Edmonton Construction 9 (2008-08)

[240glt]

Random thought. I helped a good friend move into a new condo in Claireview a few weeks ago. Made sense to him, as he works in Ft. Sask, and also downtown (LRT) and was sick of the renting.

I've been up there several times now, including tonight. It's almost door to door on the LRT. I've noticed that there is always an incredible amount of pedestrian traffic in the area surrounding the station, but there's nowhere to go.

People are walking in the street, Hiking across the Superstore parking lot, basically following a line-of-sight type trajectory to wherever they're headed.

The access to the place is the most bizarre thing I've ever seen. You turn off 137 ave & drive into a semi-crowded big box store lot. You make a sharp left, then a sharp right (still in the parking lot) drive to the other side of the lot, turn onto a service road, then turn onto the road that runs by the station. I did this driving a 26' moving van.

The crazy thing is that there are people everywhere, walking. But they're just meandering across meridians and through parking lots to get to their various low rise condos.

I've realized what happens when developments are not planned well. Claireview is an example of a place that could have been immensely successful as a "walkable" community, as we say. Now, there's nothing. Thousands of people live in the area yet you can't walk from the LRT to a place to get a coffee or a newspaper. What a disaster.