reframe
J
re One of the primary goals for the Jasper Avenue reimagine is to ditch the feeling
asper Avenue, the road that cuts a
swath through Edmonton’s downtown core, has historically been little more than a motorway for office workers to commute in and out of the city centre. Even as the city makes a concerted effort to revitalize its downtown as a destination for dining, shopping, nightlife, and tourism, the wide and uninterrupted mass of asphalt, spanning as much as seven lanes of traffic, seems more reminiscent of a freeway than vibrant hub for the increasingly younger
construction in 2019— initially started out as a far more modest endeavor. At a
motorway. Instead, the new vision conceptualizes the Avenue first and foremost as a space for people.
capital budget hearing in 2014, community members and business owners pushed
Project teams with the City’s Urban
city council to make Jasper Avenue a
Planning department formed the 18-per-
more pedestrian friendly and attractive
son Community, Business and Resident
thoroughfare for pedestrians, partly in
Committee, a combination of business
response to the disappointing design
associations, residents, and community
outcomes of revitalization on the east
leagues from Oliver and Downtown. The
and trendier crowd that populates the area.
committee met throughout late 2015 and
the original plan for a simple pavement
2016 to make suggestions about ways to
Acting as a central point for the city’s
refresh of the roadway and sidewalks, the
improve Jasper Avenue’s usability. “The
city began fielding suggestions about how
first exercise we did was the visioning
to improve the appearance and safety
exercise,” says Gadidasu.
its surrounding avenues are given their number and designation— Jasper Ave is presently devoid of much (if any) personality, a deficiency that the city hopes to remedy with its upcoming redesign efforts. Conceived as a pilot project to determine how changes to the road’s construction would impact pedestrian and commuter engagement, Imagine Jasper Avenue and Experience Jasper Avenue are reimagine
town’s avenue of note —slated to begin
that the city’s main street is just a
end of Jasper Avenue. After scrapping
infrastructure —the street after which
38
The plan for a massive overhaul of down-
initiatives aimed at transforming how Edmontonians utilize and interact with the space.
of one of Edmonton’s most widely used main streets. “In those deliberations, council directed the administration to do a streetscape
“I think like anything, it’s safe to say there were a range of opinions about the pop-up.”
concept plan and ask the public what they would like to see on Jasper Avenue for the next 30 years,” says Satya Gadidasu, the
“We asked what they would like to see Jasper Avenue look like. We heard that
Project Manager for both Imagine Jasper
[residents] wanted to see a lot of trees,
Avenue and Experience Jasper Avenue,
a lot of wide pedestrian areas. They
noting that the proposed changes will
wanted to see street lighting, and they
likely be in place for decades after con-
wanted this idea of a ‘community-built’
struction is completed.
street, not just a major thoroughfare to get into downtown.”