Have you heard? St. Albert Trail is in need of higher standards. Also, the Trail looks junky and cluttered.
And that’s just what is being said at a city council meeting about this community’s main street.
The St. Albert Trail Improvement committee has finished its work and now handed in its plan. It is now up to the city to follow through on its recommendations, the mayor said.
Mayor Nolan Crouse and city councillors accepted the long-awaited report on Monday during a regularly scheduled city council meeting. Crouse didn’t mince words when it came to discussing what St. Albert Trail is, and what it could be.
“There has to be improved standards,” Crouse said. “We have to come to a better solution than this. The biggest complaint I hear about the Trail is the junky, cluttered look to it.”
Committee chair Chris Creran said the plan as provided was meant to be a high-level look at what improvements could be made to the Trail.
“These recommendations are an overview of what is felt to be required,” Creran said. “They are broad in scope.”
Struck in January 2012, the committee’s job was to look at how it could improve the Trail, which has been described as the city’s most important road. Specifically the committee looked at areas such as esthetics, signs, branding, transportation and other ways the city’s main commercial strip could be improved.
What has come back is a list of 16 recommendations on how the Trail can be improved, but Crouse noted it could take years to bring some of them to fruition.
“I think we’ll end up with a whole bunch of changes as opposed to a single document,” Crouse said. “I think it’s going to require maybe 20 years to accomplish all of this.”
Many of the recommendations dealt with signs – in fact five total mention signs, but in three different respects – use of temporary signs, posting addresses and other wayfinding signs.
Temporary or portable signs have been a problem with St. Albert councils for years due to their sheer number on St. Albert Trail. Bans have been considered but never implemented. The Trail Improvement Plan suggests looking at how to move temporary sign users to permanent signs, as well as recommends changing the land use or traffic bylaws to reduce reliance on them.
Another significant recommendation is coming up with a plan to create a sidewalk on both sides of the Trail for its entire length through the city. There are significant portions on either side that do not have a sidewalk.
“Being able to bike and walk is fundamental. It’s almost a human right to be able to walk to where your commerce is and I don’t think we’ve provided that,” Crouse said. “I think you have to intervene. You have to start the process.”
Other recommendations include keeping up the Trailblazer initiative, which is a loose collection of business owners along the Trail who communicate via email, improve plantings along the Trail and on boulevards and to re-visit a pair of plans not adopted by council on transportation and traffic flow and safety.
Those tasks now fall to the city. Besides disbanding the committee Monday night, council asked city manager Patrick Draper to bring back a report on Sept. 3 on how the city could implement these changes.
“Our city manager needs to come back say, ‘Here’s what it means,’ ” Crouse said. “Not just a bunch of engineering studies. To do this will require work, not just policy change.”
Trail recommendations
Besides addressing portable signs and finishing the sidewalk, here are some of the committee's other recommendations:<br />• develop long-term bus bench and shelter program that will incorporate city brand;<br />• Amend land use bylaw to require Trail businesses to visibly post their street address;<br />• recommend a city strategy to rehabilitate St. Albert Trail medians using trees, shrubs and plants;<br />• recommend to council any amendments to bylaws governing waste bins or private infrastructure such that upkeep and appearance are consistent with standards.
