Edmonton planners have landed on Whyte Avenue as the southern corridor for a central circulator LRT system, although the final plan isn’t set in stone yet.
“I’m pretty certain it’s not 76 Ave. I’m presuming it means it’s Whyte,” Councillor Ben Henderson said after a briefing. “That’s where the ridership is.”
Those two options for the southern leg have been talked about for months. Plans for the central circulator were to be made public later this month, however they’ve been delayed Henderson said.
“The next question is how? That’s the real complicated question.”
Deputy city manager Adam Laughlin confirmed a public open house is on hold for the time being.
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“As much as we’d love to come out and say, ‘here it is, and here’s where it will go,’ it’s just we don’t have clear pieces that are on the north-south portions that will get you into the downtown,” he said.
Crossing the High Level Bridge is believed to be one of the popular options, but tying into the Valley Line LRT to the east still has its complications.
The selection of Whyte also puts pressure on the city to open 76 Avenue to more traffic that will be displaced on Whyte. Henderson is insistent that the city planners resist that idea. It would mean tying both sides of 76 Avenue through the abandoned CP Railway lands.
“I think it’s a no-brainer that we need to create pedestrian connections through there, and perhaps other types of active transportation,” he said. “My worry about that… it takes what essentially is collector road and turns it into an arterial, which there’s just not space to do.”
“Creating another arterial, would be devastating. These are residential areas that aren’t wide to begin with. Lots of pedestrians, schools and things like that. I don’t think 76 Ave makes sense as another through route, as an alternative to Whyte or Argyll.”
The central circulator is still years away. No funding has been set aside for it, and in the pecking order it sits behind other LRT projects.
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