ETS community fair revs up at West Edmonton Mall

By Mathew White

EDMONTON — Curious commuters bombarded Edmonton Transit staff with questions and comments at the third annual ETS community fair held at West Edmonton Mall Saturday.

“We’re hoping to provide an engaging fair where people feel they have an input into what ETS is doing,” said Denise Kirk-Patrick, market planner with ETS community relations.  “That their voice is being heard.”

In previous years, the fair has been more of a conference, where people had to register to attend.  Kirk-Patrick said this year she’s hoping that having a more relaxed event with shorter presentations and demos will help draw a larger crowd.

“Overall, we’re really trying to get the general public, ETS riders, as well as people that may be uncomfortable with taking ETS, and show them it’s actually really easy to use,” said Kirk-Patrick.

More than a dozen booths were set up Saturday, spreading information and awareness about upcoming ETS programs and projects, including the new ETS texting system, ETS surveys, and of course, the future of the LRT. There were also historic buses on site, as well as regular shuttle rides to and from the new Lewis Farm LRT station, which is set to open in the “next couple of weeks.”

The future of the west end LRT

The southeast and west LRT line is supposed to travel from Millwoods, through downtown and up into the west end.  While there is still no set completion date, there have been a number of important developments this year, most notably, city council approving a concept plan in January.

“There is no firm timeline because there is no funding model at this point in time,” said Graeme McElhearn, communications officer with LRT design and construction.

“Overall, progress and construction of the west and southeast LRT requires significant contribution from the federal and provincial governments.”

Right now the city’s main priority for the LRT is completing the north line to NAIT, which is scheduled to be operational in April 2014.  Once that route is complete, the west LRT line is the next step.

“I couldn’t say at this point in time how long it would take for the west and southeast LRT to be built,” said McElhearn.  “It’s just too informal at this point, we don’t have enough information present because we don’t have enough money.”

So far the only thing to get the go-ahead for the west LRT is the preliminary engineering, which basically means having an extensive look at what’s already been purposed.

And although a concept plan has been approved, McElhearn said there is always a chance it could change again – for example, the plan recently changed the LRT route from turning off 156 St. and onto 87 Ave., to now using Meadowlark Road instead.

McElhearn finished by saying it would be safe to assume that nothing is happening with the west end LRT until the north route has been completed.

“As far as the public seeing construction on the line, it will remain out of sight for awhile,” said McElhearn.