A provincial grant for an Edmonton LRT study has left St. Albert with about $72,000 in spare cash on its hands.
Edmonton and St. Albert city officials announced Friday that the province had given them $250,000 to do an alignment study for a future LRT line to St. Albert.
Edmonton currently plans to extend its LRT line from downtown to the Northern Alberta Institute of Technology (NAIT) by 2014. The $1.1 million Northwest LRT Concept Plan Study, funded in part by Edmonton and St. Albert, will look at how the line could then run from NAIT to the future south-side St. Albert park-and-ride station.
This is tremendous news, said St. Albert Coun. Len Bracko, who has spent many years lobbying for an LRT route to St. Albert. "It moves us one step closer to having the LRT on our doorstep."
Three way deal
Council moved last October to give Edmonton up to $122,750 from its LRT reserve to support that city's northwest LRT functional alignment study. This January, they also moved to apply for the province's Regional Collaboration Program for a grant to offset this contribution.
Alberta Municipal Affairs agreed to chip in the maximum $250,000 allowed under the grant, said Guy Boston, St. Albert's general manager of planning and engineering, and Edmonton is contributing $800,000. That means St. Albert now only has to hand over $50,000 for the study.
"We saved $72,000 for our citizens, and we actually supported Edmonton to the tune of $300,000," he said. "They are very happy with us."
While Edmonton was originally planning to study an LRT route to St. Albert, Boston said it could have ended its study at Castle Downs if it just focused on its own needs. St. Albert's contribution was meant to show Edmonton that we were serious about having LRT.
St. Albert engineers will now work with Edmonton on the LRT study, Boston said, with a view to have it done by this December. The study will involve public consultation, and will look at issues like track alignment and station locations.
This plan will also finalize the size and location of St. Albert's south-side park and ride, Boston added, which the city hopes to open by 2014. The city has yet to get the land for that station from Alberta Infrastructure.
This collaboration is a win-win-win for St. Albert, Edmonton and the province, Bracko said. "It shows that when you work in partnership, things work much better."
The LRT might not actually reach St. Albert until 2020, Bracko said, but it will take cars off the road and improve traffic flows when it does. "[Residents] want their children to be able to go on the LRT and go to NAIT."
Bracko said he wasn't sure how council would use the spare $72,000 it now has in its LRT reserve, but that he would lobby to use it for a study on an LRT line through St. Albert.
