Episode 192 of Speaking Municipally takes a look at urban planning committee's decision to consider a couple of options for rapidly expanding Edmonton's bike lane network.
At its Sept. 27 meeting, the committee asked administration to develop plans for two options. One would see 100 km of the district connector network built by 2026 for about $170 million in capital costs and up to $11 million in annual operating costs; the other would build 130 km in neighbourhoods that see lots of cyclists, incurring $130 million in capital costs and up to $9 million in annual operating costs.
The final decision will be part of the 2023-2026 budget deliberations.
The bike lane discussion followed an emotional meeting of community and public services committee on affordable housing, leading some critics to ask why council is considering spending that much money on bike lanes instead of housing. Speaking Municipally co-host Troy Pavlek rejected the premise.
"The idea that this is mutually exclusive with affordable housing came up a lot this week, and is on its face completely absurd," he said. "Yes, we should fund affordable housing. Yes, we should fund the bike plan implementation. And I will add that the entire 100 kilometres of city-connecting infrastructure comes in at a lower bill than a single 50th Street overpass for trains."
Pavlek also questioned why the report included the ongoing operational costs for snow-clearing, street-sweeping, and other maintenance. "When was the last time we built a road and council had to explicitly approve a motion to operate that road and increase the operational funding for that new road?"
"Never," answered co-host Mack Male.
Hear more of their thoughts on bike lane expansion and affordable housing, as well as the police funding formula, the Downtown Recovery Coalition, council's code of conduct, and that photo shoot everyone is talking about on the Sept. 30 episode of Taproot's civic affairs podcast.