Saturday, March 23, 2013

Edmonton Public Transit

Saturday, March 23, 2013   Woodcroft Library, Edmonton

Edmonton's public transit system has been useful to me during this winter away from my home in the Chilcotin, 1 000 kilometres to the west.  I collected maps of various bus routes and the train route.  Today I shall return these to the transit map shelves of the downtown library, and go to the nearby farmer's market for a cinnamon bun. 

A single ticket costs $3.20, a book of 10 costs $24.00.  I bought 11 books this winter.  Each ticket allows  90 minutes of travel anywhere that the Edmonton Transit System goes, by train or bus.  One exception is the $5.00 cost to ride the bus to the Edmonton International Airport, 20 kilometres south of the city.  This bus is new since my last time in Edmonton, in December-January, 2011-2012:  then, I paid about $18.00 for a ride on a hotel-based bus from the airport to Edmonton. 

Here are the bus maps I collected, and which routes they describe:

1-West Edmonton Mall-Meadowlark-Jasper Place-Downtown-Capilano
2-Lessard-West Edmonton Mall-Downtown-Highlands-Clareview
3-Jasper Place-Downtown-Cromdale
4-West Edmonton Mall-University-Capilano
5-Westmount-Downtown-Coliseum
6-Mill Woods Transit Centre (TC)-Lakewood-Millgate-Southgate
7-Jasper Place-Downtown-University
8-Mill Woods Tc-Lakewood-Millgate-Downtown-Coliseum-Abbottsfield
9-Southgate-Downtown-Kingsway-Northgate-Eaux Claires
10-Coliseum-Belvedere-Clareview

12-Northgate-Wellington-Kingsway-Downtown
14-West Edmonton Mall-Jasper Place-Downtown
15-Mill Woods-Millgate-Downtown-Kingsway-NAIT-Eaux Claires
23-Mill Woods-Century Park-Leger-West Edmonton Mall
30-Mill Woods-Century Park-Leger-South Campus
31-Leger-Southgate
34-Southgate-Leger
45-Century Park-Southgate

52-Southgate-82 Avenue-Government Centre-Downtown
54-South Campus-University
57-University-Whyte Avenue-Downtown
70-Mill Woods TC-Lakewood-82 Avenue-Downtown
94-Capilano-Bonnie Doon-University

100-Lewis Farms-West Edmonton Mall-Downtown
106-University-South Campus-West Edmonton Mall-Lessard
111-West Edmonton Mall-Jasper Place-Downtown
112-West Edmonton Mall-Downtown-Capilano
113-West Edmonton Mall-Jasper Place
114-Winterburn-Mayfield Common-Jasper Place
115-West Edmonton Mall-Westmount-Northgate
120-Jasper Place-Downtown-Stadium

125-Jasper Place-Westmount-Kingsway-Downtown
128-University-Westmount-Calder-Castle Downs
136-West Edmonton Mall-Lewis Farms-The Grange-The Hamptons
137-West Edmonton Mall-Northwest Industrial-Northgate-Clareview
150-West Edmonton Mall-Jasper Place-Westmount-Northgate-Eaux Claires
180-Abbotsfield-Belvedere-Eaux Claires-Downtown
181-Clareview-Londonderry-Belvedere

310-Rio Terrace-Meadowlark-Jasper Place
317-Winterburn-Mayfield Common-Jasper Place
319-Westview Village-Winterburn Industrial

LRT (Light Rail Transit)-Century Park-Southgate-South Campus-University-Downtown-Stadium-
                                      Coliseum-Belvedere-Clareview

I probably rode about half of these routes, some quite often, 1 and LRT most often.  I lived two blocks from Jasper Place Transit Centre, noted in many routes above.  This centre, about three km northeast of West Edmonton Mall, and about five km west of  Downtown Edmonton, is 15 bus minutes from the mall and 25 minutes from downtown.  Bus 1's eastern terminus at Capilano is about five km east of downtown. 

Route 1 is not Edmonton's longest route; 23 is, according to one bus driver I met.  Edmonton has many long routes, longer than those it had when I last lived there, in 1986. 

The LRT extends from Century Park, about eight km  south of downtown, to Clareview, about eight km northeast of downtown.  It was most useful for getting to the University of Alberta, across the North Saskatchewan River from downtown.

Other buses I often rode are the 7, 14, 111, 120, 123, and 125.  Bus 125 got me to this library near Westmount Mall, today, for example.  Other malls on bus lines, besides West Edmonton and Westmount, are Meadowlark, Kingsway, City Centre, Capilano, Londonderry, Northgate, Southgate, and Mill Woods. 
Edmonton transit is good, considering how low Edmonton's population density is.  Even neighborhoods of single detached houses, which sprawled onto the surrounding prairie in the past two decades, have buses.  Bus 136 got me within a kilometre of my Edmonton employer's Christmas party at River Cree Resort.  That glitzy resort is on the Enoch Indian Reserve past the city's western edge, beyond the Hamptons, a new, low-density neighborhood. 

Still, the private vehicle dominates Edmonton, as it dominates other North American cities.  This  unecological, uneconomic policy direction makes these cities expensive to inhabit and service.  The 2008 United States banking crisis left whole US suburbs of empty, foreclosed houses.  Grass grows through the street cracks in Camden, New Jersey, where RCA Victor once brought prosperity in the postwar era of progressive taxation and union-built infrastructure.  Happily, urban gardeners jackhammer away derelict mall parking lots and grow food in many US cities, as the Post Carbon Institute and general relocalization movement encourage. 

Some people discard their cars and walk or use public transit. The average number of kilometres annually driven in private vehicles in the Canadian province of British Columbia (BC) declines annually.   My downtown home in Williams Lake, BC (12 000) allows me to walk to work, shopping, and recreation.  Williams Lake boasts that BC's most-utilized public transit among cities its size.              

Montreal writer Yves Engler's book, Stop Signs:  Cars and Capitalism, explains the decline of public transit and rise of private vehicles in North America:

http://yvesengler.com/yves-books/

Business investment and government policy, not social or even business efficiency, made this vehicle-dominated landscape. 

Walk, share vehicles, ride the bus and train, travel less, enjoy it more, and change the landscape, including the landscape in your head.




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