St. Albert’s long-awaited future park and ride station will be a go, Mayor Nolan Crouse announced during his State of the City address.
Speaking before several hundred businessmen, community representatives and provincial and municipal politicians at The Enjoy Centre Wednesday, Crouse said he had received a letter from the province assuring him the Campbell Road Transit Station and Park and Ride would receive grant funding.
“I’ve received a letter … giving us the thumbs up on the grant funding that is going to come from the province on that,” Crouse said.
St. Albert submitted the proposed project to the province for GreenTRIP funding two years ago, but progress has been stalled by land negotiations. Edmonton is looking to lease land in the transportation utility corridor from the province, which it will in turn sub-lease to St. Albert. The letter from Transportation Minister Ric McIver states the lease agreement should be finalized “in the next couple of months.”
When the city applied, the cost was estimated to be $30 million, of which the province could fund two-thirds. The city will update the projected cost later this summer.
Crouse, with Edmonton Mayor Stephen Mandel watching from the head table, lauded the spirit of co-operation that would allow St. Albert to build a transit station in Edmonton’s backyard.
“This is unheard of where a municipality can build a park and ride, a major facility in someone else’s territory.”
But even as Crouse counted the park and ride as an achievement, he said the city still has more work to do locally, specifically when it comes to fighting crime. He cited the statistic from the summer’s community satisfaction survey that, despite hiring more police officers and steep drops in speeding tickets, Criminal Code offences and drug offences, the percentage of residents who said they felt safe and secure reached an all-time low.
“So while the survey says, ‘I don’t feel safe,’ we’re going to continue to be more aggressive,” Crouse said. “We have a very safe community but we are going to continue to stay aggressive.”
A perception of safety, as well as other factors such as access to major roads, the city’s brand as the botanical arts city, the addition of 617 acres of light industrial land and a solid business base are key in St. Albert’s battle to increase non-residential development.
He pointed out that over the last three years in major cities in Alberta, taxes from non-residential land have increased six per cent while in St. Albert they’ve dropped one per cent.
“Our council and staff have worked to send the message many times to the business community that we are serious about every aspect of economic development,” Crouse said.
Economic development might not be a regional matter, but the region is growing even more important with 25,000 people per year moving to the Capital region. The city needs to take part in that and must prepare with its neighbours, Crouse said, as he issued a call for talks between the city and Sturgeon County on developing plans for water, sanitary sewer and stormwater services.
“We need the county at the table to develop those plans,” Crouse said as county commissioner Peter Tarnawsky and Couns. Tom Flynn and David Kluthe watched from a nearby table. “It’s fundamentally important that water, sewer and storm are all planned together.”
