Weekly Update - Dec 12

Welcome to the weekly wrap up! Last week was a big week as we started capital budget deliberations in earnest.

I’m grateful to Amarjeet Sohi and his team for developing an excellent omnibus motion that made a lot of great changes to the draft capital budget. Read on for my top five!

I was excited to support more investment in affordable housing and improvements to transit. Making Edmonton more accessible and affordable is essential for all of us to thrive.

We also amended the budget to better reflect the urgent need for action on climate. We directed resources towards building retrofits, emissions-neutral vehicle replacements, and expanding our district energy program - helping to ensure a resilient Edmonton now and in the future.

Investment in active transportation infrastructure was another great addition to the budget. Following through on bike plan implementation and building missing links in our sidewalks will provide all Edmontonians with more choices for how we get around.

The infrastructure upgrades we approved for Chinatown go a long way to addressing historic underinvestment in this area, and help to realise the vision set out in the Chinatown Strategy. I look forward to seeing these changes come to life!

I’m sad that the 100 Ave pedestrian bridge will be paused. We also might not realise the full High Line vision as part of the High Level Bridge renewal, but I’m pleased that designs will be developed so that we can consider the upper deck in future budget cycles.

This week we’ll be wrapping up the capital budget and moving on to the operating budget. I’ll be working for more investment in housing, climate change, safety and transit - more updates to come! Thanks again to everyone who’s been writing in with your thoughts on the budget.