Weekly Update - May 6th, 2022

Hello from YOW!

🛩 The week recess offered me the opportunity to visit friends and family in Ottawa - the first time my two year old has met her paternal grandma!

📸 An occupational hazard of being an urban planner is that holiday photos consist mainly of sidewalks and landscape design - travelling really is a great way to see what other cities are doing that we can learn from. Ottawa is doing some pretty neat things!

🚑 One of my favourites is a mixed-income affordable housing project built on top of an ambulance station - this type of co-location is something I’d love to see more of in Edmonton.

🚾 I saw some great examples of public washrooms, and their new LRT stations have a ton of beautiful bike parking too.

🚛 One of my nerdiest delights was seeing a small scale waste collection truck that can easily operate on more urban, pedestrian-oriented streets. It proves that we can make different choices about our fleet that can in turn allow us to make different choices in how we design our communities. Software changes can also help - I was interested to see that traffic light cycles provide a three-second head start to pedestrians, something I’m curious to learn more about and whether that’s something that could support Edmonton’s Vision Zero.

🎉 As fun (and as educational!) as it was to be away, I’m looking forward to being back in #yeg soon! I’m grateful to my amazing team for keeping things rolling in my absence and hope everyone has a great weekend!