Budget 2023-2026 Final Update - Part 3: Common Themes from Edmontonians

Over the last few weeks, I’ve received well over a thousand emails from Edmontonians. This is by far and away the highest number of emails I’ve ever received for a 4-year budget cycle. The most common topics that people reached out about were: climate change, housing affordability, support for people experiencing homelessness, safe transportation choices (ex: Terwillegar Drive, bike lanes, improvements to transit), the state of our downtown, policing, Lewis Farms Rec Centre/Library, and the Valley Zoo. I was not able to keep up with the volume of messages so I wanted to cover each of those topics below. While I hope you read about each one, I recognize that this part is very long and so I will label each section in case you want to only read about a specific item.

Ward-Specific Capital Projects

Every item listed in this blog post was approved in the Capital Budget so instead of listing those again, I’ll focus on the remaining areas that people contacted me about.

Lewis Farm Recreation Centre/Library

After approving this project last year, inflation drove the cost up and the recommended change was to shift from a 53m pool and the 25m deep dive pool to a single 25m pool. Before we debated this recommended change, a separate motion was brought forward to reduce the project from $311 million to $185 million. Fortunately, while it was a close vote, a majority of council did not agree with the motion to reduce the budget which would have likely led to the near elimination of most of the project since this is more than a recreation centre. It’s a library, a district park, and a satellite City maintenance yard to help provide better snow clearing and maintenance of green spaces.

Unfortunately, while I did make a motion to increase the budget to address the inflationary pressures and to ensure that we retain the pools as originally planned, I had to withdraw the motion as it was clear that there was not going to be majority support on council to approve those inflationary costs. What that means is that the originally approved budget of $311 million is retained and everything originally approved will be built except for the pools. To be clear, there will still be a 25m pool and many other aquatic features but there will not be a 53m pool and there will not be a separate 25m deep dive pool.

While I know this will still be an incredible facility and an important community hub for decades to come, I worry that the reduction of the pool space will ultimately cost more in the future to rectify as we have a city-wide shortage of pool space for communities and children as well as elite aquatic programs.

Winterburn Road and Webber Greens Drive

Anyone living west of the Henday already knows the need for these roads to be improved. During the PM rush hour, it can take 30-60 minutes to get through the backlog, especially on Winterburn Road. I put forward a motion to fund roadway upgrades across the city and it was defeated.

I’m very concerned that this wasn’t approved because of the serious safety issues. Besides the previously mentioned backlog that forms, there is a new safety issue at the intersection of 231st Street/Stony Plain Road. The traffic on this road now backs up beyond the turning lane and onto the highway. At this point the road speed is 100km/h and having traffic back up on the highway cannot be allowed to continue. I will be putting forward a motion in the new year asking our City Administration how they will deal with unsafe road conditions at locations like this because the current solution of putting up a sign is not acceptable. I’ll be sure to provide an update once we get this report back.

Neighbourhood Renewal

While most of Ward Nakota Isga has already had Neighbourhood Renewal in some form (ex: microsurfacing, overlay, reconstruction), there are three communities that have not received any attention since the program started in 2009: Glenwood (west of 163rd Street, Belmead, and La Perle. Fortunately all three now have a firm schedule for Neighbourhood Renewal (reconstruction).

Glenwood is scheduled for 2025 and engagement has already started. Belmead and La Perle are going to be completed as a combined reconstruction project due to their similar condition and since they are beside each other. By doing this as a combined project, it will produce better prices. Reconstruction in larger communities is typically a 2-3 year body of work.

This work will be staged so that once the first part of the work is done in one community, the crews that did the first phase of reconstruction will move to the next community. What this means is that Belmead starts reconstruction in 2026 and La Perle is in 2027. Reconstruction is completely new roads and sidewalks. This also means that there will be opportunities to address traffic safety issues through roadway design.

This work is long overdue and I’m excited to have an approved budget and firm timeline for all the remaining communities.

City-Wide Capital Projects

Housing

As you have heard me say over and over again for years, housing/shelter operations/mental health support/addictions support/etc. are all the jurisdiction of the provincial government. Although this is their responsibility, we recognize that this is a major issue and we need to do our part to help support the provincial government address this. After years and years of asking, a major first step occurred on October 1 thanks to former Premier Jason Kenney. You can read more about that here.

As noted in that post, that announcement does move us in the right direction but it doesn’t resolve everything which is why council unanimously approved funding for affordable housing. With over 2,700 units of affordable housing constructed over the last 4 years, we need about the same amount from 2023-2026 to ensure most people have access to affordable and supportive housing. It appears that the federal government will again have matching funds to help construct more housing and so council has approved just under $23 million in our Capital Budget and approximately $80 million in our Operating Budget to ensure we are ready for that announcement.

Of the over 2,700 units of affordable housing built from 2019-2022, over 600 were 24/7 supportive housing for our hardest to house neighbours. Most of those 600 units will be opening very soon which should make a huge difference in our city as we need approximately 916 units total and with the units opening up soon, that should provide homes for two-thirds of those that need it the most. This is obviously one of the most critical areas to support and we will continue to try and work with the provincial government to help them create housing for everyone so that no one is living on the street.

Transportation Infrastructure (Roads, Bike Lanes, Sidewalks, and Transit)

No matter how you choose to move throughout Edmonton. You deserve a safe way to make that choice.

I assume that isn’t a contentious statement but I also recognize that for at least one specific mode of transportation, bike lanes, it can cause some people to get quite angry. They assume that investing in a mode of transportation that isn’t for vehicles is somehow seen as a ‘war on cars’ even though there might be significant investments being made in other modes as well. So I want to spend some time reviewing our investment in transportation.

$4.2 billion. That’s how much money will be invested in roads within the City of Edmonton from 2015-2026. I chose that timeframe because that is specially what I will have approved since first being elected to serve. That $4.2 billion doesn’t include the provincial investment in the Henday since that is a provincial road.

Contained within that $4.2 billion are major roadway projects like Yellowhead and Terwillegar Drive. It includes the 50th Street grade separation project so that people won’t be stuck waiting at a train crossing. It includes having proper roads in our previously unserviced industrial areas (ex: Winterburn Industrial) which will help with economic development. It includes the Neighbourhood Renewal Program which has likely been the most popular program I’ve seen in my time on council. It includes the Alley Renewal Program which I brought forward early in my time on council. It includes the Arterial Roadway Renewal Program which prior to 2015, was only being funded at $25 million/year and almost 20% of our arterial roads were rated in poor condition. Now, it is funded at $55 million/year and we are down to 11% of our arterial roads in poor condition.

I could go on and on about how much the city has invested in our roads but I’ll share one final point: the 2023-2026 investment in our roads is at the highest per year level in this city’s history. We are going to be spending $1.8 billion on roads over the next 4 years.

I share this because some people assume that investment in other modes of transportation is lessening the investment in our roads and this clearly proves otherwise. It’s not an either/or. It’s not driver versus pedestrian/cyclist/transit user. The numbers prove that if you are one of the 75% of people who drive as your primary mode of transportation, City Council has never invested more in making our roads better.

But along with making our roads better, this council is finally investing in the 25% of Edmontonians who do not drive as their primary mode of transportation. For far too long, we have neglected those who cannot drive or choose not to drive. As noted at the top, not only do the 25% of Edmontonians deserve a safe transportation choice, they deserve an efficient choice.

Investing in other modes of transportation does not mean someone is being forced to give up their car, it means that those that don’t drive are equally deserving of good transportation options. It also means that people who might have the choice not to drive due to rising costs of car ownership, which is approximately $10,000/year, could choose to use a different mode of transportation if they want.

This is all about choosing how you want to move in our city.

So while it shouldn’t be exclusively about the numbers, I think it is important to provide context to the $100 million investment in bike lanes. Over the same 12 year period referenced above, this investment will account for far less than 1% of our entire investment in our city. Putting that into perspective, regional household travel surveys show that 2% of people bike as their primary mode of transportation. Of course it’s worth noting that the more central you are, the higher that number is whereas those on the edges of our city would be less likely to bike. But looking at that total, we are not even spending a proportional amount of money on this transportation choice.

A final important point is understanding how that money could be used. Take the reconstruction of 178th Street as a recent west end example. During the reconstruction of that road, a decision was made to turn the previous sidewalk on the west side of the road into a multi-use trail. Since the sidewalk was going to be reconstructed anyway, turning it into a multi-use trail provides people with a new transportation choice without the removal of the lanes for vehicles. The cost of building a multi-use trail is identical to building a smaller sidewalk so in this case we spent money on bike infrastructure but it didn’t cost more than what would have normally been done and now a new option exists.

That is just one example of how this funding can be used. In other cases, it may be used for what happened in Garneau. Garneau underwent Neighbourhood Renewal and as part of that project, 110th Street was rebuilt to include a dedicated bike lane. There’s another great example of not impacting the commuting traffic on 109th Street while providing Edmontonians with a safe and efficient alternative. This also costs money but it was no different than if we just rebuilt the local road. That’s another example of what the approved funding could go to.

I think in the west end, many residents still remember the terrible bike lane installed in September 2013 on 95th Avenue. I know I do. It was installed a month before I was elected and it didn’t really help anyone. A lane of traffic was removed and a painted bike lane was added. That was never going to help create new ridership because outside of a small group, who wants to ride their bike beside 50km/h or 60km/h traffic with only a painted line separating them from a vehicle?

While many people remember that, the City hasn’t been doing anything like that since that point. Council removed that lane and instead directed City staff to create options like the two examples referenced above. It has allowed for new choices to be added in a thoughtful way.

Even with some of the cost comparisons and information above, I know there are some who will still wonder exactly how much this impacts their taxes. For 2023, if this wasn’t approved, it would reduce the tax increase of approximately 4.96% to 4.91%. For an average home valued at $400,000, this is an approximately $1 total increase for 2023. While $1 may not be a significant change, there were corresponding decreases in the budget to stop projects that would not have provided as much of a benefit. The 100th Street bridge going over McDougall Hill Rd was cancelled. That saved over $17 million. There was also a change in scope to the High Level Bridge renewal to remove the full implementation of enhancements to the top deck for people walking and biking. That change in scope saved $70 million. Those two reductions almost covered the entire city-wide investment in active pathway infrastructure over the next 4 years.

For sidewalks, we will be spending a little over $200 million primarily on renewal of existing infrastructure but there are some new sidewalks planned across the city, specifically areas where there are missing links that need to be filled so that those who walk can more easily get where they need to go. This work is especially important for those with limited mobility because when a sidewalk has large cracks or is uneven, it can be extremely difficult for someone to travel in their community.

The final area I want to highlight is transit. In the Capital Budget, there is approved funding to purchase the land necessary to extend the Metro Line LRT to Castle Downs. This is long overdue. It’s important to have a dedicated LRT spine to all parts of the city. That can then be supplemented with bus rapid transit (BRT) and transit priority measures for our buses. The amount required for planning the first phase of BRT work was approved and that will be for routes running from the west to the U of A and from the north to our downtown core. Transit priority measures were also approved and that work will happen across the city. For those not familiar with transit priority measures, the best example for those of us in the west is likely the traffic light heading west on Stony Plain Road at 124th Street. At that location, the bus gets to jump the vehicle traffic and there will be more of that installed across the city.

I supported these new investments in transit because when I supported the Bus Network Redesign a commitment was made to Edmontonians that we would start investing in the service after creating the new foundation. Along with the improvements to transit in the Operating Budget, this is a major step forward in providing more efficient and reliable transit in Edmonton.

The transportation section could have likely been a blog post on its own but I know that this is often the one that generates the most passion. The Capital Budget shows that it shouldn’t be about forcing people to choose a specific mode of transportation but rather letting people make that choice for themselves by giving them viable options.

The final comment I’ll offer is from my first 8 years serving as the council representative on the City of Edmonton Youth Council. Too often, I think councils have made decisions for today instead of remembering that the world changes and what people want changes over time. Over the years, I heard example after example of youth who want to have different mobility choices. They wanted these choices for environmental and economic reasons. Not providing those choices will result in us not being able to attract and retain talent.

One other example to mention is from a few years ago when I met with the General Manager of Edmonton’s own BioWare, one of the most acclaimed video game studios in the world. Prior to moving to the EPCOR Tower in our downtown, they were located just off the Whitemud on Calgary Trail. At the time, they were thinking of moving and I asked why they were considering a change since this location is very easily accessible by car. The answer has always stuck with me because it’s a similar answer I’ve heard from other employers over the years. The employees wanted to work in a location where they could choose different modes of transportation. Now that talent is more mobile than ever, ensuring that cities are providing the quality of life that people want is critical to attracting and retaining talent.

Just because each individual person might not see value in investing in a specific option doesn’t mean we should force everyone to use the mode of transportation that we like the most. This Capital Budget clearly shows that no matter how you choose to move, you are going to have more safe and efficient options.

Investing in Downtown

Did you know that our downtown core makes up only 1% of the entire city but accounts for 10% of our property tax base? This is not shared nearly enough and it’s very important information because if our downtown is not successful, the property taxes paid from businesses in the core will then be required from every other part of the city. This is what happened in Calgary the past few years where the assessed value of their downtown went down by quite a bit and small businesses in other parts of the city were seeing double digit increases in their taxes for a number of years.

Even with the pandemic, our downtown is in better shape. A recent report showed that Edmonton has seen the best downtown recovery of all major North American cities. But as we know, there is still a lot of work to be done. While some of it relates to issues within provincial jurisdiction, we have additional actions we can take to continue to improve our downtown core.

The Capital Budget includes investment in Chinatown, public realm improvements, utility upgrades, and investments that have helped spark new development at locations like Station Lands and around the future Warehouse Park site. Those new developments that will create hundreds of millions of new economic growth are a result of the investments being made in this Capital Budget.

For those who don’t go downtown, this is still important work because as noted at the start of this section, if you don’t invest in your downtown, that has significant financial impacts on the rest of the city. Since this funding also comes from the Community Revitalization Levy (CRL), it also doesn’t take away from the investment in the rest of the city because the CRL allows us to pay for current investment by using the increase in tax base within the CRL boundaries. While I was not a fan of the arena deal many years ago, I am happy to say that it has worked out well for the city and allows us to significantly increase the downtown tax base.

Policing

Edmonton Police Service (EPS) will be receiving a $7 million increase to their budget in 2023 plus a separate $4.5 million for the Healthy Streets Operation Centre in Chinatown. For some, they will say that isn’t enough. For others, they will say that’s too much. EPS is operating on a funding formula that is based on a variety of factors. I support the concept of a funding formula but I would prefer it to be a formula that more broadly addresses community safety and well-being instead of just policing.

The way I look at this is that if we are essentially going to provide a guaranteed increase, we should ensure that the increase is being used in a holistic way that both addresses the reactive (ex: policing and 24/7 crisis diversion) and the proactive (ex: programming that will set people up for long-term success).

No department should have a blank cheque. EPS makes up 15% of our entire Operating Budget and they have received a $300 million increase in their budget over the last 20 years. There has never been defunding of the Edmonton Police Service. While I did support the $7 million increase, I also supported updating the formula for next year to better address all community safety and well-being needs instead of just one specific part of that work.

Valley Zoo

This issue emerged fairly recently and in a 7-6 vote, council approved a reduction in funding to the Valley Zoo Nature’s Wild Backyard project. I did not support the reduction because based on the information provided during the debate, it felt like approving a reduction for a project already approved might not properly address the current need to bring up the zoo to current standards and I could see that costing more in the future than if we did it all right the first time.

It may turn out that the smaller amount of money approved could address all those needs but it was not clear that was the case and I would have preferred to at least have the previously approved amount set aside and then complete an additional review versus reducing the budget now and then possibly have to come back to address critical needs that specifically related to meeting zoo standards.

Climate Action

Every year, the City of Edmonton does a random survey that is statistically significant of Edmontonians to get a better understanding of how they want us working on climate change. Every year, we see the percentage of Edmontonians who want us to take clear action on climate change grow. It’s over 70% now in Edmonton and this budget does have us investing in district energy, making our City building climate resilient/energy efficient, and replacing vehicles that are at end of life with an emissions neutral fleet.

From time to time people ask about why the city should be taking action on this. While the majority of the work has to come from the provincial and federal governments, we still have an important role to play in City-owned assets and ensuring that people have options in how they want to move and where they want to live. Beyond the environmental reasons, I want to focus on the financial reasons to ensure we are taking action on climate change.

About 4 years ago, City Council had to approve a new flood mitigation program for our city. I purposely say that we had to approve this because if we didn’t we would be accepting that many communities in Edmonton would be at a much higher risk of flooding and there was a good chance that some of those communities would not have been able to get insurance to cover the cost of those floods.

The reason for this new program is that what used to be a 1 in 100 year flood a few decades ago is now a 1 in 25 or 1 in 50 year flood. That means the utility infrastructure built in most communities cannot handle the changing weather patterns and would be at significant risk.

This program came with a huge cost: $1.6 billion. This is the cost of inaction on climate change. Climate change is by far and away the best example of pay now or pay far more later. While we cannot fix everything as the City of Edmonton, we have to do our part to ensure we are meeting our environmental goals and not creating a more expensive problem to deal with in the future. This Capital Budget includes completing deep energy retrofits for City buildings that are needing significant renewal, replacing our City fleet that is at end of life with emissions neutral vehicles, and delivering on the district energy system which will allow City buildings to have lower ongoing energy costs.

Summary

The specific items above relate to the most common issues I heard about but it is by no means a complete list of everything that was discussed over the last month and a half. This is always a very challenging process because even with the important things funded in these budgets, there are many other areas that don’t receive funding.

I want to thank everyone who was part of this process. While there were many who came to the three day Public Hearing, even more people called or emailed me to share their feedback. I also visited the seniors residences in the ward to hear directly from seniors on what matters to them. There was a budget town hall meeting at the Westend Seniors Activity Centre where people were able to share their feedback.

Like with every budget, there are likely things that you like about the budget and things that you don’t like. That’s also the case for me. In the end, there was enough I could support in the Capital and Utility Budgets to vote in favour of those but for the first time since serving on City Council, I felt there wasn’t a good enough balance in the Operating Budget to support it.

I hope these budget blogs give you a better understanding as to how I came to my final decision. As usual, if you have any questions or feedback on this, please share them in the comments below.