A St. Albert planner will help hundreds of Alberta students plan sustainable cities this weekend.
Gilles Prefontaine, chief community development officer for the City of St. Albert, will speak this weekend at the University of Alberta on how to create sustainable communities.
The talk is part of the two-day Student Sustainability Conference at the U of A, the theme of which this year is sustainable cities. About 170 students are expected to attend.
Walkable communities and transportation are major subthemes of the conference.
Today's car-orientated cities are not sustainable, said conference speaker Damian Collins, a professor of human geography (how people relate to places) at the U of A.
"We just found out yesterday (Wednesday) that 2015 was the hottest year on record," he said, and carbon emissions from cars are a big reason for this heat.
"We can't keep cooking the planet."
Cars stink
Sustainable communities have economic, social, and environmental aspects, and cars can work against all of them.
If you drive everywhere, you're not socializing with your neighbours and are missing out on your local parks, Prefontaine said. And the moment you get into your car, you're just 15 minutes from Edmonton or Morinville, making it less likely that you'll support local shops.
Cars are expensive, with the Canadian Automobile Association estimating that it costs around $10,448 a year to own and drive a mid-sized car for a year, notes conference speaker Darren Proulx, an engineer and founder of the urban design group Slow Streets.
Cars also need expensive roads, and urban sprawl encourages cities to approve more development so they can afford the roads they have.
"If you look at the historic centre of St. Albert, half of it is parking," he noted.
Parking lots don't create value for cities and take up land from businesses that could. A big-box store might create a lot of cash from a lump-sum perspective, but when it comes to taxes per square metre (tax density), a small shop is superior because it loses less space to parking.
There are health impacts as well. Obesity costs Canadians $4 billion to $7 billion a year, and walking can help us get the 30 minutes of daily physical activity needed to ward it off, Proulx said.
"Driving is quite a stressful activity," he added, with some studies suggesting that drivers experience similar stress levels to fighter jet pilots and riot police.
How to get stepping
Planners need to make walking a priority instead of an afterthought when designing cities, Proulx said. By encouraging mixed-use development, they can cut their costs for road maintenance, get more businesses per square metre, and promote better psychological and physical health in residents.
Part of that means designing our streets for winter instead of denying it exists, he said. Quebec, Oslo, and Copenhagen use covered patios and narrow streets to encourage more winter walkers. Edmonton has decided to "program the hell" out of winter with community events and projects like the Freezeway – a winter skating path – to make the outdoors enjoyable.
St. Albert is taking many steps to become more walkable, Prefontaine said. In addition to improving sidewalks along St. Albert Trail, the city has been using its block party program to encourage people to get out of the house. While its trail network is largely targeted towards recreation, it recently gained mixed-use destinations such as the Enjoy Centre and the Shops on Boudreau.
Downtown, city staffers are looking at putting sidewalk bulb-outs on Perron St. to reduce the distance pedestrians have to cross, and considering "scramble" crosswalks that stop all traffic so pedestrians can safely walk in any direction.
The conference runs this weekend at the U of A. While it's targeted at post-secondary students, its two keynote speeches are open to the public.
Visit www.sustainability.ualberta.ca for details.
