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This weekend, I decided to visit a random suburb in north Edmonton, to check out something rather interesting: the first new segment of 132 Avenue, a road undergoing resurfacing. What makes this road in particular interesting is how it’s designed, and it’s something that has to be seen.
A thread.
First, let’s establish the area. This is a typical post-1950s car-oriented suburb, with wide stroads to match. Here’s a photo of what the old portion of 132 Avenue looks like. Bland, with fast cars and multiple wide lanes. Not very appealing.
Oh, but what’s this? There’s something across the street. Let’s take a closer look.
Immediately we can see space for a bike lane and the makings of a protected intersection (still under construction). This isn’t something that I’ve seen anywhere else in Canada.
Another view of the protected intersection. These raised bumps (I’m not familiar with the proper term) are typically only seen in major city centre crossings, if even that. So seeing that in a typical suburb is quite impressive.
Moving past the construction, you immediately see that the 132 Avenue is only one lane in each direction, a significant difference from the vaguely wide road it was previously. There’s a wide bike lane on both sides of the road, as well as a substantial sidewalk. I like what I’m seeing here.
Notice how the intersecting street is interrupted by the raised sidewalk and bike path, and not the other way around. Subtle, but effective. This also had me questioning whether I was still in Canada or the Netherlands, although to be fair everything I saw along this road was like this.
This is what it looks like from across the street. It’s visually quite noticeable. Cars crossing through slowed down more than you’d expect at a typical intersection.
Here’s a crosswalk with a walking path. You can see a car here too. I think this picture encapsulates what’s great about 132 Avenue: minimal space for cars, designed with safety in mind, plus some other tidbits.
These bollards are a really clever touch. If there’s some out-of-control vehicle coming in that doesn’t make the turn, it protects people on the sidewalk and the bike path from getting hurt, and avoids damaging anyone’s homes.
They even have multi-unit housing here! This is from a while ago and looks old, but it fits with the road, and, in a way, gives a look into the future of suburbia.
No comment here, I just thought this view was nice. You can see the Stantec Tower in the distance.
A pedestrian-only crossing. These exist in other parts of the city and are always nice to see, but the fact that this one in particular has the raised bumps and doesn’t involve crossing extremely wide lanes makes it superior in my book. The bumps are even on both sides of the bike path!
It’s hard to see from this angle, but there is also a sign indicating there’s a crosswalk.
Roadside parking. But not just any roadside parking. This roadside parking is only given a certain amount of space and is visually distinguished too, disincentivizing overspeeding and avoiding turning parking into just another lane.
You’ve probably noticed there’s a significant lack of shade. That’s because the trees on the side of the road are quite new, and it’ll take a few years before they have a larger impact. I’m quite familiar with this process having spent time in new developments.
This is how a bus stop is handled. There’s a bit of paving on the other side of the bike path, which notably features a crosswalk. Raised bumps on both sides of the bike lane, once again.
Well, now I’ve reached the end of the road. Interestingly, there’s a crossing here specially for bikes, which is nice to see.
One last thing to point out: this intersecting street is much wider (despite not being nearly as significant as 132 Avenue), but it still narrows down at the intersection. I saw a car slow down as it went through this.
132 Avenue is being constructed in phases. This first phase was made in 2023, and construction will continue for different segments over the next few years, which means that there will be one long, end-to-end corridor linking communities with safe bike paths and sidewalks.
More information can be found here: https://www.edmonton.ca/transportation/on_your_streets/132-avenue-renewal
A lot of people say that North American suburbia can’t be saved, that because of how these neighbourhoods are just built for the car, you can’t just take that space back. Thing is, though, Edmonton isn’t some naturally dense city like Vancouver or Montréal is. It’s a typical Canada/US city for the most part. It has all the room to sprawl, and over the past century it certainly has.
But the fact is, a road like 132 Avenue that takes space away from cars to give it to people, something that is basically a Dutch road design, is being built here. Not Vancouver, with its high degree of natural walkability. Not Montréal, with its recent drive for more bike infrastructure. Not Toronto, the largest city in the country.
This proves it can be done, and given time, it will be done.
The greatest part of this is cities can’t say that “oh, we can’t do that, we’re not Amsterdam”, because Edmonton is far from Amsterdam, and we built it first.
If it can be done here, it can be done anywhere, and I think this should serve as a reality check for other cities in Canada and the USA.
@yaygya I am just waiting for them to put a path in. Last Summer my street was closed to all but construction/local traffic. They said, "It will be nice when all done." They have a dispute with the Union Pacific over 100ft of right-of-way. This is their excuse for leaving it undone now a full year later. Cities are first and foremost corporations