Key takeaways:
- The City council votes 10 to 3 to keep the promise to construct a pedway from LRT to Station Lands.
- A mixed-use tower expansion near Chinatown in downtown Edmonton will accommodate 5,000 individuals.
City of Edmonton to build pedway:
The goal for a future pedway connecting the Churchill LRT station and development north of downtown Edmonton was in danger of tumbling Monday as councilors argued — and eventually dominated — a move to use $26.5 million elsewhere.
The pedway is a portion of a contract with Qualico, constructing the mixed-use residential tower growth along 103rd Avenue, north of the Royal Alberta Museum.
Coun. Anne Stevenson introduced a move to clear the pedway from the project and indicated the city utilized the money to fund other public amenities, such as landscaping, gardens, and children’s play zones.
Read more: 15th Yearly Deep Freeze winter celebration wraps up in Edmonton
“Pedways aren’t necessarily the kind of public infrastructure that we must be funding it,” Stevenson stated in an interview with CBC News Monday. “They’ve been shown to detract from street level energy; they take away from a lot of what we want to succeed in the downtown.” Source – cbc.ca
Two counterparts sided with her — Michael Janz and Jo-Anne Wright — but the board as a whole dominated the move 10 to 3.
Previous June, the last council supported the project, including $24 million of city funds to make public amenity space near the towers and streetscape modifications between 97th and 101st streets.
