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Lorne Gunter: 107 Street project postponement the city's minimal attempt to limit construction disruption

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They city made a surprise announcement on summer road construction late last week. It was postponing construction along 107 Avenue until next year (2027).

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A construction project!? Delayed!? By this administration!?

If you had told me they would do that, I wouldn’t have believed you.

They city is going to shut down 102 Avenue completely from 102 Street to 107 Street Downtown for five or six months.

It has already closed down 102 Avenue west of 125 Street so it can replace the Wellington Bridge, a project that will last until late this year.

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The west end of Jasper Avenue will be torn up for another season of the entirely unnecessary “Imagine Jasper” project which narrows intersections, widens bike lanes and fancifies street lights, planters and park benches.

And 104 Avenue from almost Rogers Place to 124 Street is a four-lane goat path thanks to ongoing (and going and going) LRT construction.

The city and its LRT partner, Marigold Infrastructure, announced in December that thanks to complete shutdowns along that section of the line, work was substantially “complete.” But “complete” to the city means a two-lane goat path had been expanded into a four-lane one.

It doesn’t mean “complete” as you or I would understand the word.

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What all this means is that the three major accesses from the west end to Downtown will be disrupted all summer — again.

And the city had every intention of tearing up 107 Avenue this summer, too. The proposed changes are purely cosmetic. Like Jasper Avenue, the project would have been mostly streetscaping to encourage visitors, rather than roadway improvements to increase vehicular capacity.

Most of 107 Avenue north of Downtown runs through poorer neighbourhoods. The city feels it owes residents and businesses in those areas expensive, superficial upgrades to show that tax dollars don’t just get wasted on middle-class projects.

Had the city torn up 107 Avenue this summer, that would have meant every major route to Downtown from west Edmonton would have been disrupted. The shortest way from the west end to the core would have been over the Quesnell Bridge to the southside, then back over the Walterdale Bridge and up Bellamy Hill.

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So that’s why I was surprised — no, shocked — to see the city put off the 107 Avenue upgrade until next year. It’s unlike the administration to care about the impact of their road projects on drivers.

But that’s about the only mercy the city has shown.

For the fourth straight year, Whitemud Drive will be impinged for the Terwillegar Drive and the Rainbow Valley bridge expansion.

The Yellowhead will be gashed open from St. Alberta Trail to 97 Street. Plus two bridges on the east end of the Yellowhead will be restricted.

The Valley Line LRT will cut a swath of destruction through the west end for the fourth year in a row — and for at least another two years after this. (My money is on a minimum of three more, probably four years.)

The Capital Line LRT will cut an equally disruptive swath along 111 Street south of the Henday.

Parts of 95 Avenue, 34 Street, 231 Street, 215 Street, 167 Avenue, Meridian Street, 17 Street, Ellerslie Road, 41 Avenue and 170 Street will be affected. And the city is so tickled by the progress it made on the west end LRT last summer by completely shutting down portions for weeks at a time that, even though the progress is undetectable to drivers, it’s going to use the same complete-closure technique on projects all over the city this summer.

On top of all of this, months-long, equally obstructive projects by EPCOR Water & Power and ATCO Gas will open up 80 more locations.

Council doesn’t fight this “everything, everywhere, all at once” approach because most councillors are bobbleheads for the administration and beholden to the unions whose members work on the projects.

So don’t expect any relief from this method in your taxes or in your commutes.

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