Beautification of downtown Edmonton street hitting a road block

EDMONTON – The City of Edmonton is putting big bucks into beautifying 108th Street from 99th Avenue to 104th Avenue, hoping to transform the five blocks into Capital Boulevard. Renovations to the road linking the Legislature and Grant Macewan University are just over 50 percent finished, but there seem to be some setbacks to the streetscape.

The Capital Boulevard project is part of the new Capital City Downtown Plan, and is suppose to create a vibrant, well-designed and accessible area. While pedestrians in the area who spoke to Global News believe the upgrades are an improvement, there’s one problem: Edmonton drivers keep hitting the 3 foot tall granite posts installed on both sides of the street.

At a cost of $1,000 each, replacing the broken bollards isn’t cheap. City officials admit they’re looking into the issue.

“We think just by a couple days observation that the method by which they are attached to the sidewalk has to be reviewed,” said Peter Ohm, with Urban Planning and Environment. “We don’t think it’s sturdy enough and that when contact of any kind – whether it’s a private vehicle or equipment on the street is contacting them – they are secured in a fashion that they are easily knocked over so we’d like to get them securely attached.”

“We’ll (also) look at some other controls to avoid people contacting these bollards,” he added.

The total cost of the project is $15 million, and the improvements are scheduled to be complete by August 2013.