Speaking Municipally

Mack:
Vroom, went the trolley. This week we're joined by Taproot reporter Colin Gallant, who tested out the city's new trolley. Air quotes on that.

Stephanie:
Plus, the city is taking over operations of the Valley Line and making some changes to parking.

Mack:
Hi, I'm Mack.

Stephanie:
I'm Stephanie.

Mack:
And we're…

Both:
Speaking Municipally.

Mack:
Welcome back to Speak Municipally episode 360. I understand this is a significant number for For some folks. Colin, welcome back to the show. Glad to have you with us. The two of you are a little bit younger than I am. Maybe explain the references that are going I understand there's levels happening right now.

Stephanie:
And there are. Yes, okay, well, we all remember Brat Summer from a few years ago. I personally never left Brat Summer. As you can see, my hair is a nice faded Brat green right now. 360 was the first track on that album, from Charli XCX. Very influential. She's iconic. So, the whole time leading up to episode 360, I was like, "I want to have a Charli XCX reference for 360." and we got it because, Vroom is a Charli XCX song, and we're talking about the new trolley, which is actually not a trolley. It has an engine that drives on the road. Yeah.

Mack:
Excellent. Before we get into the ad and our segments for today, I have one other little surprise, Stephanie. Off the top here, we said, "Quotes," and it makes me think of my eight-year-old 'cause I think she just is learning what this means. Anyway, I bring her up because we were at the, Van Block party on the weekend down in Chinatown, and she won one of these.

Stephanie:
(gasps) Oh, lucky! We can be twins now. I don't even My thing went by…

Mack:
So now our house has a bus stop sign too.

Stephanie:
Awesome. I love that.

Colin:
Mine is in the other room, or else I would put it on camera right now.

Stephanie:
Yeah.

Mack:
Oh, yeah.

Stephanie:
That's amazing. Wow.

Colin:
Mine has a 66 in it.

Stephanie:
We're all matching. Ooh.

Mack:
Oh, okay.

Stephanie:
Wow. They're just really giving those things out now though. They're like, "Please take these off our hands."

Mack:
Yeah, "we don't want any more of these. Just take them." Yeah.

Colin:
That's what I call zero waste.

Stephanie:
Yeah.

Mack:
Absolutely. Okay, onto the show. To kick things off, we have an ad for you.

Stephanie:
This episode is brought to you by the Office of Coun. Reed Clarke, who's hosting the Rally for the Road Patio Party on Saturday, July 4th from 4:00 to 7:00 PM at the Orange Hub. Organized in collaboration with Grindstone Theatre and their comedy festival, it's a tailgate style celebration of the future of Stony Plain Road with food, drinks, music, and more. Learn more about what's possible on Stony Plain Road with the forthcoming Valley Line West LRT, and discover the amazing work already taking place along the corridor. Learn more at reedclarke.ca.

Mack:
Going to be a very different part of the city once the Valley Line West goes through there. We're going to be talking more about the Valley Line a little bit later in this episode, but thank you to Coun. Reed Clarke for that ad. Okay, Colin, let's bring you in. You have been finding out about this confusingly named thing called Edmonton Explorer. Tell us what this is about.

Colin:
Well, so it's called the Edmonton Explorer. It's kind of a hop on, hop off bus, which is a pretty common tourist attraction in most large cities. I'm not aware of an equivalent here. I think this might be the first, or at least it's the prevalent one. And they had a big announcement event for it on June 10th, which I attended, at the Muttart, where we took the inaugural ride from there to the legislature and back. And, it's a pretty fun little vehicle. It's actually more of a bus than anything, but it's designed to look like a trolley from the outside. It comes from a brand called Molley Trolley, which is inspired by 1920s street cars, and I'I don't think they actually produce them anymore. You have to buy them old. And these ones actually came up to Edmonton from Boston, where they used to do similar tours there, including a ghost tour.

Mack:
Ooh.

Colin:
And one of the three buses is sort of custom outfitted for ghost tours.

Mack:
It looks like a trolley, like you said, which is super interesting, but it's closed, and I have to imagine that's because we're in Edmonton, and a lot of these hop on, hop buses in other cities, not all of them, but a lot of them, the climate is a little bit better. Is this thing gonna run in the winter? Is that why it'it's like more like a bus than a trolley?

Colin:
It's not going to run in the winter.

Mack:
Okay.

Colin:
It's gonna run, starting June 15th through about Thanksgiving for the first season. Now, it'it'the word pilot was thrown about, as it often is in our city.

Mack:
Yeah.

Colin:
And they do have, There are different models that they have, and some have, like, fully closed glass windows, and some have roll up plastic windows, and so the roll up plastic is obviously gonna be less suitable for not just winter, but driving along some of the routes that they take, which are on sort of major thoroughfares where you can go 100 plus K per hour, and so that creates wind that might be unpleasant, for the passengers. And so I was told that they haven't decided yet if they're gonna keep that one the way it is or maybe retrofit it to have, more secure windows.

Mack:
Okay. So, tell us a bit about where this thing goes. Is it one big loop? Is it you gotta pick which route you wanna take? How many stops? Where are you going? What are we gonna be showing off to tourists if they take the Edmonton Explorer?

Colin:
Yeah, it's an interesting mix. So, there are 20 stops in total, and it does sort of a figure eight between two loops. So, there is a west loop and a central loop. But they overlap. The west loop goes as far out as West Edmonton Mall, which no visit to Edmonton for a, tourist is complete without, and then the central loop is really more focused on downtown and Old Strathcona, but There's overlap predominantly downtown, where you can switch between the two. So if, like, the way it works is you purchase a certain amount of days for access, and during those periods, you can take both as many times as you like. So there are junction points where you can switch, and you could, I don't know, get there, spend a couple hours where you'd get dropped off, and then switch to the next one, or you could get back on board the one you were on and keep going. So, in terms of the central loop, it's a lot of hotels. I mean, on both loops it kind of is, but then in addition to that, it is our major attractions like Fort Edmonton Park, the MRTART, which is where the event for this kicked off, Ice District. There are just certain hubs that you can get dropped off on that are not necessarily a place that you have to pay admission to go into.(clears throat)…

Mack:
Stephanie, you've taken these before in other places. I know you have some experience with that.

Stephanie:
Yeah.

Mack:
And, I know you have a primary thought about these roads.

Stephanie:
Yeah, well, I just think it's funny how, you know, I've I think I've taken it in San Francisco is the one that I'm thinking of, and first of all, that one's a lot more like, "This is a tour bus. We are showing you the sites." Like, we drove past, like, famous houses, that, like, areas where the hippies used to roam around and do drugs. But this does not seem like it's that, like this is not really s…

Mack:
Haight-Haight-Ashbury yeah.

Stephanie:
Exactly, yes, I forgot I forgot what it was called. This is not really a, look at, like, "We're gonna drive past this famous place." Like, it's more like, take you to different attractions, and I just think it's kinda funny how it's, like, so spread out because people are gonna spend, like, 20 minutes driving to West Edmonton Mall along the white mud, which is like, that's the Edmonton experience though. If people really wanna experience Edmonton…

Mack:
And what are you gonna see?

Stephanie:
Yeah, the towers dome.

Mack:
Yeah, like, cars, freeways, like that is, it's a long way, this route.

Stephanie:
Yeah.

Mack:
Like, this western loop especially. If you're watching the video, we'll have it up. It looks like quite a trek, like, it you'd be on this bus for quite a while, I think.

Stephanie:
Yeah.

Colin:
It'it's a choose your own adventure thing, where if you wanna go to West Ed, you can. If you wanna go from the Fairmont Macdonald to, White Avenue, that's not really an industrial trek. As well…

Stephanie:
Yeah.

Colin:
The bus drivers are also tour guides, so it's a mix. It's like, it's getting you where you need to go, but also some storytelling and local flavor at the same time. On our trip, the microphone system was not quite working yet. There's a couple of kinks that they're still sorting out, and in fact, they want to evolve this experience as it goes forward in many ways. Speaking of which, there'there's an opportunity for people to submit their own sort of local history stories if they want to be part of the tour, and, one call from our tour guide was, "Can you give us ones for the industrial stretches because, there's not a lot to say during that part of the ride?"

Mack:
Yeah.

Colin:
So you raise a good point there.

Stephanie:
Yeah.

Colin:
But it's on their minds. They're not, oblivious to that.

Stephanie:
Oh, yeah. I wonder, this just popped into my head, it doesn't go all the way up to the Yellowhead Trail, but it gets pretty close and that is how you get to Jasper, so maybe that would be like, "Oh, this is kind of on the way to Jasper. Let's talk about this beautiful park and blah."

Colin:
Well, that'that's a fair point because, the coaches, as you might call them, are operated by Sun Dog, which is a company that is based in Jasper, for sightseeing tours. And so they've been contracted by Explore Edmonton to do this with support from Travel Alberta, which I was promised a sum for by someone from Travel Alberta and have not yet received, more to come on that if I do. But, one thing that, Explore Edmonton CEO Tracy Bednard said during the announcement event was, like, "This is something that will help keep people hanging out in Edmonton a little bit longer when they do come here, either just for a one-off thing like a conference, or if they're passing through on the way to the Rockies or something." So there is a little bit of Jasper in mind, and putting Edmonton on sort of a loop between Edmonton, Jasper, through the, glacier area, down into Banff, Canmore area, through Calgary. Like, almost like an ear-shaped route.

Stephanie:
Kadigi.

Colin:
So that is part of what's on their mind, but I don't think this is explicitly meant to just be for people who are on their way to Jasper.

Mack:
Yeah, locals might wanna take this bus as well, potentially, right, this trolley? I mean, it could be an excuse for a bit of a fun afternoon. Sometimes it's fun just to ride regular public transit, right? So like, this dedicated loop could be kind of interesting. You know, I've been on some of these myself in other cities, London, Dublin, and my memory of them is that they were all pretty dense, compact, short, like I wasn't riding the bus for hours and hours and hours and hours, right? But maybe that's unfair. Collin, you actually rode this. Did you have fun? Was it a good time?

Colin:
Yeah, it really was, mm, and first of all, I'll say that, like, West Edmonton Mall is the outlier. Like, I think…

Mack:
Yeah.

Colin:
It was obligatory to have it.

Mack:
Yeah.

Colin:
You can'you can't expect people to come here from, I don't know, Minneapolis and not want to go to our big mall. But for the most part, the stops are pretty close together. We rode from the MRTART to the legislature, which would typically have a couple, one or more stops in between, including the Fairmont Macdonald. And so it, they estimated it would take 20, but as I said, it's early days for their service and it took closer to 30, but also, there was construction everywhere, so that probably set things back just a smidge. But yeah, it was quite fun. We got a lot of honks, and you, do you know how you can tell when someone honks, if it's a nice honk or a mean honk?

Mack:
Yeah. Yeah.

Colin:
They were all nice honks. It was "Hey, we see you," and that was fun.

Mack:
You rode the bus with Coun. Stevenson, right? What did you find out from her?

Colin:
Yeah, so I sat beside her and I said, "Hey, we should do a little, like, on location style interview while the bus is rolling." that was not possible because our tour guide filled every moment. Of the trip With, very charismatic, microphone-free announcements. He did a great job and, yeah. But the funny thing was, as you mentioned, locals using it, and maybe even, like thinking of this as a form of, like commuting, Coun. Stevenson did get off at the legislature because she said she needed to pop home before the afternoon council session. So, she treated it almost like a transit ride, on ETS. Which by the way, this company has been given permission to park at select ETS, stops. They're not allowed to post their signage because that could be confusing to like, regular transit users. Like, "Oh, am I at the ETS stop? Am I at the Taco Bell? Am I at the combination KFC/Taco Bell?" And so, but she used it as part of her day, which I thought was a fun thing. And I'll just, I'll kind of tack onto that. There's something very multimodal about, the way this works. So, it's $48 for an adult for one day, which is more than you'll pay to take the bus or the train, of course, by a significant margin. But the connection points are LRT stations, bus stations, the High Level Streetcar, and then even the Edmonton Riverboat, which apparently is back at port after being stranded on a sandbar.

Mack:
.

Colin:
So, if you're someone who likes to get around a lot of different ways, you know, if you wanna treat yourself and have a fun day, you could do just this as your entertainment without adding on, the other piece that they announced during the event.

Mack:
Does the Edmonton Explorer, the $48, does that pass include any admission or is that just to ride this trolley?

Colin:
It's a ride this trolley fee. But a lot of what they drop you off at are not, necessarily pay to get in type of places. Like, they are just junctures in the Ice District and along Whyte, and even 124th Street, where it's like, you could just window shop or look at public art, or whatever you wanna do. So, in that sense, like, there are attractions that are included, but they're as included as they would be any other way you would arrive there.

Mack:
But then they also did introduce, like, a kind of city pass, thing, right, Colin?

Colin:
Yeah. So, that's broken in, down into one, two, and three day options. But really, it's about the amount of attractions that are included. So, you can do two for the base price, four for the medium price and six for the top price, and I believe the bottom price is $69. The attractions that it includes are the Alberta Aviation Museum, the Edmonton Riverboat, the Edmonton Valley Zoo, Fort Edmonton Park, the Muttart Conservatory, Telus World of Science Edmonton, and then some of the services offered by River Valley Adventure Company.

Mack:
Okay. Well, very interesting. Thank you, Colin, for bringing us, information about this. I feel, it feels like one of those things that big cities have, and the fact that Edmonton hasn't had one for a while is now being rectified. So that's good. The $48 per person for just a trip around does make it seem like a tourist attraction to me, rather than a thing locals are gonna do. You can ride around ETS for far less than that. But oh, and, on balance, it seems like a pretty interesting thing to try. Whether or not it's a pilot or not, you know, I think we'll learn a lot over the summer. What do you think, Stephanie? Is this a good idea? I know we clowned on it, but I love this. I think it's so cute. I think that it's gonna be so fun to see them driving around in the, in the summer, and I think that, yeah, it really is, like a big city kind of thing to have. And I kind of like how it, like adds some scaffolding around tourism here, right? It's like we're all kind of working together and I, like every city that I travel to, I look for a city pass or some sort of equivalent, because I'm like, "Well, I'm gonna wanna see…" Like, when I was going to Chicago, it's like I wanted to go to the Art Institute and get an architecture, boat tour, and I wanted to bundle them. So, this is, like a great way to just know what there is to see and go see all of them. Yeah, I think it's hard sometimes to think about our city as a tourist, right? 'Cause I'm similar. We go to other places. We buy the pass. We wanna do the tour, we wanna do the boat tour, whatever. But I don't think about Edmonton that way, but I guess that's because it's home, right? But other people who are coming here, or like you said earlier, who are visiting the mountains and are using Edmonton as sort of their base for that, they do wanna go and see, like, "What does Edmonton have to offer?" Let's make it easy for them. So, I like that. Okay. Colin, before we let you go, we have another update from you. You've been very busy reporting, and I understand you were at the Federation of Canadian Municipalities Conference that we recently just hosted here in Edmonton. So, tell us about, your experience there.

Colin:
Yeah. So, I was able to go last Friday, June 5th, and there was quite a great deal of restrictions on the media access. I was allowed to attend the keynotes by politicians, press conferences and visit the trade floor. Which was about, like 5% of what happened at the conference. I don't know. The trade floor is tricky. But, what I did notice was sort of a common thing between what was being announced, during the event. So, the FCM, as they go by for short, announced their, basically wishlist, or, list of demands, perhaps, from the federal government to, help reinvigorate downtowns and make businesses succeed where they are across the country. They used the language of infrastructure and housing as, like what makes that vibrant, not, "We need a new museum. We need a new restaurant." It was, "We need the basic things that make this function." Then, when I attended on the Friday, they announced the launch of a defense taskforce, which is kind of early days still, it seems. But it's about aligning the goals around federal funding for infrastructure and housing, around what the federal government's priorities are, which is defense. And, it looks like They're working together, municipalities across the country, to address these concerns at the federal government level, but also optimize it so that they can get what they need at the local level. And, you know, before we get to defense, I know Stephanie, you covered the downtown announcement, so I'm wondering like what your observations were on that.

Stephanie:
Yeah, every year with every budget cycle of every level of government, people are gonna come out and say what they want and when it's cities talking to the feds, you know, in our downtowns, we need infrastructure, solutions for homelessness and solutions for crime. I mean, they've been asking for this for years and years. But I get it because so have people, like so have residents and constituents. I liked how they had really specific asks in the budget for, the federal government, you know, pointing to specific funds, but I don't think, it wasn't some groundbreaking, you know, new ask because there is no groundbreaking new solution for the problems facing downtowns, you know? It's just kind of always gonna be the same, you know?

Colin:
Yeah, I mean, I agree with you that it's not brand new, but I got a quote from, Coun. Anne Stevenson during the Edmonton Explorer event. One thing she said I thought put into perspective, and this is also not brand new, but this is, I think it speaks to the formalization of the sentiment where she said, you know, this announcement, it is a pan-Canadian call. It shows that there, these are challenges that downtowns and main streets are facing across Canada, that we really need the federal government to be coming on as a partner to this work. I think that's important because I think there's a skewed perception of downtown safety in Edmonton where it's like we are an outlier and things are particularly scary here. And I don't think that's, evidenced by this at least. And to see that like, you know, Comox and, Charlottetown perhaps…

Stephanie:
Yes.

Colin:
Are all saying the same thing, I think that shows that like, this is, this problem is not, at the foot of city council alone.

Mack:
Or at least that there are very common, aspects of the problem that are common across municipalities, right? I mean, we have the added challenge of being in Alberta with a province, a provincial government that does not seem supportive at all of its municipalities, right? And so I think that makes dealing with the challenge much more difficult than it might be in, you know, say BC or something like that. But all municipalities have the same challenge around a lack of funding relative to the other orders of government, right? And so anytime you can kind of come with that unified voice and go to the feds and say, "Look, you guys are the ones with all the money, we're the ones with all the problems. Can we work together on this?" You know, that sounds positive. And I feel like that's maybe a little bit about defense as well. It's like the government, the federal government has said, "We gotta put a lot of money into this." And the cities are like, "Well, we don't have any money. How can we tap into that and make use of it?" So what did you find out about defense, Colin?

Colin:
Yeah. What I thought was interesting, in what happened at the press conference about the, defense task force is that, there was a sentiment that defense funding isn't just developing new technology, dual use. That's not the only thing that we need for defense. If we're going to have military bases in and around our municipalities, those people need to use roads. They need to have places to live, they need recreation centers, fire halls, they need, public transit, things like that. And so to frame these things that are applicable to all citizens in a municipality, in the umbrella of defense, I think is not just a savvy move on their part, but like a cold hard truth. It's like, well, you can't go anywhere without a road, so you have to pay for the road if you want the defense people to be in your area. That's, that you just have to cover the basics first, I think was part of the message there.

Stephanie:
So I know that, a few months ago, a bunch of partners in the area started the Edmonton Region Defense Alliance. How does this tie into that?

Colin:
Yeah. Representatives, from the task force spoke about how in their communities they're forming these, similar sort of alliances where there's dialogue and, sort of sharing of what the needs are and what the priorities are between the municipal government and affiliated bodies and even non-governmental bodies about, you know, these are the challenges that we face and here are the strengths that we have. And the municipal officials are sort of gathering what they're learning at the community level, and planning to bring it to the federal government through this task force. And I think, I think that's where the Edmonton Region Defense Alliance may play into this. I think they are also concentrated on, things like dual use and private sector rather than necessarily road infrastructure. But I think that they are providing the context that municipal officials need to effectively tell the story of what's going on in their community as they look for funding, while we pursue defense opportunities in the country.

Mack:
Okay. Well, thank you very much, Colin, for bringing us that report from FCM.

Colin:
My pleasure.

Stephanie:
This episode is also brought to you by U of A Reads, a podcast from the University of Alberta. It features conversations with alumni authors about the stories behind their books. Each episode goes beyond the page, diving into the experiences, questions, and moments that shaped their writing. Listen for everything from deeply personal stories to big conversations around history, identity, and social change. It's a great listen if you love books or just want to understand the thinking behind them. Find U of A reads wherever you get your podcasts.

Mack:
Well, I think it's fair to say the somewhat surprising and big news of the week was this announcement from the City of Edmonton that they are going to take over as the long-term operator of the Valley Line LRT, replacing TransEd, the P3 partner who was supposed to be doing this for like 30 years. Did you have any sense this was coming, Stephanie?

Stephanie:
Absolutely not. I had no idea. And when I, when I got the news release in my inbox, I, like, kinda didn't even understand it and I will be honest, I was a little bit sick this week and I was still kind of, like, coming down off of my NyQuil, like So I was a little, like, confused.

Mack:
Like, "Is this real?"

Stephanie:
Exactly. And so I, and I actually, I did attend the news the news conference, but again, I was just like, "What is going on?" So But no, I was not expecting this at all, and it was very surprising.

Mack:
Yeah. I was very surprised by this. Okay, so city manager Eddie Robar said this is a business decision that they think is in the best interest of taxpayers and transit riders. He said it's not a reflection of TransEd. They're trying to be careful, I think, to say that, "We're not making this decision because TransEd's done a horrible job."

Stephanie:
Yeah.

Mack:
"We just think we're gonna be able to do it more cheaply, more efficiently." As we understand it, there were, basically three options here that the city was facing, because we're, in theory, soon, about to open the Valley Line West Leg, and so you'd be able to travel all the way from the Southeast in Mill Woods over to the west at West Edmonton Mall. What are we gonna do when that happens? Are we going to have one operator, which means they'd have to expand this 30-year contract with TransEd so that TransEd would operate the whole line end-to-end? Or would we find a way to kick it, TransEd out, and find a new private operator who can do the whole line? Or would we move it in house and have the city just run everything? And that is ultimately the decision that the city has made, which is, TransEd is not gonna complete their contract. They're only gonna go for another year or two. This transition is gonna happen really quickly, and then Edmonton Transit itself will manage the existing Southeast line, as well as the new west leg of the Valley Line when that opens, hopefully in 2028.

Stephanie:
We'll see. Okay, so Mack, can you explain something for me? Honestly, what, part of what confused me so much is, like, what do you mean, the city wasn't already operating the transit, the Valley Line? Can you explain that to me?

Mack:
Yeah, this is pretty interesting, right? I think a lot of people just assume…

Stephanie:
Yeah.

Mack:
It's ETS. It looks like ETS. You pay with an ARC card. You know, it's all the same, but it's actually TransEd, this organization that was created as part of this public-private partnership, so this was foisted upon Edmonton back when we were building, the Southeast LRT extension because that was the only way we could access federal funding. The federal government under, I'm pretty sure it was Prime Minister Stephen Harper, set up this P3 Canada Fund, and we needed to access that money in order to build the train. And so we said, "Okay, I guess we're doing a P3." I'll put it in the show notes, but I did a pretty deep dive blog post about this back in 2013, and, you know, the criticism from lots of people who know a lot more about this than I do is just that P3 projects for transit almost never work, right? They're almost never successful in terms of the operations part of it. Construction maybe can be done with a P3. There's some success there, but unless you're in, you know, Tokyo or one of these super dense places, having a private operator of a public transit line almost never works out, and that's what people were saying at the time back in 2013. But again, this was how we were able to access the money. So, you know, they've obviously coordinated closely with Edmonton Transit, and the systems are fairly integrated, but technically, yeah, it's not ETS that has been operating the trains on the Valley Line Southeast.

Stephanie:
So, the if people have had an issue with this setup for, you know, over 10 years, how did the city not see this coming?

Mack:
Well, especially given that we're gonna have this west extension, right? And I think this is just one of those, you gotta put one foot in front of the other types of situations, and back in 2013, it was like, "Let's just get the money to start construction on the southeast leg." And then eventually, we got funding to do the west leg, and those things happen, you know, not in tandem, but they happen sort of, they unfold over time, right? And so I think people knew at the time. It'd be interesting to go back and see exactly what was said, but certainly Council of the City was aware that at some point there's gonna be a decision to be made here about integration of that Valley Line West and Southeast. Is it gonna be one operator or not? I just think it was one of those, like, "It's not a problem today, we'll kick the can down the road." here we are now in 2026, a couple of years away from the West Line opening, and it's, like, time to do something about that can, I guess. It's a little unclear why it's today and not a year from now or a year and a half from now, a little closer to the Valley Line West opening, and that maybe calls into question what the city manager said about, you know, "It's not a reflection of TransEd." Maybe there's a little bit of that, but they're getting some cover through the broader stuff here, but that's speculation.

Stephanie:
Yeah, totally. What you're saying about, they obviously didn't use the phrase, "Kicking the can down the road." The city would never say that, but the whole idea of, like, we made the southeast decision when we made it, we made the west decision when we made it, and now we kinda have to realign everything. The city, officials that were at the press conference totally echoed that. That is exactly…

Mack:
And…

Stephanie:
What they're saying.

Mack:
And to a certain extent, you simply can't make the decision sooner. Like, you can't make a decision about who's gonna operate the Valley Line West when it's completely conceptual still, right?

Stephanie:
Yeah.

Mack:
Like, you've gotta be further down the road before you can make some of those decisions.

Stephanie:
Now, part of the decision, or I guess the whole decision, according to the city, is to make this more efficient, to save taxpayer dollars. Mack, what do you think about that?

Mack:
Well, I've seen this described online as, like, a win-win situation, but I feel like my gut reaction is it's maybe a win-win-lose. Like, I feel like this is a win for the City of Edmonton. They get to now fully manage and operate the line. They can integrate it more tightly with their, the rest of transit and other transportation objectives. I think that's a win. I think it's a win for TransEd, probably. They get out of this, contract, this really long-term contract. It, I think, has been fair to say challenging to operate the line. There's been a lot of growing pains. Maybe we're through some of the worst of that, but it's expensive and maybe they decided it's not that, what they wanna do long term. And the integration with the west would be a whole other, you know, kettle of fish they'd have to deal with.

Stephanie:
Yeah.

Mack:
So those are maybe both wins. But for taxpayers, I don't see how this is a win. I feel like this is probably gonna, in the long run, be a lose. Now, I know the city is saying that's not true. It's gonna be cheaper in the long run, but I think it's pretty hard to predict what's gonna happen 10, 20, 30 years from now. I would be shocked if the City of Edmonton paid out the contract. That's just not feasible here with a, with a 30-year contract. There's gotta be some kind of an exit clause. There's gonna be cost involved. I believe the city said they're gonna refinance some of the debt in order to pay for that. But it's gonna be expensive. There's gonna be a sizable payment being made here to TransEd to get out of this contract. I wish we had more information about what that exit clause looked like, but I just can't see that this will be cheaper for taxpayers, you know?

Stephanie:
Yeah. There was definitely all of the reporters at the press conference were also questioning that sort of thing, and it was a lot of, "We do have that number and we'll follow up with you," or, "We can't share that number right now. It's still in private because of contractual obligations." So I definitely think that this is something that is going to come out eventually. You know, this is the very early stages of this news and, we will this is not going away.

Mack:
Yeah. In the fullness of time, I'm confident we'll find out what those numbers are and we'll be able to, get a better picture of what that looks like. The other point I wanted to make about this is just that, you know, discussion around integration, and to your point, that I think a lot of people just think it is ETS already. "What do you mean it's not Edmonton Transit running this thing?" I don't really buy the argument that this gives us better integration. Like, I've seen some conversation that, you know, for example, if there's an issue on the train, then they have to get a replacement bus, and that takes longer currently because it's TransEd calling the city versus just the city, you know, dispatching it themselves. That seems like a really weak argument to me. It is fairly integrated already. Kerri Haughton-Macdonald the branch manager of ETS said, "At this time, there will be no changes to the operations or maintenance of Valley Line Southeast," partly because I think things have already been designed for them to be relatively integrated and okay, there will be minor tweaks and improvements that can come over time, but I don't think it's gonna be dramatically different. The one thing I hope they don't change is the frequencies, because we have five-minute frequencies during peak times on the Valley Line Southeast, and we don't have that anywhere else in Edmonton Transit. And so I hope we don't lose that by having, you know, ETS take over operations of the line.

Stephanie:
Yeah, so that actually did come up, that specific thing, and I think that Kerri kind of accidentally said this? I don't know. It, I don't think that she fully meant to say what she said. Basically she said, "Yeah, we'll be, we'll be trying to align, service across the whole board, you know, across the buses and the, Capital Metro line and the Valley Line." So maybe that's looking at changing frequencies, and we were like, "Wait, so like the five-minute frequency for Valley Line, it might, it might be longer?" And she's like, "Well, maybe not necessarily." and it might be bringing, Capital Metro lines to shorter frequencies, but it might be changing from five minute to six or seven, frequency. But the thing that she said that she hears more about regarding frequency is off-peak. So, you know, evenings, Sundays, that's where she hears more concerns about frequencies. So she said that's where they're more likely to see changes, not necessarily the five minute during peak hours, but the off-peak.

Mack:
Yeah, okay. Well, I know we've talked to Kerri about this before. I believe 100% that she understands that, the more frequent we can make transit, the better it is…

Stephanie:
Yeah.

Mack:
For everybody. And so I don't think she's, you know, sitting there rubbing her hands together saying "Now, we're gonna get rid of five-minute frequencies." Like I don't believe that's the case, right? So…

Stephanie:
For sure.

Mack:
But it, but I do also expect that there's gonna have to be changes, especially when the Valley Line West opens up, right? And so, this transition is gonna happen immediately, they said. There's gonna be a transition period of a couple of years with the ETS and TransEd, but, you know, it'll all be done by the time the Valley Line West opens in 2028. So the city will just start to integrate those right from the beginning. Okay, well, like we said, we'll keep an eye on this. I'm sure we'll get some more information and we will, dive into that when we do. Last episode, I teased that we were gonna talk about the most Edmonton thing, which is parking. We're finally getting to that right here at the end of this episode. That trolley bus that we talked about earlier, the Edmonton Explorer could be a great way to get to some of these attractions and maybe we'll help you avoid paying for parking, it sounds like.

Stephanie:
Mm-hmm. Yeah, so, at the Urban Planning Committee meeting this week, councillors voted to make a couple changes to parking at city-owned parking spots. So that's either parking at city facilities or the street parking that, you know, you all used to pay at the meter, now you pay on the hotspot app. So starting in sometime in 2027, the city will start charging for parking under new pilot program at the Muttart Conservatory, the Valley Zoo and Fort Edmonton Park. The first hour will be free with each subsequent half hour costing $1 up to a $5 daily maximum. The forecasted revenue from these three sites is expected to be about $737,000 annually according to the report that went to Urban Planning Committee.

Mack:
Okay, so up to a $5 daily maximum for these sites. That's not crazy actually. That's quite a bit less than daily maximums in other places. I'm feeling a little bit conflicted about this, Stephanie. On the one hand, I don't think parking should ever be free, and so I'm glad that they're taking some steps here to rectify that, especially, you know, the Fort Edmonton parking lot is quite massive compared to the other two. The Muttart has much more limited, the Valley Zoos is pretty big, but it's also gravel, dirt. So that's good. On the other hand, what is your alternative? How are you gonna get to the zoo, in particular, if you're not driving? That means you're gonna have to take transit. Fort Edmonton Park, you're gonna have to take transit if you don't wanna pay for parking. Frequencies are not great to either of those locations, and I feel like if you're gonna start charging for parking, it would be great to say, "We've improved the way to get there via transit." You know, we've certainly done that with the Mutt Art. You can just take the train. There's really no reason to drive there. But for the other two, that's quite a bit different. Did that come up at all?

Stephanie:
Not in what I listened to. I didn't, hear absolutely everything. But, part of what they talked about was a cross-reference report, that happened at this meeting, which is the idea of a parking benefit district, and we've talked about this before with the Old Strathcona Farmer's Market parking lot that they use, that gravel one, that's, like, just south of Workshop West and The Yardbird. The idea with that is that parking revenue collected from an area should go to benefit the area that it is taken from. So if you park in Old Strathcona, you know, that $2 an hour will go towards new benches, new lighting, clean up, garbage removal. City Council voted that down, and administration has recommended against it for the time being. Now, they were saying at this meeting that they are going to consider doing the same sort of thing, but for the attraction itself. And Coun. Michael Janz had a really funny, thing that he brought up. He's like, "You know, if we're advertising that, you know, your $1 of parking goes towards buying food for the red pandas, people are gonna be more likely to support the parking charge." That's gonna be a future conversation of having the parking fee go towards the attraction. But that's, yeah, a future thing to talk about.

Mack:
Interesting. Well, I'm not sure if that would make a difference for folks, but maybe he's right. Maybe people would be happy if we had more food for the zebras because of their parking.

Stephanie:
Yeah.

Mack:
Okay, in addition to this decision they've made about this pilot, of course, it's gonna be a pilot, I understand they also talked about, the curbside management program, which is about, street parking, right? What did they decide there?

Stephanie:
Yeah, so they made a couple of changes to that too. That's to all, like, the street parking, that you have to pay for with the hotspot app. They're removing the 15-minute free period, and they're raising rates in some areas to bring it a little bit closer to market rates and parkades and stuff because if you drive in the city, you probably know that city street parking is so much cheaper than any other parking in the city. Actually, maybe I shouldn't be spreading this because Everyone will use my street parking that I love to use. I don't think I have literally ever parked in a parkade because it is so much cheaper to park in city parking if, like, I don't I truly don't understand how people can complain about the street parking, 'cause it's, like, it, you, even on, like, an Oilers night, it's, like, maximum $5 for a couple of hours. So they're, yeah, getting rid of the free, 15-minute free period, raising some rates, and they're also gonna redesign the residential parking program, which is, you know, if you live near a transit, like a big LRT station, they give out these permits so that you can park in the area so that people aren't using your area to, like, park there and then use the LRT. Or it's also, near Rogers Place and stuff. So a big overhaul is coming to this program.

Mack:
And the reason, it sounds like, is they think they're gonna make a whole bunch more money, which will help…

Stephanie:
Yeah.

Mack:
Our fiscal situation, I guess.

Stephanie:
Yeah, admin said that this will, double net revenue from about $5.2 million in 2026 to $10.4 million annually from 2028 onward.

Mack:
This is also, I think, one of those few remaining COVID-era programs, the 15-minute free, you know, parking that the city is eliminating. I'm sure we'll hear from the business community about how negative this is that they're doing this.

Stephanie:
Yeah.

Mack:
But again, I, you know, I don't think parking should ever be free, and, I think these changes are aligned with that way of thinking about how we manage this asset in our, in our city. All right, what's next for this whole parking discussion? Where did they leave things?

Stephanie:
You know, everything that we talk about in this city has to do with parking, but with this particular report and everything, so they're gonna implement these changes, and this is expected to move the curbside management program into more financially stable, effective, efficient program. And then they say that once they get to that point, then they will reexamine those parking benefit districts, which, as I said earlier, revenue collected is reinvested in the area that it comes from. So that work is supposed to come back in 2027, so expect to hear more from it on the parking podcast from TapRoot Edmonton.

Mack:
Lots of parking to come, not…

Stephanie:
Yeah.

Mack:
Just in 2027, I'm sure.

Stephanie:
Yeah.

Mack:
Well, Stephanie, if you can believe it, we are basically a month away from council's summer break, and, that means lots Of fun things happening around Edmonton, of course. Summer is a great time here. But council will be on a break essentially from the first week of July to the first week of August. I think it's, like, the 9th to the 9th. There will still be lots of stuff to discuss over the summer, I'm sure, but, council will get a little bit of a reprieve from the meeting and agenda and minute gauntlet.

Stephanie:
Yeah. Well, hopefully there's not as much drama around the beginning of summer break as there was last year, and I'll just leave it at that.

Mack:
I feel like around summertime, there's always some kinda drama that emerges. I think we've talked about…

Stephanie:
They're like, "We need a break, please!"

Mack:
Yeah, there's always something. I don't know what it'll be this year. Send us a note if you have a prediction for what that drama will be in 2026.

Stephanie:
Yeah.

Mack:
Until next week, I'm Mack.

Stephanie:
I'm Stephanie.

Colin:
I'm Colin.

Mack:
And we're…

All:
Speaking Municipally.