Avenuer
Senior Member
Curious what Councillor Stevenson and Tom Girvan (Director of Downtown Economy) would think about the current state of things.
- Thread starter Daveography
- Start date
The_Cat
Senior Member
So sad to see these stations are cleaned up, but some people wreck them.
MacLac
Senior Member
Who wrecks them? Do they look like these guys?
thommyjo
Senior Member
I don’t get why our city doesn’t treat central areas with high foot traffic with a more incremental mindset. I get that random suburban sweeping of gravel from parking spaces is most efficiently done in one coordinated sweep. So wait for all snow to be gone, etc is key.
But we should treat our downtown and main streets like you would your house. You clean and tidy every day and occasionally make a big clean every few weeks or month.
All week we could have already been sweeping certain roads with 100% dryness. Sidewalks being cleaned. Garbage removed.
I still don’t get the math on this stuff for the cleaning budgets we approve. It should only take a team of a few dozen people rotating shifts to keep our LRT stations consistently clean. How is it that every time I take the train I see no staff and always garbage?? Yet tens of millions are somehow being spent??
IanO
Superstar
Keep in mind that TransEd is responsible here.
thommyjo
Senior Member
But P3s are magical and the best model!
J_gordo
Active Member
Because the rest of downtown Edmonton is so clean….
IanO
Superstar
Another day, another unsafe, uninviting and disgraceful experience with our new very expensive infrastructure looking horrendous. 2/3 shelters had open drug use, garbage everywhere, totally unkept and overall an unacceptable look/feel with no officers anywhere in sight.
Kosy123
Senior Member
Not for the entire system, but 102 Ave station specifically. Definitely agree that it's going to spread out TPO resources though which should be an issue they should pro-actively address somehow.
BASE
Active Member
Such a sad state of affairs. I never see police around.
yeggator
Senior Member
The western half of the dead mall desperately needs to go to make the area around this station feel like less of a black hole for vibrancy. My girlfriend and I were boarding the train here and she said she’d love to see it razed and converted to a new park (that should be fenced off for private access to prevent encampments) because there needs to be more green space downtown.
Side note: I mentioned O’Daymin park, which she’s never seen but really wants to check it out. So I guess it’s a picnic date once the weather warms up.
whattheheck
Active Member
God, the Valley line DT is such a mess.
'Take transit' City Hall says.
I say, 'You first, Mayor and Councillors' - daily, with no entourage. Let's see what would happen then.
The truth is, nothing is going to change. The city will blame the province, the province will sit on its hands and the city, under the constant pressure of social justice warriors (and many on council sit in that category) will continue to enable the situation. No tough love, no telling other northern communities to take on some responsibility etc etc. No zero tolerance because of 'feelings' or whatever other BS. And the great circle of nothing changes continues.
(And please spare me your holier-than-thouness. I have suffered and continue to deal with trauma in my own personal life, setback after setback. But I do my best each day to be a productive member of society. In fact, I would argue that seeing our city turn into one big homeless shelter with open-air drug use is 'triggering' for people like me!!)
The reality is, the drugs out there are brutal. Compelled treatment is the only course of action here.
As for the cleanliness, that is all on City Hall. Since Donny boy's days, there's been this constant talk of the urban realm etc etc. But, they sure don't know how to follow through; and always default to the need to raise taxes to get 'er done.
No: reallocate resources. How many programs and services does the city provide that's NOT part of the core responsibility of a municipal government? Start there. But being 'progressives', there is no way this council will make the necessary cuts.
What this city needs is a Mark Carney type mayor; someone to cut through the platitudes and take action.
I am sad what Edmonton has become.
'Take transit' City Hall says.
I say, 'You first, Mayor and Councillors' - daily, with no entourage. Let's see what would happen then.
The truth is, nothing is going to change. The city will blame the province, the province will sit on its hands and the city, under the constant pressure of social justice warriors (and many on council sit in that category) will continue to enable the situation. No tough love, no telling other northern communities to take on some responsibility etc etc. No zero tolerance because of 'feelings' or whatever other BS. And the great circle of nothing changes continues.
(And please spare me your holier-than-thouness. I have suffered and continue to deal with trauma in my own personal life, setback after setback. But I do my best each day to be a productive member of society. In fact, I would argue that seeing our city turn into one big homeless shelter with open-air drug use is 'triggering' for people like me!!)
The reality is, the drugs out there are brutal. Compelled treatment is the only course of action here.
As for the cleanliness, that is all on City Hall. Since Donny boy's days, there's been this constant talk of the urban realm etc etc. But, they sure don't know how to follow through; and always default to the need to raise taxes to get 'er done.
No: reallocate resources. How many programs and services does the city provide that's NOT part of the core responsibility of a municipal government? Start there. But being 'progressives', there is no way this council will make the necessary cuts.
What this city needs is a Mark Carney type mayor; someone to cut through the platitudes and take action.
I am sad what Edmonton has become.
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CplKlinger
Senior Member
What action is the city supposed to take? Homelessness, addiction, and social services are a provincial responsibility. The judicial system is a provincial responsibility. Housing is a provincial responsibility. Every time the city tries to do anything about any of that, the province tells it to stay in its lane. So what could a "Mark Carney-type mayor" do in reality? Why don't we need a "Mark Carney-type premier"? The province has the fiscal capacity, the resources, and most importantly, the actual mandate. How about they stay in their lane and spend more time addressing judicial backlogs, shelter gaps and overcrowding, and addictions issues, and spend less time policing where cities build bike lanes and where public libraries put books?
Also, multiple councilors use transit. Sheesh, one of them literally quit his job with ETS to run for council and posts regular pictures of his commute on transit.
whattheheck
Active Member
What action is the city supposed to take?
How about a zero-tolerance approach. This is not about 'targeting' the vulnerable. There are plenty who are living rough who are not bothering anyone. But why, for gods sake, are we as a society allowing open air drug use? How about calling out the communities outside Edmonton who are quietly sending their vulnerable to the city, so they don't have to deal with it?
As for the cleanliness and grime, yes, the city can and should do more. I don't have to explain that.
As for the province, yes, you're 100% right. They are terrible. But it should be noted that in B.C. at one time, they had a left-leaning council, an NDP provincial government and Trudeau in Ottawa. That was all three levels of government going ALL IN on the academia perspective to deal with drug use etc. And - last I checked - it didn't work at all.
Something is very broken here. The city, with its bleeding heart, can't and does not have the ability to solve it. City Halls responsibility here is to its citizens to ensure the streets are safe and clean. That means, yes, making some difficult choices. Which they are not capable of.
And to bring this back to the Valley Line. The city has/ is spending$4billion plus tax dollars to criss-cross this line through Edmonton. We have heard for years about how 'transformative' this line will be etc etc.
Well, all of that will be for nothing, if the Valley line turns into a mobile homeless shelter with open air drug use. The same goes for the stations/ stops and pedway connections.
What an utter travesty that would be. Next stop: Homeless station, Homeless. Change here for the 'Let's do drugs' and 'Piss and Feces' lines, with connections to 'Meth Central'
How about a zero-tolerance approach. This is not about 'targeting' the vulnerable. There are plenty who are living rough who are not bothering anyone. But why, for gods sake, are we as a society allowing open air drug use? How about calling out the communities outside Edmonton who are quietly sending their vulnerable to the city, so they don't have to deal with it?
As for the cleanliness and grime, yes, the city can and should do more. I don't have to explain that.
As for the province, yes, you're 100% right. They are terrible. But it should be noted that in B.C. at one time, they had a left-leaning council, an NDP provincial government and Trudeau in Ottawa. That was all three levels of government going ALL IN on the academia perspective to deal with drug use etc. And - last I checked - it didn't work at all.
Something is very broken here. The city, with its bleeding heart, can't and does not have the ability to solve it. City Halls responsibility here is to its citizens to ensure the streets are safe and clean. That means, yes, making some difficult choices. Which they are not capable of.
And to bring this back to the Valley Line. The city has/ is spending$4billion plus tax dollars to criss-cross this line through Edmonton. We have heard for years about how 'transformative' this line will be etc etc.
Well, all of that will be for nothing, if the Valley line turns into a mobile homeless shelter with open air drug use. The same goes for the stations/ stops and pedway connections.
What an utter travesty that would be. Next stop: Homeless station, Homeless. Change here for the 'Let's do drugs' and 'Piss and Feces' lines, with connections to 'Meth Central'
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CplKlinger
Senior Member
Because there's no room in the jails to hold all of them, so after their initial processing they get released until a judge can finally hear their case. That's a provincial thing. As for calling out other communities, Edmonton has been but that doesn't mean they'll listen. And again, that's just talk and not the action you want to see.
Sure, I'd love to see more cleaning. But we also need to acknowledge that it's a glorified game of whack-a-mole so long as there's no place for those people to go - be it shelters or jails. Again, that's a provincial thing. All the city can do is hire enough janitors to follow every homeless person with a broom and mop.
Well, let's focus on Alberta. Where is our promised "compassionate intervention centre" to treat addicts who don't want to be treated? Where's our recovery community for those who do want treatment? Why don't we have enough shelter or jail space for those who need them? Why are we getting so mad at the city for not mopping up the water fast enough while giving the province a pass for leaving the floodgates open?
If we don't want mobile shelters, we need more permanent shelters. That is a provincial responsibility. They love preaching about staying in one's lane, and it is well past time that they practice what they preach.