Edmonton Minute: Speed Limits, Airport Cash, and More LRT Delays

Edmonton Minute - Your weekly one-minute summary of Edmonton politics

This Week In Edmonton:

• Another quiet week at City Hall this week, with just an Agenda Review Committee meeting at 9:00 am on Tuesday. City Hall will resume a full schedule of meetings next week.
  
  
• Speed limit reductions will come into effect on Friday for downtown and some of the City's residential areas. Drivers will have a grace period from August 6th to September 1st, during which EPS will tend to issue warnings rather than moving violations. The cost to change speed signs around the City was about $1 million and was paid for out of the "Traffic Safety Automated Enforcement Reserve", also known as the photo radar fund. We suspect the fund will be flush with cash again soon enough though!
  
  
• Heritage Festival is concluding today down at Hawrelak Park. There are 45 exhibitors, which is about 2/3rds the usual amount. There will be time-limited passes this year, which can be reserved online, to keep total visitors down to 4,000 per hour.

Last Week In Edmonton:

• The federal government announced $400 million towards Phase 1 of the Capital Line LRT expansion into southwest Edmonton. The extension will add about 4.5 kilometres of double track from Century Park to Ellerslie Road. With the Valley Line Southeast LRT finally being almost completed after many delays, this announcement means Edmontonians will have LRT delays to look forward to for decades to come!
  
  
• The provincial government announced $1 million to explore the possibility of a new stand alone children’s hospital in Edmonton. The money will develop a needs assessment, a capital cost estimate, and a business case for the possible new hospital. The current hospital is, of course, attached to the University of Alberta Hospital and was opened in 2001.
  
  
• The Edmonton International Airport, fresh off receiving $15 million in taxpayer dollars from Edmonton and surrounding municipalities, will now receive even more money, this time from the federal government. The $25 million will help offset COVID costs and complete upgrades that the airport put off when passenger volumes dropped. We're gonna hand it to the airport, with government money flowing in from every direction, they must have excellent lobbyists!

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