The Pulse: July 20, 2022

Plans to amalgamate several Edmonton-area municipal transit systems into a single regional system have popular support, a survey suggests.

Three-quarters of respondents to the Integrated Regional Transit Survey were in favour of plans to create a single transit system in the Edmonton Metro Region. The online survey was conducted by Leger for the Edmonton Municipal Transit Services Commission. In total, 1,219 people from Edmonton, St. Albert, Fort Saskatchewan, Spruce Grove, Stony Plain, Devon, Leduc, and Beaumont were interviewed in September 2021.

Those who supported the plan felt that it would offer more connections and make getting around the region easier. People in the region thought it would be especially beneficial for postsecondary students who would be able to live at home and commute from surrounding communities. NAIT, MacEwan, and the University of Alberta will be key destinations in the first phase of the metro transit plan, which is set to roll out in 2023.

The idea of creating a unified regional transit system has been in the works since 2013 when the first investigative study of inter-municipal transit governance was conducted. Mayors from 13 municipalities signed a memorandum of understanding in 2018, but Morinville and the counties of Strathcona, Parkland, Leduc, and Sturgeon later withdrew their participation.

Some of Edmonton's current city councillors have raised concerns about the cost of the project and voiced fears about a potential drop in the number of bus routes. The community and public services committee is to receive a report from administration on Aug. 22 with an analysis of the plan's expected impacts on service, ridership, revenue, equipment, personnel, and the Edmonton Transit Service operating budget.

The regional system "would not represent any kind of reduction in routes that are being delivered within the city," said Bryan Haggarty, director of corporate services for the EMTSC, noting that the plan represents an increase in service in the surrounding municipalities.

• As of July 20, Albertans 18 or older can book appointments for a second booster shot of a COVID-19 vaccine five months or more after the date of their previous dose. The Omicron BA.5 variant, which data suggests is more transmissible but not more likely to cause severe illness, is currently the most common strain in the province, leading to falling hospitalization rates but high transmission rates. Albertans who are at-risk are especially encouraged to receive a second booster shot.
• The Confederacy of Treaty Six First Nations, comprised of 16 member Nations, has signed a relationship agreement with the Alberta government to collaboratively address 10 priority areas including healthcare, economic development, tourism, housing, and mental health. According to the agreement, the Minister of Indigenous Relations and chiefs will have quarterly meetings, the Premier will have one annual meeting with chiefs, the parties will develop an annual progress report, and the confederacy will receive a $300,000 capacity grant.
• Taste of Edmonton is running July 21-31 in Churchill Square. Returning to a full-scale event, the festival will feature 150 menu items and 52 vendors, including 10 food trucks. Despite financial pressures, organizers have kept the price of a 40-ticket sheet at $69.50, or about $1.73 per ticket.
• Axon, the American company that makes Tasers, said it has received a "significant" number of orders from Canadian police for its TASER 7 energy weapon. The company received orders for 1,000 of the weapons from the Calgary Police Service in Q2. The Edmonton Police Service is among the agencies currently using the weapon, according to a press release.
• The city is reminding residents about its Safe Passing Distance Bylaw, which came into effect last September and requires a minimum of one metre between vehicles and bicycles when the speed limit is 60 km/h or less, and 1.5 metres when the speed limit is higher. The Side by Side education campaign is intended "to provide clarity," according to Shewkar Ibrahim, a transportation safety engineer with the City of Edmonton.
• The Edmonton Elks have launched Project $2 Million, which will see the club donate $2 million worth of services and activations to 20 local non-profits over the next year. "We have a responsibility as a community-owned team to actively enhance the people and organizations in our city, and through Project $2 Million we will be able to share our expertise and platform with these deserving community partners," said president Victor Cui.
• A group of local ninjas is preparing for an upcoming world championship in Las Vegas put on by the Ultimate Ninja Athlete Association. "I'm pretty proud that so many athletes out of this gym and out of Edmonton have qualified and are making the trip down there," said Tim Gourlay, owner of the Fitset Ninja all-age obstacle course gyms in Edmonton and Calgary. A total of 45 Albertans are participating in the event from July 21-23.

Twin brothers from Edmonton have received the Diana Award, an honour bestowed in memory of the late Diana, Princess of Wales, to young people who have inspired others to serve their communities and create global change.

Peter Anto Johnson and John Christy Johnson, 25, are third-year medical students at the University of Alberta. Peter is in pediatrics, and John is in biomedical engineering.

"They're just exceptional," said Dr. Austin Mardon, who nominated the twins for the award. He noted that they've co-authored more than 100 publications while continuing to volunteer their time for many causes. "They're pretty well-rounded people."

Among the efforts the Johnsons were recognized for is Sharpen the Quill, a youth literacy program started in 2020 for youth who were left without opportunities for professional development during the pandemic.

"The program seeks to allow students to publish academic works, poems, and prose in scholarly journals as well as ... any multimedia work," said Peter, who was named to Edify's Top 40 under 40 in 2021. "It's expanded to a $2-million program."

John, who was recognized by Edify in 2022, has co-founded two social enterprises. One is Click & Push Accessibility, which empowers wheelchair users and others with mobility challenges to anticipate difficult-to-navigate terrain. The other is UMove, which takes decommissioned power wheelchairs and transforms them into manual wheelchair trainers for kids with cerebral palsy.

Peter conducted research that validated the use of a smartphone app and other readily accessible technologies to aid in the resuscitation of newborn infants, particularly in low-resource countries. He also led RuSH (Run for Support and Health), a student group that organized fundraising through charitable runs, and founded Physical Literacy for Active Youth.

On this day in 1962, Edmonton was getting ready to celebrate the August long weekend for the first time.

With a notice appearing in the July 20 version of the paper, the city announced that the first Monday in August would be the creatively named Annual Civic Holiday. The August long weekend had long been a tradition further east; Toronto's city council had declared the first Monday in the month as the Civic Holiday in 1875, with other Ontario cities following suit. When Edmonton's city council declared its own municipal holiday, it decreed that nearly all wholesale and retail businesses would close for the day to give people a chance for recreation during the summer.

In 1974, the Edmonton holiday was replaced by a province-wide observance. The Alberta Legislature deemed the Monday to be Heritage Day, created to celebrate multiculturalism and the diverse heritage of the province's residents.

For the first couple of years, Heritage Day's main celebration was a multicultural concert held in Fort Edmonton Park, in addition to other events around the province. It wasn't until August 1976 that about a dozen ethnocultural groups set up pavilions in Edmonton's Mayfair Park (now known as Hawrelak Park) to display their cultures' food, artwork, and traditions. That was the start of the Edmonton Heritage Festival.

Even in its early days, the event was popular — about 20,000 attended the first Heritage Festival. And it grew, both in terms of pavilions and the number of visitors. Soon, the park hosted dozens of groups and hundreds of thousands of people every Heritage Day. In 1985, the festival started its partnership with Edmonton's Food Bank and remains the organization's largest fundraising event.

The summer of 1987 was nearly the end of the festival. On July 31, a Friday, a devastating tornado tore through the eastern side of the city, killing 27 and injuring hundreds more. The tornado caused more than $300 million in damage to the city, affecting many of the tents and infrastructure used by the festival. Luckily, the festival was able to continue due to the work of a group of volunteers who went from tent to tent, making repairs. That year also saw the first time a Canadian citizenship ceremony was held at the festival.

Heritage Day lost its status as a statutory holiday in 1990 when the province created Family Day. It now remains an optional holiday, like Boxing Day or Easter Monday, that many businesses in the province still observe. The Heritage Festival has continued its growth. In 2017, it reached nearly half a million attendees over the three-day event.

While the Heritage Festival has been closely tied to Hawrelak Park since its inception, it is on the search for a new home, at least for the time being. While next month's festival will still be there, the city plans to close much of the park for three years for major renovations.

This is based on a clipping found on Vintage Edmonton, a daily look at Edmonton's history from armchair archivist @revRecluse — follow @VintageEdmonton for daily ephemera via Twitter.