Speaking Municipally

Stephanie Swensrude:
What'd I miss? This week I'm back. Mack and I chat about some of the big and small municipal news we've missed in the past month.

Mack Male:
Plus, we hear all about Stephanie's travels and her fresh perspectives on cities and how Edmonton stacks up.

Stephanie:
Hi, I'm Stephanie.

Mack:
I'm Mack.

Stephanie:
And we're...

Both:
Speaking Municipally.

Stephanie:
Hello.

Mack:
Welcome back to Speaking Municipally, episode 373. Hi, Stephanie.

Stephanie:
Hello, I'm back. I've got my beret on because I came back from Europe and I feel very happy to have learned all about the culture.

Mack:
Now our audio listeners get to benefit from what our video viewers get to see. A very lovely purple beret. You look very European. How is your trip?

Stephanie:
It was awesome. We're gonna get into it a little bit more, I think, but, I mean, there's a reason why people spend thousands of dollars to go over to Europe and experience it because it's like an awesome place to be. So yeah, but I'm also really glad to be back in Edmonton. I love this time of year. There's so much happening. It's a very stimulating time in the Taproot world because there's lots of stuff that we cover specifically. Life Sciences Week is currently happening. ABmunis is on right now as well. Startup Week is coming up soon. And then the fall weather just feels so cozy and nice.

Mack:
Man, the bike lane here has felt a little European, if I may say. The colours are changing. It's very beautiful. I'm amazed how many leaves are on the ground, considering how many are still on the trees too. But yeah, it's a lovely time of year. We've both been busy attending things. I moderated a panel at Life Sciences Week. There's been some really cool stuff coming out of that event this week. We're gonna get into some more of the things that happened while you were away. But first we want to hear more about your trip and the sort of fresh perspective that you bring back. And before we do that, we have an ad for you.

Stephanie:
This episode is brought to you by Shadow Theatre, which is heading into its 2026-27 season with a new artistic director, Lana Michelle Hughes. She takes over from John Hudson, who founded the company. Taproot's Karen Unland spoke to Lana about programming this season, which features four plays by Canadians.

Lana Michelle Hughes:
This season, by luck or divine intervention, I guess, we had decided almost two years ago, as John was leaving — you sort of program a little bit in advance. You don't do it right before you announce. You've been working on it for one or two years, probably — that we would make this season our all-Canadian season. So every one of our playwrights is Canadian-born. So we tried to not only do that, like that's pretty easy. Canada is ripe with really talented playwrights. It's not hard to find. I could throw a rock. In fact, I have a well-established Canadian playwright who lives next door — we share a wall. So he's right over there. So I could literally throw a rock and hit like an award-winning Canadian playwright. But I tried to build a season that sort of spoke to different facets of what it means to be Canadian to me. And I think we have some really exciting programming coming up. And I honestly, sometimes people will say we have something for everyone, but I do feel like we sort of do have something for everyone this year.

Karen Unland:
Well timed for this elbows-up moment, even if you didn't know two years ago it was gonna be like that.

Lana:
No, we had no idea obviously what we'd be facing right now as a country. So it is lucky, for sure.

Stephanie:
The season kicks off with *Yaga* on Oct. 14. This is Kat Sandler's genre-bending comedic fairy tale through the lens of a whodunit. The play is also the inspiration for a buzzy new TV series. Here's your chance to see the original on stage. Tickets and season subscriptions are available now. Visit shadowtheatre.org to get yours today. That's shadowtheatre.org.

Mack:
Okay, Stephanie. I always have this experience when I travel. It doesn't matter where I go. I could just go to Calgary or Jasper or something. And then I come back and it's like, you know, it's only been a few days. I'm like, wow, I wonder how Edmonton has changed. You know, it's like, well, nothing changed in three days, Mack. Get with it. But you know, when you go overseas, especially, you get exposed to just such a broader array of decisions that people have made. And there's more history, and you know, design is different. And so I feel like you always get this unique perspective on your own city when you return back to it. So are you feeling that right now?

Stephanie:
Well, I think that one of the blessings I have from being a municipal nerd and a municipal government journalist is that I get to see kind of the skeleton beneath things. Like just a really obvious example is I know because I'm a nerd that recently in the past like five or six years, Paris has really gone hard on putting a lot of new bike infrastructure in. And I can tell that this has been added recently, and I can see that they've reconfigured the street here. And then I rode a little Lime bike on it and I got to experience it that way. Whereas someone who doesn't have that background wouldn't know that. I saw so many different cities, and I got to see all of the different ways that they, you know, have built their cities, what they've kind of prioritized, and it was just really interesting as a nerd.

Mack:
Okay, so you've written some reflections for us here that I wanna ask you about. But first of all, you have a caveat.

Stephanie:
Well, I mean, I don't want to be that person that goes to Europe one time and pretends that like they have all this revolutionary knowledge. A lot of people listening have probably been before and thought the same thing. But I think it's a fun conversation to have, comparing North American to European urbanism and also that Europe is a whole continent. And I'm gonna generalize a lot, but I mean I guess maybe for context, the cities that I went to were Paris, Prague, Budapest, Marseille, and Barcelona. So, you know, obviously Paris is a lot different from Amsterdam, is a lot different from Split, Croatia, that sort of thing.

Mack:
Yeah. I've only been to a couple of the cities, so I'm eager to hear about the others. Also, by the way, you might have heard while you were away, Canada is now part of the EU. Kinda. Not really. We're an associate member.

Stephanie:
Well, my influence! They saw that I was there and they said, Stephanie, you're so right. We should make a good partnership. No, I was in France when Carney was too, and I woke up and I was like, What is happening? Yeah.

Mack:
Yeah, this doesn't make sense. Canada's not in Europe, but we're an associate member now, so it's all good. Okay, what's your hot take after this whirlwind trip?

Stephanie:
Okay. My hot take is that we will never have European-style urbanism in Edmonton and we should stop trying to make it happen. I know, I know some people are gonna be mad at this, but the thing is, in our lifetimes, this isn't gonna happen. We don't have the population density, we don't have the tourism demand, and I think that it would just be way too much of a change to try to create European-style urbanism in Edmonton and probably any North American city outside of Montreal, because Montreal is basically a European city. And this is because so much of what makes European urbanism so enjoyable is the density and what has been built there for dozens, if not hundreds of years. So that was my hot take. And the reason why I don't think that's a bad thing necessarily is that these cities were not perfect. They were amazing and enjoyable in so many ways, but there were also a lot of things that were really unenjoyable. One thing is that they were extremely inaccessible for people with mobility impairments. I barely saw anyone with visible mobility impairments, like folks with walkers or wheelchairs. I maybe saw five the entire time I was there. Whereas, you know, here in Edmonton, I think that we're definitely also not perfect in that way at all. But I think you're way more likely to see just like regular people with a wheelchair, with a walker, with a cane. Whereas in those little European cities with like tons of stairs to do and inaccessible train stations, those cities really would be hard to exist in if you weren't completely able-bodied.

Mack:
My Paris experience was, you know, we were staying on the fourth floor and realized there's no elevator in the building. You're carrying your luggage all the way up. You know, it's some of the affordances we take for granted here in Canada or in a place like Edmonton just aren't the same there. Even the very first time I went to London, the place I happened to stay, you know, the elevator was like the tiniest elevator known to man. It was so small. Space comes up a lot, I think, in these comparisons between European cities and home, right? We have a lot of space. So maybe we'll never get to the density like you're talking about. It's probably also because we have too many cars, although I guess they have a lot of cars. But we have a lot of space and they don't. But that doesn't mean they don't achieve some of the things we say we want to, right?

Stephanie:
Yeah. Yeah, definitely. I mean, I think the other kind of half of that is that I was amazed at how many bike lanes and pedestrian-oriented streets and whatnot they were able to achieve on these little winding streets. In Paris especially, like I was saying, they have so many bike lanes and sharrows, or traffic-calmed, one-way streets. And people were zipping around on these, like to me, completely nonsensical, intersecting, crazy, like you know, 17th-century streets, you know what I mean? And they were able to put so much bike infrastructure in there. We are on a grid system for almost the entire city. We can make it happen. We can figure it out. If Paris on their like asterisk of roads can figure out how to make bikes work, we can figure it out on grid streets. Does that make sense?

Mack:
Well, it should. It doesn't for people here. Like heaven forbid we take away one of the perfectly wide lanes of traffic. But yes, I get what you're saying, some of the barriers that we hear about here aren't real barriers when you look at what people are able to achieve in other parts of the world.

Stephanie:
Yeah. So another thing I wanted to talk about was just the pedestrian experience. And like I was saying, I think this is really a big part of why people, why North Americans pay thousands of dollars to go for weeks to Europe because it feels so good to walk around there. And then a lot of them come back and are like, well, we could never do something like that here, which I guess is kind of what I'm saying. But yeah,

Mack:
Back to the SUV. Yep.

Stephanie:
Yeah. I'm not entirely saying never try to do anything like that here. So we're gonna put a picture on the screen here. This was in Budapest, and a lot of restaurants had this or something similar to it, where you look at this and you're like, What is this? But this was taken, you know, in the morning before lunch or dinner started. And then it's this frame that kind of looks like a table. So in the evening the servers would come out and put like plywood down on the table and boom, you've got a patio set up right there.

Mack:
Amazing.

Stephanie:
It's just like such a simple thing. And the thing is, in Edmonton, we would need like 25 permits and a three-year pilot project and like $30,000 worth of fees to make something as simple as this happen. And you'd need fire code and you'd need a million approvals to make this simple thing. And it's adaptable, you know. If it's a slow night, you don't have to put the things out. Just the patio culture in general was so lovely. You know, walking along the street past every couple of storefronts, it's just like a bunch of people just enjoying the night, talking to each other, you know, under the moonlight. It's so romantic in the very literal sense of it, but like I am romanticizing just the pedestrian culture there. But I don't know. It was just so lovely. And we're really robbed of that here, I think, because the patios here, like for example, on Whyte Avenue, it's not the same thing at all because you've got this rip-roaring freeway beside you and you're not really like integrated into the street. You know, they talk about, you know, the nightlife bleeding onto the street. And that's just like not really super possible, I think, on Whyte Avenue at this moment. Maybe if the Old Strathcona Public Realm Strategy goes forward. But also this whole thing has made me reconsider the whole patio fees decision. Maybe we should be incentivizing one of the most effective ways to create a vibrant street. I don't know. It made me reconsider it.

Mack:
You know, we can have different rules for different parts of the city depending on what we're trying to achieve or what the context is. I think a big difference though for the patios, isn't it just the size? Like we don't need a massive patio on the little street in Europe. Like some of those patios, like the one you're showing in the picture, they're pretty small. They don't need a lot of space. They don't need a lot of infrastructure, right? And it feels like all of our patios tend to be massive.

Stephanie:
Yeah, I think it was a little bit of both because there was a lot of places that just had like a little place to perch and drink your espresso.

Mack:
Or like two tables or something, yeah.

Stephanie:
And then there was this one street in Marseille. I'm gonna butcher this, but it's like Cours Julien, where it seemed to me that it was kind of the equivalent of an entertainment district because it was just like the whole street was completely shut down and there was like dozens and dozens of tables filled with so many people all drinking from different bars, but you'd grab your drink in a plastic cup and then just go meet with your friends in the middle. So we kind of swung between the two extremes of having like a little place and then big, humongous patios that were basically just like a big party. So I don't know.

Mack:
Well, patios are obviously something we want to have more of, but you know, again, with the lack of density, maybe hard to get quite to your experience in Europe. Okay, another thing you wanted to talk about was bridges. We talk about bridges a lot in Edmonton. What was your experience like with bridges in Europe?

Stephanie:
Yeah, so it's obviously been on my mind thinking about bridges with the High Level Bridge and the Low Level Bridge reaching the ends of their respective service lives. So I wanted to talk a bit about Margaret Bridge in Budapest. It was very interesting to me. It's a three-way bridge. That's the first thing that's weird. And it's kind of V-shaped because in the middle they have a connection that goes down to an island park. And it's V-shaped because they added that connection at the last minute. So, you know, construction had already started. It's the second oldest bridge in the city. It was built in the 1870s. And it was destroyed in the Second World War, along with every bridge in Budapest. And then it was rebuilt using a lot of salvaged steel from the river shortly after the war. Then, about 70 years later, in 2009, the bridge was again in terrible shape. And like I'm reading about this and I'm like, Okay, it sounds familiar. It's about the same age as our High Level Bridge. Not comparable at all in, you know, design and height, but I'm just thinking it's a little bit similar. So they took three years to reconstruct the bridge using the original appearance from before it was bombed in the war. They widened some road lanes and the sidewalk and they completed the partial bike lane that had existed. So it had road, tram, bike, and pedestrian traffic. So remember when Mayor Andrew Knack had a little bit of skepticism about the High Level Bridge replacement? He said — one of my favourite quotes from him — that we would need a megabridge. Well, honestly, almost every bridge in the cities that I went to had megabridges. It's possible. We have the technology, and we have some photos here. So first of all, the bridge was 25 metres wide and 600 metres long. And our High Level Bridge is 775 metres long and about 13 metres wide. So a little bit different, but like I don't think it's out of the realm of possibility that we could have a bridge with bike, pedestrian, tram, train, streetcar, whatever, and road. It also had four driving lanes. And we could make it a beautiful bridge. Like you can't really see from the pictures, but it's like it's a really nice bridge. On all the bridges I was walking across, I was like, dang, I wonder if we could have something like this.

Mack:
Presumably the High Level Bridge is significantly higher than most of these bridges that you experienced.

Stephanie:
Yeah, so that would obviously create issues, but even for the Low Level Bridge too, you know, it's possible. We can make it happen.

Mack:
Yeah, absolutely. Bridges get built all the time, all around the world, at various scales. It doesn't take years and billions of dollars, right? I also love that they went back to the original design for that bridge, the way you described that. That's really cool.

Stephanie:
Yeah, that was part of it, right? Because they wanted to, obviously, you know, postwar, they kind of had a lot of priorities going on. So they weren't necessarily thinking we must rebuild it to what it was before it was blown up. But then it was nice that, you know, all those years later they were able to kind of honour the original beautiful design of the bridge. And I've talked before about how infrastructure shapes cities. This is gonna sound really obvious, but if they hadn't built the bridge down to that island in the middle, they would have never had that park. And because of that bridge, they were able to have this beautiful little island park in the middle of the city. It was very nice down there. So yeah.

Mack:
Okay, one more reflection, or perspective that I wanted to ask you about. You said I don't want to hear anything about bells and crossing arms for street-level trains. Tell me more. This is like my biggest complaint about our system right now. It's way too overbuilt in terms of infrastructure.

Stephanie:
Okay, tell me why in Edmonton we seem unable to stop. I'm not gonna say we, Mack, because I know we wouldn't do it, but some Edmontonians seem incapable of not driving into the train. And meanwhile, in European cities where they have like a million of these street-level trains with no crossing arms and the cars drive on the tracks too in some of these cities. So the thing is they're literally sharing the infrastructure with them and they're fine. Like stop saying we need crossing arms because like people figure it out. It's just gonna take time for people to get used to it. That's basically what I noticed is that people were really looking out for the trams and the streetcars and that sort of thing. And I just can't wait until we get to that point. I guess the Valley Line Southeast has been operating for almost three years and then like about a year of testing before that, I guess. So hopefully people start to get used to it soon. But yeah, that was one thing that I noticed.

Mack:
Yeah, I think it's partly that just time that it takes to get used to it. I mean, you think about a place like Toronto, they've had streetcars for a lot longer. We don't hear about people running into the streetcar every day. I mean, I know it happens, but like people are more familiar with it. They're more used to it being there. And so people are just more used to the idea, I think, that they've got to look out for those things. I also think, though, that the overbuilt infrastructure that we seem unable to get away from here contributes to that. It's like because we have arms everywhere, because we have these concrete barriers, like it's a low-floor LRT, but you still have a platform you've got to walk to. You can't just cross right over to the train. Like all of this infrastructure creates this separation that if that wasn't there, would it be just more naturally integrated and it would be easier for all of us to figure out, I shouldn't go there. There's a train there. You kind of have this false sense of security, like, well there's arms and there's concrete barriers and there's walls. And so I don't have to pay as much attention. It's like, no, you do. There's a train there. Pay attention.

Stephanie:
I just hope we can go more than like six months without hearing about someone driving into the LRT.

Mack:
That would be nice. That seems like an achievable objective to shoot for, I would say.

Stephanie:
Right. And then the last thing I wanted to say with that I just thought was cool is that I got to ride on the first underground subway system on the European continent, not in Europe, because the UK was before that, even though I guess they're not in Europe anymore. I know. But yes, I got to—

Mack:
Yeah. They're not part of Europe anymore. Nope. Brexit.

Stephanie:
ride it in Budapest and I also got this cool keychain of the iconic Prague buses. If video watchers can see this, audio listeners, sorry. But yeah, so

Mack:
Very cool. Yeah.

Stephanie:
Just got to do so much nerdy transit stuff and biking stuff. I cycled in like four different cities with varying results. I'll say almost died in Prague because, again, every mode of transportation shares the same space. So just imagine me on a little Lime bike and there's like a train right behind me. And then I tried to merge off and then my wheel got stuck in the track and I almost died.

Mack:
Track, yeah.

Stephanie:
It was really scary.

Mack:
This is the first experience, so it's understandable. Had you lived there for a few years, you'd be used to it and it'd be smooth sailing, right? Yeah.

Stephanie:
Yeah, totally. And to go all the way back to the beginning, that was a very uncomfortable cycling experience. And like we would never design something like that in Edmonton. And that's the benefit, right? Whereas in Prague they don't really have that choice. So, anyways, full circle.

Mack:
Okay, great. Well I'm glad you had such a great trip and thanks for bringing back some really fun urban planning perspectives to share on Edmonton.

Stephanie:
My pleasure.

Mack:
Okay, we're gonna get into some stuff about Edmonton now, but first we have one more ad for you.

Stephanie:
This episode is brought to you by Edmonton Community Foundation, which is presenting Wills Week from Oct. 5 to 9. Here's lawyer Patty Ko in conversation with Taproot's own Karen Unland about why everyone needs a will, even you.

Karen:
I feel like people have a lot of big feelings about this kind of thing. It has to do with death. Also people might feel shame that they haven't got around to doing this important paperwork. How do you break through that to help people and get the thing done?

Patty Ko:
That's a million-dollar question, isn't it? I completely understand talking about wills is a very uncomfortable type of situation because as you said, we're dealing with death here. We're talking about the eventuality of death. One way perhaps is to change the way it is that we're looking at it and I'll talk to clients about that. Instead of focusing on the death aspect, perhaps we can look at wills or more broadly speaking, estate planning as succession or as legacy. Instead of just focusing on the part where you say, I am going to be gone. You can perhaps focus on the part where you go, OK, but someone will be succeeding me. I'm looking after the people who are here now and will be here afterwards. And also just again, that legacy planning part of what it is that you leave behind, I think helps people perhaps focus less on the unpleasant parts and perhaps looking at the more, I wouldn't call it exciting — or perhaps it is exciting, but the parts that make you feel that you're accomplishing something rather than leaving something behind.

Stephanie:
Wills Week offers online and in-person sessions about wills, executorship, and estate planning, delivered by smart, compassionate professionals like Patty. All of the sessions are free. Learn more at ecf.ca/willsweek. That's ecf.ca/willsweek.

Mack:
Okay, Stephanie, I wanted to talk about just a few things that happened while you were gone. I know you said to our team that you had the experience of being a reader, so you got to read *The Pulse* and everything. So I know you're up to speed on everything that went down because you read Taproot, and Taproot's up to speed. But I feel like there's some things we could talk about on the podcast. So let's start with the former mayors. BOMA Edmonton organized a really interesting event called *Edmonton Then and Now: The Leaders Who Shaped the City*. And they brought together five former mayors. So Don Iveson, Stephen Mandel, Bill Smith, Jan Reimer, and Amarjeet Sohi. Sohi was there virtually. The others were on stage, is my understanding. And they got to talk about downtown and the state of Edmonton and some of the challenges that we face. So did you see anything about this in your travels? Did your feed surface something about this to you?

Stephanie:
So I just mostly saw headlines, but I did see that Stephen Mandel called downtown a crap hole, which is rude.

Mack:
And rude is one word for it. Yeah, he called downtown a crap hole and he said, "The only thing downtown that has anything is the arena. If you didn't have the arena downtown, you could blow it up and no one would know."

Stephanie:
That is literally appalling to hear. If I were a downtown business owner, or if I worked at the Citadel Theatre, the AGA or the library, or lived downtown, I would be furious. Well, I am furious now because that's just so far from the truth, it's not even funny.

Mack:
Well, of course he's the guy who got the arena here, and so maybe he's, you know, trying to build on that legacy. And that was what came to mind for me when I heard the crap hole comment, right? So, first of all, as you all know, listeners and viewers, I live downtown and I've lived here for a long time. This is the former mayor calling my chosen neighbourhood a crap hole, which is not very positive. But actually, what I thought about when he said it is that the last time Stephen Mandel got up on stage and used the word crap, he was celebrated for it. You know, people look back on his comment about the crap architecture in this city as a defining moment in Edmonton's evolution to be in a big city. And I just feel like he got up on stage again and wanted to recapture some of his former glory and thought to himself, if I use the word crap, they're gonna love me once more. And they didn't. And we don't. And I say this as a Mandel supporter. I helped out with one of his campaigns. I liked him a lot as a mayor, but just inexcusable, I think, to get up there and say these kinds of things about downtown. Thankfully some of the other people on stage were a little bit more constructive. But there were a few other things I wanted to mention, Stephanie. Bill Smith, who people have mixed memories about, I feel like, was the mayor before Mandel, from 1995 to 2004. He said, "The easiest budget to balance in the City of Edmonton is the operating budget." And I'm like, really, Bill Smith? Tell us more. He says, "But you have to be determined to cut out stuff that you don't need and can't afford now." What wisdom from the former mayor

Stephanie:
Yeah, thanks, tips.

Mack:
On the budgeting. I think this budget is gonna be pretty hard to balance. I don't think it's gonna be the easiest budget to balance. And then Don Iveson, I think a lot of people have criticized his tenure for maybe not following through on some of his big promises, a big one being ending homelessness. And he got up on stage and he said our failure to end homelessness "should be heartbreaking to all of us." I agree. I think that's true.

Stephanie:
And it's, well, I mean, it's so interesting now that he's so involved with kind of federal-level housing stuff now.

Mack:
Yeah, he didn't just say as mayor, this is what we're gonna do, and then sort of ignore the file. Like he's gone on in his post-mayor life to try to continue to work on that and speak about it and try to address it. So I think it's awesome that BOMA was able to bring the five mayors together. I think it's disappointing how some of them chose to use their time on stage, you know, destructive rather than constructive. And then I saw a question about like why they didn't invite Andrew Knack to be on stage and I just thought to myself, well that's easy. If they brought Andrew on stage, if I was Andrew and I was up there, I'd just be like, the answer to any question is it's their fault. And I'm cleaning up their mess.

Stephanie:
Yeah, definitely. I wanted to say something a little bit going back to Stephen Mandel's comments, because what you were talking about reminded me a lot of this press release I got from Spilt in my inbox in August. And this was really around the time where a lot of businesses were closing. And JoAnne Pearce and Andrew Paul sent this out. Spilt is like the mocktail bar that's right around 120 Street and Jasper Avenue. And they said, you know, we've had a really tough summer so far, declining foot traffic, major construction, break-ins. Spilt experienced its worst sales week the week before last amid intense public discussion surrounding several downtown restaurant closures. "The challenges are real, but so is the damage caused by the stories we're telling ourselves. When every conversation about downtown becomes another reason not to come downtown, everyone loses. Every business owner is making enormous sacrifices because they believe in the city. The people working in these spaces deserve more than a narrative that tells everyone that their neighbourhoods are scary and impossible to access." And I think that's so true. Like I don't know what all of these downtown business people are gaining by going online every single day and saying how much they hate where their business is located. Maybe that was a bit harsh, but yeah.

Mack:
Absolutely. I think it's true. Yeah. And I don't think any business owner downtown is gonna be thrilled to hear that someone like Mayor Stephen Mandel, who was widely respected by lots of the business community, gets up there and says it's a crap hole and you could blow it up and no one would care. Like I think people would care. Obviously the businesses would care. The 10,000 or 12,000 people that live downtown would care. Like it's a pretty flippant remark, I think.

Stephanie:
Yeah, I hate that. I hate that comment so much.

Mack:
Okay, Stephanie, and on the note of more people being downtown, have you been downtown lately since you've been back?

Stephanie:
I was downtown today for the ABmunis conference, but just barely across the river. And then I also have spent some time over right by Spilt, except I was at its alcoholic sister, Clementine. Love that bar, but right in the Imagine Jasper Avenue construction. Very annoying.

Mack:
I just don't understand what's going on lately. So every day now, around 3:30, 4 o'clock, like the time we're recording this podcast, the roads just fill up. There are so many cars. And I know a lot of it is the construction. You know, everything's down to one lane and routes are closed. And my God, as a cyclist and pedestrian lately, it's been just bonkers. Like the routes change almost every day and you gotta find a new way to get there. You know, but for drivers too, and I just don't understand what's going on. Why are there so many cars all of a sudden downtown? It just sort of makes me think like, clearly there are people working downtown if there's all these vehicles, you know, in the mornings too, and the roads are really busy, it's like I'm zipping one way and the mayor's zipping the other way on his bike and they're not stuck in traffic. And you know, you kind of feel bad for the people in cars, but not really. I mean, they chose to drive

Stephanie:
Well, what's the phrase? "No one goes there, it's too crowded," except it's like no one goes downtown because the traffic is too bad, you know? Clearly people are downtown if the traffic is as bad as it is. Yeah.

Mack:
Yeah. Clearly there are. Yeah. I mean, I really hope this construction of the valley line can wrap up soon because it is having a huge, huge, huge impact. You know, there's all these events that take place at the arena and people come and it's like, how do I even get there? Like it used to be pretty clear how you got there from where you parked or from the train or whatever. And now sometimes you've got to navigate quite a bit of random pathways and, you know, mazes and things like that to get there. It's challenging for folks.

Stephanie:
Yeah, I'm more of a south-side girl. I've spent a little bit of time downtown. Like I was trying to pick up my friend from Sabor or Bodega, whichever one. And she was on the other side of the construction and we were like, Hello, like how do I get through to you? I don't understand. So I am actually really excited for it to be over because I think it's gonna be so epic when it is over, but for now it is a big pain in the butt.

Mack:
I think the biggest annoyance I have at the moment, actually, we've talked about this on the show in the past too, is just that they, I'm using they, like the proverbial they do all of these things simultaneously. It's like so we have 102 Avenue completely dug up and you can't easily access O-day'min Park from that side. And then inexplicably one day we start tearing up 107 Street right beside the LRT station. So now you can't even walk through there beside Audrey's bookshop. It's like why did that have to happen now? And there's so—

Stephanie:
And then the other side, 106 Street, is also torn up too, isn't it?

Mack:
Yep, 106 Street is also like under construction and because of the tower there, there's other things, you know. So it's just like, why, why, why? At the same time, I understand we have a short-ish construction season compared to some other places. It's not year-round. I understand that having these construction projects underway is a good thing. It means we're growing and we're building and we're evolving and we're adding new things to the city. And when things get finished, like the park, it's really amazing. But that sort of in the middle of it, when things have to happen simultaneously and there's no rhyme or reason to it, you don't really understand why. It just makes it so challenging to get around, you know?

Stephanie:
Yeah. I will say that 107 Street, as far as I understand, it's a city project to enhance the infrastructure along 107 Street to service all of the new developments that are going in there. So that city funding comes as far as I know from the Housing Accelerator Fund. And then also all of those buildings that will require that infrastructure are also part of the student housing incentive. So they need the Housing Accelerator Fund money. So all of those federal programs tend to have like you must have shovels on the ground by this time. So I would say that's probably why. And also the same thing on the other side of 106 Street. I'm pretty sure that is also getting some housing accelerator fund money. So there's a reason. I'm not saying it's good that they're doing this. But yeah.

Mack:
Well, I'm not saying it's bad that they're doing it. Like I think those are all good reasons why these projects happen, right? I think that's good clarity. Thank you for that. I can just see the knock-on effects though, right? As well. Like this is now happening maybe because of those funding agreements. At some point, all of this construction will be done. And then you know what we'll be talking about? They've got to redo Jasper Avenue because all of the dump trucks and everything else that have ripped up the road over the last two years of construction is gonna mean we're gonna have to resurface all of that. You know, it just feels a little bit sometimes like it's never-ending, you know? I just want a little bit of time without construction.

Stephanie:
I know. I remember like a year ago I said, it'll all be done soon and then it'll be so nice downtown. And Mack, you were like, construction ending? And I just feel like when I'm like 60 and I'm gonna be talking to my grandchildren and I'll be like, and yes, once we did think that there would be no more construction downtown, but there always will be. Yeah, it's a growing city. I don't know.

Mack:
Yeah. I also want to say, yes, I chose to live here and I continue to choose to live here. And I understand that downtown is gonna have probably more of this construction than some other parts of the city, but I also know everyone agrees the way to help downtown is to have more people living here. And part of doing that means recognizing that there are people who live here. It is their home. It is not just a crap hole, and the day-to-day experience of people living here really matters if we want to increase the population and attract more people to live downtown. So I do think that's an important thing to keep in mind as we say yes to all of these, you know, construction projects over the years ahead. Okay, last thing I wanted to touch on, Stephanie, referendum. This is pretty crazy to me. The latest number I saw was more than 610,000 ballots, I think, have been requested by Albertans. So just crazy numbers. You have until Friday at midnight. So today, if you're listening to this, the day this comes out, Sept. 25 at midnight, to request your mail-in ballot. And you have to get it back to Elections Alberta by Oct. 16 in order for it to be counted. So you gotta move quick if you haven't already. You know, huge, massive undertaking. We had Dave Cournoyer on Taproot Exchange recently to talk a little bit about some of the electoral boundary stuff, but also the implications of this referendum and how much of an undertaking it's gonna be to count the vote all over the province. And as this episode comes out at noon on Sept. 25, Karen Unland, our co-founder, is talking to Senator Paula Simons about the referendum questions and all of the craziness that's happening in Alberta and what it's like to be a senator from Alberta during this time. So I'm really looking forward to that conversation and I'm sure we'll write something up about that as well. Okay, we got one more thing to tell you about. The Pit Tour. We've promised some audio and video of the Pit Tour from the past, and we've got that now.

Stephanie:
Yeah, if you missed it, we've got the panel. CJSR recorded it and put it on one of their radio shows. So yeah, take a listen. We've got links in the show notes. In case you did not get enough of my voice in this episode, you can listen to me more.

Mack:
For some people I think it felt like you weren't really gone. Like there was a couple episodes I did without you, but you had one that you'd already done with Coun. Salvador and Aaron from YEG Bike Coalition. And so, you know, you've been in people's ears and in their inboxes with your stories, even while you were out experiencing all that Europe has to offer. Yeah.

Stephanie:
I was like a little bit of a ghost, you know?

Mack:
Okay, well we're glad to have you back, Stephanie, and both of us will be back again next week for another episode. Until then, I'm Mack

Stephanie:
I'm Stephanie.

Mack:
And we're...

Both:
Speaking Municipally.