Quote:
Originally Posted by Hallsy's Toupee
I agree with you that it's not black & white. I walk whenever I can, but I drive to my nearest grocery (Save-On at Jasper/109) once a week because it's 11 blocks away and I don't want to be walking with 4 or 5 bags of groceries with me for that distance, nor do I have any desire to wait 20 minutes to stuff myself + groceries onto a crowded bus then repeat with a transferring bus. I haven't had a decent grocery within my walking distance since Woodwards closed (and no the expensive, under-stocked and mismanaged Sobeys on 4th didn't count).
Personally I really do get a sense of all talk but no walk from many people when it comes to a more urban lifestyle, and yet I don't blame them - a lot of that blame lies with our 3 levels of government. I have co-workers who would love to commute via transit but end up driving our clogged roads because they find the public transit system is a sad joke compared to other cities - and we have decades of piss-poor transportation planning by this city to thank for that and which continues to this day. Yes, you can include keeping the City Centre Airport open when it was supposed to close after EIA opened as one of those gaffes, and the negative effects that had on developing urban life in the central core for decades. I can't recall how many times I've heard on the news "We're all for infill, we just don't want it here" but deeper into the story and the problem seems to lie with City Hall ineptitude. I have friends who agree with me that it is ridiculous that we have to shell out taxpayers' money to build new super-schools outside the Henday while schools inside are shuttered or are half-empty - and yet they live in suburbia because of few family-friendly housing choices that are affordable, relative lack of kid-friendly facilities and inadequate schools in neighborhoods closer to the core - things that are mostly out of their control. I know some singles who end up eschewing the urban lifestyle for the suburbs, and their reasons: problems with aggressive homeless people and meth-heads, drunk chavs marching the streets to look for someone to beat up or sexually harass, having to share poorly-maintained condo buildings with inconsiderate idiots and inept condo boards, tiny-peckered drivers with modified mufflers using the streets to reenact their favorite Fast and Furious scenes in the middle of many nights, all the good shopping is at WEM or Southgate, and others I can't recall right now. Many of these things can be dealt by a thinly-stretched law enforcement, but there's bigger causes such as our one-trick-pony oil economy of this province.
Alright I can use a drink now.
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I never thought I'd see the day that I saw eye to eye with you. I've pretty much given up on the idea that Edmonton can, if you really try, be a city you can get by on with just transit and the odd taxi/uber but no car. I see how naive I once was. As much as we'd like to think otherwise, as as great as it is that we are slowly changing our ways, Edmonton is by and large a city meant to be driven in, even centrally. Look at Oliver Square, look at Jasper Ave west of 109th, look at 109 St on both sides of the river. This city is a joke sometimes when it comes to planning and even despite our progress, we still get fuck ups like the NAIT line. Or why the hell wasn't the LRT tunneled under University Ave? I get mistakes happen elsewhere too, but there seems to be a higher ratio of fails here and it is tied to our oil economy and how disposable and cheap it makes things here. This car-centric, disposable urban fabric is going to be hard to change. I mean, I'm not expecting Square 104 to be torn down anytime soon despite it looking rather ridiculous next to the new arena.
Despite the oil economy, I'm honestly always struck by how much more progressive (generally, sometimes not) urbanism is in Calgary, despite also being a newer place. People often say Edmonton is a great place to be if you want to see the city change into a more progressive place before your eyes as well as being able to be apart of the change, and while I can appreciate that, some days I just want to have a matured, older urban fabric like out east to call home. And if it weren't for my innumerous connections to this place, I'd have already left. I get things aren't perfect anywhere, but there are just things inherent to Edmonton that make me feel uninspired about this city.
At least there's supposed to finally be a CBD grocery option soon again with the Ice District. Like I said, it is nice to see things progressing finally but even when the Ice District is complete, we'll still have Oliver Square down 104th Ave. You bring up a solid point about the more obscured issue of funding suburban growth, causing us to pay for new schools, while our existing ones fall apart due to lack of services and amenities for families to settle in mature neighbourhoods.
Also how are we still 5 years behind every other major Canadian city in terms of cycling infra? It's not like there isn't demand -- I see it all over.
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