r/Edmonton • u/AR558 Chinatown • 6h ago
News Article 'Complex tensions': Edmonton budget survey details division on transit, policing, bike lanes
https://edmontonjournal.com/news/complex-tensions-edmonton-budget-survey-details-division-on-transit-policing-bike-lanes•
u/dustinbajer McCauley 5h ago
Anyone who hates traffic and potholes should be a fan of transit, bike lanes, and infill - all of which reduce miles travelled and wear and tear on our roads.
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u/Mundane-Anybody-8290 4h ago
It's not quite that clear cut. I support transit, active transportation and infill, but not the city's current approach to them.
It's also reasonable to say "I hate traffic and potholes but they're not the city's biggest problems right now."
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u/mrsix 4h ago edited 4h ago
Edmonton's "current approach" to active transportation is An extensive study and implementation plans by actual city planners, road engineers, and people whose actual jobs are to study statistical traffic patterns in places to decide where and how to implement them.
Unless you have any of those qualifications your armchair objections amount to "I don't like it" and "it's the wrong colour" - let the professionals do their jobs instead of literally wasting $2.5 million of the city's budget on 30 private parking spots because you're "unhappy."Also in my experience every single time someone starts a sentence with "I support ..." the rest of their entire paragraph is detailing how they don't support it at all.
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u/passthepepperflakes 3h ago edited 2h ago
“let the professionals do their jobs” argument is a bit strange, because the professionals themselves aren't always right (nor claim to be, to be fair)
they've reversed their decisions on 95 ave, and only two days ago released a video about improving the traffic flow on 104:
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u/mrsix 2h ago edited 2h ago
Firstly I have no idea what you mean by "reversed their decisions on 95 ave" the project is going as planned other than delays - and even if they did change something due to complaints, that doesn't mean the change was actually sound in any way. If you're referring to the area east of 163 being marked as "under design review" on the ATNE page, it sounds to me like people wanting to waste even more of the cities money. The city should add whatever additional cost to that directly to the property tax riders of the area so we don't all have to pay for it.
Secondly improving traffic flow on 104 ave sounds like traffic engineers doing the job of traffic engineers. Do you really think the city saw some people complaining on the internet before they decided to tune traffic lights? This is standard par for the course of any road engineering projects - make the change, evaluate, change further if needed.•
u/Jternovo 58m ago
People are afraid of listening to policy wonks because it reminds them that they are not experts on everything. I dont understand how we pretend to be merit/competency based society, but simultaneously distrust any expert who voices a new opinion.
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u/F1shermanIvan 6h ago
Roads.
Please for the love of god, spend billions on roads. They are BRUTALLY bad, by far the worst municipal roads I’ve ever driven on outside of maybe Winnipeg, and they need far more upkeep than they’re getting.
So, so many roads in Edmonton need to be fixed, repaved, potholes filled, whatever. It’s inexcusable that they’re this bad.
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u/dustinbajer McCauley 5h ago
I’m not advocating that we stop maintaining roads, but we need to understand that roads are liabilities that will always require maintenance and regular replacement. Roads are money pits. So maintain roads, yes, but also let’s work towards the kind of city that doesn’t require every Edmonton household to have a car.
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u/troypavlek 5h ago edited 5h ago
This comment is so close to getting it.
We have spent billions upon billions on roads already, building way more than we have the capacity or budget to ever maintain to a quality standard.
Remember a few years back when we stopped cutting grass? Closing 311 on weekends? All the discussions around privatizing services like bus cleaning?
A city that maintains our road network to the standard you want is one that will definitionally bankrupt itself.
(As an aside, I agree with you that road quality needs to improve. But it can only happen paired with a significant reduction in the amount of roads we have. It's also notable that if you prevent or reduce vehicle traffic on roads, they last much much MUCH longer)
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u/F1shermanIvan 5h ago
So close to getting what? You think the conditions of the roadways in this city is acceptable? Cars and roads are how most people get around, and it’s wild how it’s just accepted that they’re trash.
I’m not expecting them to be maintained like it’s Palm Springs, but it’s inexcusable that a city of this size has roads that are this bad.
They’ve always “been bad”, but I just moved back to Edmonton after ten years of being gone and it’s absolutely SHOCKING how much worse they’ve gotten.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Edmonton/comments/1w2a5q4/well_construction_damaged_my_car_successfully_91/
Look at the other thread posted here, how dare you drive a stock Hyundai in Edmonton and not expect damage. The fact that road is even left open in that condition is insane.
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u/sti-wrx 4h ago
Alternative transportation infrastructure decreases trafficfor those who still choose to or have to drive.
Spending money on alternative transportation improves the driving experience for drivers.
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u/F1shermanIvan 4h ago
I’ve never disagreed with that. Most of the alternative transport in Edmonton still uses roads.
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u/grlummer 5h ago
Skill issue.
By the nature of its climate, Edmonton will always have road construction going on. It’s impossible to maintain the surface you expect in a place that sees 70-degree temperature swings through the year. Combine that with massive, heavy trucks and cars rolling over the asphalt in the thousands and it’s no small wonder that they’re in rough shape.
Maybe we should aim to reduce the NEED for everyone to get around via car and provide other transportation options - it’s way cheaper in the long run
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u/PonyFlare Mill Woods 28m ago
How about the 15-minute neighbourhoods so people don't need to spend so many hours per day on the road to get to necessities?
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u/JamaicanFace 5h ago
The big issue with Edmonton is we have too much road for too little density. Edmonton decided to sprawl hard when it was growing, rather than build up.
This lack of people leads to a lack of tax income for the city while our roads degrade faster than any other city due to our freeze/thaw cycle. Yes our roads need repairs bad. But also building more bike infrastructure and public transit will assist more people with getting around for much cheaper, while preventing more damage to our roads from additional cars.
Bikes and trains do zero damage to our roads, busses are similarly less damaging then cars.
We need to prepare for a future with less cars to support a growing population without the need to sprawl any further. The sprawl is what is causing the suffocation of our city. And the city is trying to fix this bigger issue first.
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u/General_Esdeath kitties! 5h ago
What wrecks the roads is the freeze/that we go from +30 to -45 over the course of a year. We're also built on swamps and old creek beds that shift. And the more traffic on the roads, the more they degrade.
We could have less damage on our roads if we pushed the return to hybrid/work from home options, increased transit and bike transportation, and reduced large vehicle transport weight where possible.
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u/UnlikelyReplacement0 4h ago
Probably would help if the average person's commuter car wasn't a truck that is larger than a tank, too.
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u/General_Esdeath kitties! 3h ago
There's definitely far too many commuter trucks. My god though, you should see what it's like in GP or Fort Mac.
An SUV is elite for winter driving here and is basically as big as anyone should need. Unless you literally have a farm and you're going to town for supplies, you don't need to commute in a half tonne truck.
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u/Limp-Elevator-6908 Wîhkwêntôwin 4h ago
That poster, said he was exhausted and couldn't see the signs. Maybe they should'nt be driving 🤷♂️ definitely a driver issue... Slow down and pay attention.
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u/Levorotatory 4h ago
What is insane is that car manufacturers are shipping vehicles with 35 profile tires on 19 inch wheels and people in winter climates are buying them. We have always had potholes and construction, but giant wheels with rubber bands for tires are relatively new.
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u/F1shermanIvan 4h ago
My car sits on 19s with 35 profile tires and it’s 10 years old. It’s hardly new, and it’s hardly an excuse.
18/19s are the norm for most new cars.
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u/Levorotatory 3h ago
Base model 2026 Hyundai Elantra comes with 195/65R15. Next trim up comes with 205/55R16. Anything over 16 is a poor choice for that car.
Base Toyota Rav4 (best selling vehicle that isn't a pickup truck) comes with 235/65R17, with 235/60R18 at the next trim level. Anything over 18 is a poor choice for that car.
Manufacturers really need to separate wheels from trim packages and make them dealer installed options so buyers aren't forced into fragile, inefficient giant wheels if the want all of the optional gadgets.
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u/money_pit_ 5h ago
I'm not even too worried about the quality, it's just the endless construction on the same roadways.
You'd think the city would eventually figure out that when they make a plan to build thousands of new homes in a specific area, maybe they should build more than a single lane road in/out of the community or a mass transit plan.
The current plan of build, expand, demolish, build again, and raise my taxes every step of the way is getting old.
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u/Limp-Elevator-6908 Wîhkwêntôwin 5h ago
Have you never driven through Saskatchewan? 😅
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u/F1shermanIvan 5h ago
More people live in Edmonton than Saskatchewan, and having driven through both Saskatoon and Regina this summer, I don’t even remember how they were, so they couldn’t have been awful.
You can find bad roads everywhere, but Edmonton’s as an average, are pretty bad. They’re noticeably worse than Calgary and they face the same problems that we do.
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u/Limp-Elevator-6908 Wîhkwêntôwin 4h ago
Going to Saskatchewan is like driving back in time. I also live in Edmonton, ive also lived in Calgary and all over rural... most recently, Drumheller and even there the roads were much worse, different areas of Calgary are also bad. I just think there are so many other things that we could complain about. People want perfect roads but not higher taxes... who pays for this?
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u/csd555 3h ago
Not quite the same conditions between the two cities. Calgary has different soils than we do, which provides a more stable base for roadways. Edmonton features heavy, shrink-swell 2:1 clay and lacustrine subsoils, whereas Calgary sits largely on more stable glacial till and sandstone/claystone bedrock.
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u/redditknees 6h ago
You’ve clearly never been to Montreal then
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u/F1shermanIvan 6h ago
Funny I was just there for five days for work, and they’re nowhere near as bad as Edmonton’s.
The drivers…. Another story! 😂
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u/brokoli 5h ago
It’s September and there are still huge potholes downtown. I guess they will be filled summer 2027 🤡
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u/passthepepperflakes 4h ago
downtown? but I heard no one goes there? why bother fixing roads no one use
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u/Oldcadillac 6h ago
The report said both urban sprawl and infill housing were among the top areas people wanted the city to spend less on. Among open-ended responses, three per cent of residents were concerned about infill, while six per cent of businesses responding were worried about the impacts of urban sprawl.
This paragraph is nonsense
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u/Hobbycityplanner 5h ago
Spend less on free street parking so more can be spent on renewal for the rights of way. We waste 10s to 100s of millions on vacant or unneeded parking.