The shape of cities to come

City shaping is the aim; light rail transit (LRT) investment the catalyst. How is Edmonton, Alberta addressing the challenge?

As planning continues for urban transit in Canadian cities there is a growing realization that the scale of funding requires a greater return on the investment. Improvements to transit services – fast, reliable, and direct –are a prerequisite, but many cities are now looking for new LRT projects to deliver much more. Using LRT as a catalyst to wider city renewal is now the overriding objective.

Edmonton, Alberta, is one example where Steer Davies Gleave is working with city staff to develop more ambitious LRT plans.

The capital of Alberta was at the forefront of North America’s LRT trend, opening the first modern system on the continent in 1978 and setting the standard for many of the cities that followed: San Diego, Sacramento, San Jose, Portland, Calgary, and others.

As with many other major cities in North America, there has been a renewed focus on the future for the city, with the 21st century challenges of congestion, energy supplies, economic growth, and climate change setting new challenges.

Now, 30 years later, Edmonton has developed an ambitious LRT expansion Plan. This plan has been developed in response to a new City Vision for a more compact, sustainable future. Following extensive public research, the city has adopted a new Strategic Plan. The aim is “to grow upwards, not outwards”.

For LRT this has required fresh thinking on the style and form of LRT required to meet this wider ‘city shaping’ agenda. Steer Davies Gleave developed a new ‘City Scale, Urban Style LRT’ approach, featuring modern low-floor, level boarding LRT designed to be integrated into neighborhoods and communities. The approach has been developed following a review of best practice European systems. The key features to this ‘putting the passenger first’ approach are:

• Modern low-floor modular Light Rail Vehicles
• Low-floor stops, integrated with surrounding development and encouraging Transit Oriented Development (TOD)
• Closer stop spacing to better serve communities and neighbourhoods
• Using the flexibility of modern LRT systems to provide alignments that minimize property take
• Using the same design characteristics to design LRT that provides direct access to and from residential areas and a range of key destinations, with easy direct walk and bicycle access and reducing the need for bus connections or park and ride

To support these wider plans and provide a guide to implementation, we led a team which has helped the city produce the Land Use and Transit Planning Framework.

Our ‘Integrated Transit Solution’ approach would also look to re-structure the bus network to provide a complementary and comprehensive transit network for the city. Park and Ride will feature, but the aim is to develop station area plans for each stop to encourage higher density mixed-use areas where transit is a preferred choice of a greater proportion of the local community.

This approach to network planning and system design has received widespread support following extensive public outreach, and in June 2009, the city council adopted the recommendations to pursue the City Scale, Urban Style approach for LRT in Edmonton.

The new City Scale LRT Expansion Plan aims to deliver a network with six lines by 2040. New lines to the West and to the Southeast are already at concept design stage and bylaws confirming the indicative routes were formalized by the city council in November 2009. This was followed by confirmation of the Downtown Connector in June 2010, in parallel to approval of the Capital City Downtown Plan, a new land use framework. 

The Capital City Downtown Plan is the result of an extensive community engagement program and has developed a framework for regenerating the core of the city and making it an attractive center for residential space, offices, shopping, entertainment, and other uses.

The downtown is also the focus of LRT development work. We proposed that the new downtown LRT routes are at surface level working with the Downtown Plan to open up new development and regeneration opportunities. Links with the existing underground LRT stations and Pedway pedestrian network will also be required.

We are now developing the Concept Design for the Downtown LRT Connector, while a further low-floor LRT route is also planned through Strathcona to link with the University of Alberta and connect with the existing LRT.

Brian Latte, Edmonton’s Head of Transportation Planning notes “The urban style approach to LRT opens up a range of opportunities – to re-invigorate Edmonton’s downtown, to create transitoriented neighborhoods, and add operating flexibility to the LRT network.”

The Downtown LRT Connector, along with the West and Southeast lines, will be put to council for approval in December this year. If they get the go-ahead, preliminary engineering design and procurement will follow with opening of the route planned for 2016. The planning and investment that Edmonton is making today is sure to make all the difference in shaping a city fit for the future. As Latte says, “I’m very excited, the City Scale, Urban Style LRT is what’s needed to encourage TOD development and help us achieve our City Vision. There is still a great deal of design and assessment to be done but we now want to make rapid progress working with the public, partners, and stakeholders to develop the designs, secure the funding, and get construction of our new city and urban style LRT underway.”