December and see how much snow there was and what effect it had on the snow clearing priorities. So like we talked about last week, the city has snow clearing priorities, but then when more than two centimeters of snow falls, crews reset to the first priority, arterials and freeways. So every time it snows, they have to start all over. So according to Paquette's site, there were five times in December that the cycle had to be restarted because it started snowing again. And so that's why it seems like we've been dealing with these roads forever is because it keeps snowing and it keeps snowing and snowing, and, it's very He calls it the Sisyphean or whatever. I can't even pronounce it.

Mack:
The Sisyphus loop. Yeah.

Stephanie:
Exactly.

Mack:
This is fascinating. The other thing he's got on the page that I just absolutely love, he's got a build your own snow and ice control program budget, and you've got all these sliders. So if you want to spend more money on pathways or you want to spend more money on enforcement or whatever, you can use the slider, change the amount of money you spend, and it shows you how much the tax levy increase would be, which is fascinating. Like what a…

Stephanie:
Yeah.

Mack:
What an amazing educational tool.

Stephanie:
I know. I love it. Like again, as a huge nerd, I love this sort of thing. And you know what really showed that, to increase snow clearing to like a level that I think a lot of people would maybe finally be happy with, it would cost, for me personally for my place that I own, I think it was about $200 a year. And then when you consider how long our winter is, if you divide that over, let's say the four months or so that we that we have snow on the ground, I can't do that math off the top of my head, but it's like $50 a month. I'd pay 50 bucks a month to get so much more snow clearing. And then if you look at it the opposite way, the city cut all the snow clearing to only save us $50 a month. You know what I mean?

Mack:
Sure, yeah. Yeah.

Stephanie:
Yeah. It's just again, that's how taxes work, is that everyone chips in a little bit, and it amounts to this big positive change.

Mack:
It can have a big impact, yeah.

Stephanie:
Or it can have a big impact. Exactly.

Mack:
What else did Councillor Paquette say in his social media offensive?

Stephanie:
Yes. He also talked about how he is going to introduce a motion at the Urban Planning Committee meeting on Tuesday, or a notice of motion, which means it'll be debated likely the next council meeting.

Mack:
Yeah.

Stephanie:
And here's the motion that he's working on, "That administration provide a report based on public feedback and industry best practices outlining options and financial implications for a snow and ice control surge capacity strategy to ensure timely service delivery during unexpected or extreme precipitation events." So, what are your thoughts on that so far, Matt?

Mack:
Like surge pricing like Uber? People don't love that either. But it is an effective strategy to deal with things, right? So, I imagine what this motion would seek to understand is how often might we have to employ a surge capacity strategy? What kinds of agreements would need to be in place to do it? What would it cost, most importantly? And this is a fact-finding initiative, right? We're gonna get some information back that council might just say, "Okay, thanks." they, may not go anywhere, but I'd, I think it's interesting to understand, I think this is a worthwhile thing to explore. It's like I talked about a little bit, I think on the show last week, there's not that many days of the year that it is as bad as it is at the moment. And so if we have some strategy to turn the knobs up, dial things up, just for a short period of time, and it's not, you know, we have to go back to council and approve a bunch of money and get a good, new agreements, and we're not restricted by all these things, that could be really interesting to have that flexibility. So I look forward to seeing, hopefully, council approve the motion to get that information, and then to what they find out.

Stephanie:
Yeah, totally. I also have kind of a prediction that maybe someone will introduce a notice of motion, so again, it would be debated at the next council meeting in about a week and a half from when this episode comes out, looking to introduce like a one-time funding increase of X amount. But the thing is that by the time that all comes into effect…

Mack:
Yeah.

Stephanie:
It's not gonna make a difference. People are mad right now, and there's just no, there's just no way that anything because the thing is, it's not just money. It's, labor and equipment too that they just don't have.

Mack:
Right.

Stephanie:
Yeah.

Mack:
Yeah, I do think from a budgeting point of view, it'd be interesting to have a higher, snow and ice control budget than we have, so move it back up to 75 million bucks or whatever the dollar amount is, knowing that you're not always gonna spend that, and when you don't have to spend that, then you've got this either money that you can use for other priorities or you can just lower the tax levy increase as a result, right? It might be better optically for council to be able to do that than be in the situation where they saved a bit of money on the snow and ice control budget like you were talking about, but had then have the anger and people frustrated about how our, we're unable to deal with these surge, instances. So…

Stephanie:
Yeah.

Mack:
A little bit of strategy, I think, involved in this one, and it'll be interesting to see that play out. Okay, well, maybe the last time we talk about snow for a while. We'll see. It's melting pretty quickly out there, Stephanie.

Stephanie:
Mm-hmm.

Mack:
Another thing it feels like we talk about all the time on this podcast are drivers running into the valley line.

Stephanie:
Yeah.

Mack:
And I see the valley line's in the news this week.

Stephanie:
Yes. Well, I mean, I don't blame people. They're so tiny, they're super sneaky. They're only about 10 feet tall. There's about, only about a dozen or two signs prohibiting turns at each intersection, so I don't blame people for turning…

Mack:
Sure.

Stephanie:
Into them. They're really hard to see, Mack. No.

Mack:
It's like if trucks can't see the sign and not enter the High Level Bridge…

Stephanie:
Exactly. Many such cases.

Mack:
Why should drivers avoid the train? Yeah.

Stephanie:
So the reason why this is in the, this is in the news this week is that the Alberta Motor Association, not even the City of Edmonton, the AMA took out an ad campaign on the valley line trains wrapping the trains in messages such as, "Ouch" and "Please Don't Hit Me." Oh my gosh, what are your thoughts on this, Mack?

Mack:
I love this. I see the picture, "Give This Train a Brake," "No Right Turns on Red," they've got Band-Aids all over it, "Please Don't Hit Me," "Careful Next Time." you know, should the city do this? I don't know, maybe, but they didn't, and, this is a great opportunity for AMA to get some brand awareness out of this, and, you know, benefit from what is a frustrating but also kinda comical situation…

Stephanie:
Yeah.

Mack:
And to make light of it a little bit, so I don't know, I think good on them for taking the opportunity and running with it.

Stephanie:
Yeah, I guess it's pretty good marketing. It's caught eyes, obviously it made it all over the, all over the news. I just think that, this is going to be an embarrassing moment for Edmonton as a whole because you know what, somehow this is reminding me of how the very top post on r/expectationsvsreality. You know where I'm going with this, Mack? Is they…

Mack:
I can, I can imagine.

Stephanie:
They, whoever it was took a rendering of the downtown library, the new one, and then put a picture beside what actually was built, the tank, the BiblioTank…

Mack:
Yeah.

Stephanie:
And that is the top post on expectations versus reality. So I'm, I know, I know that a truck is going to run into one of these branded LRT cars and someone's gonna take a picture and it's gonna go viral and Edmonton is gonna look really bad, and we're gonna end up in like the New York Times. You know what I mean? Like it's gonna be so embarrassing when someone inevitably runs into one of these, LRT cars.

Mack:
Maybe though, but if we need to just draw attention to this, is that what we need to do to solve the problem? I don't know. That could be a good thing. I, it's…

Stephanie:
Hopefully.

Mack:
Already really popular on Reddit, so it's on the Edmonton subreddit from a week ago. It's over 1,400 upvotes, which is a huge number actually for our subreddit. One of the top comments is, "This is gonna make a hell of a viral photo when somebody inevitably hits it."

Stephanie:
Exactly.

Mack:
That's what you're saying. People are looking…

Stephanie:
Oh, whatever.

Mack:
Forward to that.

Stephanie:
Yeah.

Mack:
I mean, cheeky advertising by the AMA, I don't hate it. I think it, I think it's clever of them to do it. You know…

Stephanie:
Yeah.

Mack:
People are gonna hit the train regardless of whether or not that they did this campaign, so why not take advantage of the opportunity?

Stephanie:
Yeah, exactly.

Mack:
All right. Well, that's our show for this week. We have new stuff coming up next week.

Stephanie:
Yeah.

Mack:
What are you paying attention to, Stephanie?

Stephanie:
Oh, that, the, so one of the things is that brand framework, is coming to council, which you've said that you were like, "I don't want another brand for, " "for the, for the city." So that's one thing that's coming up at council. They're also gonna talk about very relevant timing, is they're gonna talk about fines for disobeying parking bans. Administration has recommended or it has presented bylaw amendments to lower the fine from $250 to $150. And also, let's see, and they're we're gonna talk about the condition of the city's assets, lots of fun stuff.

Mack:
It'll be a busy week back for council meeting.

Stephanie:
Yes.

Mack:
And, look forward to hearing all about it, when you bring us the news next week and every week here on Speaking Municipally. Thanks so much for listening. If you like our show, please give us a rating, tell a friend, spread the word. We'd love to grow our reach in 2026 and help even more people in the Edmonton region understand what's happening, especially as it relates to municipal affairs and city council and all of those kinds of things. If you've been a longtime listener, maybe you wanna be a member. We would love to have you as a member. You can find, all about membership on our website at taprootedmonton.ca. And as always, we'll be back next week. And until then, I'm Mack.

Stephanie:
I'm Stephanie.

Mack:
And we're...

Both:
Speaking Municipally.