Big plan for Edmonton’s river valley released

Big plan for Edmonton’s river valley
Mike Sadava, edmontonjournal.com
Published: Thursday, March 15, 2007
It's all over but the funding.

An ambitious $605-million plan was unveiled today to create a continuous river valley park from Fort Saskatchewan to Devon complete with 12 new pedestrian bridges, new trails, docks, and eventually new attractions such as an aquarium.

While the River Valley Alliance's latest plan flushes out the details of what is being touted as Edmonton's version of Stanley Park, the lobbying of the federal and provincial government for the funding to make it possible has not yet started.


Sol Rolingher, chair of the River Valley Alliance, vowed that the plan, which itself cost $1.6 million to prepare, won't gather dust.

"The million people here won't accept that," Rolingher told a news conference at the Oldtimers Cabin overlooking the river valley.

Residents of seven municipalities from Parkland County to Sturgeon County want the valley connected and protected for their children and grandchildren, he said.

"Truly this is a situation where the sum of the parts is much greater than the individual pieces," Rolingher said.

"The price tag is a lot, I won't hide that," he said. "We can't ignore it, but we have to deal with it."

The individual municipal councils represented on the alliance will each ratify the plan over the next six months, and then the lobbying of MLAs and provincial and federal cabinet ministers right up to Prime Minister Stephen Harper will begin.

[Coldrsx]

excellent news!!! Edmonton's river valley and its uses are so phenominal, but a few more such as:

-rentals for blades, bikes
-rentals for canoes, kayaks
-rentals for X-country skis, snow shoes
-a few coffee places.

[Boris2k7]

Fantastic! That's money well spent.

[Wooster]

A great idea to enhance the city's greatest asset.

[Rocket252]

Fantastic but 605 million?

I would like to know what we are getting for that sort of scratch.

[Coldrsx]

^basically trails, bridges (@ what like 10mil each x 12 is 120-150mil i bet), parks, aquarium (50-100mil), and prob interpretive centres etc.

[skrish]

Great news for Edmonton.

[ExcaliburKid]

Thats so awesome! Im really excited to see this come to fruition. Especially an aquarium! Ive always been mezmerised by fish just swimming around and doing their own thing.
Takes my mind off of panache (doesnt deserve a capital "P")

I think this should be a no brainer for the province of alberta . . . look at Kleins 1 billion stadium renewal announcement last year. No questions asked...boom done deal. This is so important to the future of the city. People want this. It will move Edmonton into a different class of city.

[HomeInMyShoes]

Originally Posted by Coldrsx

excellent news!!! Edmonton's river valley and its uses are so phenominal, but a few more such as:

-rentals for blades, bikes
-rentals for canoes, kayaks
-rentals for X-country skis, snow shoes
-a few coffee places.

Seriously cool stuff. There's a couple of companies that will bus you out to Devon and then you can canoe back into Edmonton. I did that one weekend and it was pretty fun and a great way to hang out with friends for a day. The one I did you pick up and end up back just past the Groat Road bridge.

[ctown.myth]

600 million does sound a bit of a overkill for what is planned...

[Calgarian]

Edmonton is really starting to become a nice city, this will definately aid in that fact. Congrats.

Originally Posted by ctown.myth

600 million does sound a bit of a overkill for what is planned...

I disagree. This a huge development with lots of work needed. The aqurium proposal alone would be a good sum of money. Development of parks and landings is not cheap especially in Edmonton.

How many Km's is that stretch of park?

[SHOFEAR]

This made my day. Excellent news.

[ctown.myth]

Originally Posted by brento79

I disagree. This a huge development with lots of work needed. The aqurium proposal alone would be a good sum of money. Development of parks and landings is not cheap especially in Edmonton.

How many Km's is that stretch of park?

...But I don't know jack about architecture, so I can't say .

[HomeInMyShoes]

This is a huge development. Here's a bit of a sense of scale. As the crow flies Devon to Ft. Sask is about 35km. Winding the river valley probably makes that about 70km. There's already a good chunk of pathway inside of Edmonton, but that still probably leaves a good 25km of pathway to develop. I'm assuming boat lunches would come up around the golf courses between Edmonton and Devon. What about the NorthEast section?

And yes, I know Devon and Ft. Sask are both south of the river.

[CanadianCentaur]

This is excellent news regarding Edmonton's river valley!

[Duke76]

For those interested the Edmonton River Valley Alliance already has the development plans online at http://www.rivervalley.ab.ca/pla.html

[IKAN104]

It sounds promising but I'm gonna need more details before I give their plan a total thumbs up. The article posted above is very sparse on specifics.

Does this River Valley Alliance envision a natural area which can be enjoyed only through cycling / walking or do they envision developments that will actually make the river valley a part of this city and allow people to interact with it more on a daily basis for reasons other than exercise?

Where are the maps and renderings? What is the time line? And why the heck would it cost $600 million???

[IKAN104]

o.k. thanks for that link Duke. There's a lot more info on their website indeed. Here's the link to the map I was asking for.

http://www.rivervalley.ab.ca/map.html