Residents in the McKernan and Belgravia Communities retained A Path Less Travelled Consulting Inc. to help identify and resolve concerns related to the proposed Metro78 development on 78 Avenue just west of 114 Street and the McKernan/Belgravia LRT Station in Edmonton, Canada. We reviewed the Transportation Impact Assessment prepared by the developer’s transportation engineer. We also made several comments and suggested changes to the development to improve safety and to improve urban design opportunities.
The development was advanced to a public engagement in which we repeated our main comments using a pdf file format. We choose this format because we required diagrams to explain our comments, and the City of Edmonton’s feedback site would not accommodate diagrams – we had to email the files to the planner.
The planner then advised that our feedback could not be incorporated into the “What We Heard” report going to Council unless we provided a weblink for the files. Below are links to our two primary concerns. The first has a title “Fire Truck Forward Out of Alley”. It describes an alternative means for fire trucks to exit the alley without using the planned plaza, thereby improving urban design opportunities at no impact to the developers proposed buildings.
The second has a title “Unaddressed Serious Safety Concerns”. It describes a long standing safety concern we raised with the developer’s transportation engineer and City transportation engineering staff in January 2021. As of October 11, 2021 the City’s Transportation Engineers have not explained why our proposed alternative is not acceptable, even though it meets City standard practices, it is safer, and does not impact the proposed buildings by the developer.