Vision Zero Street Labs on Spruce Ave
Street labs allow neighbours to raise traffic concerns directly with the city
On May 30, Spruce Avenue residents had the opportunity to participate in a Vision Zero Street Lab. These street labs are a new engagement tool for the community to provide feedback to the city about their needs on topics like parking, lane changes, and other road issues.
Spruce Avenue was one of several Edmonton areas holding public engagements from May until June 12. Some feedback from the Spruce Avenue community included complaints of the new parking changes, cars speeding, and too much parking in some areas that impede two lanes of traffic. Some community members provided suggestions like changing some yield signs to stop signs, or allowing parking during allocated times in the day.
“Vision Zero Street labs are a way to work with the city to bring traffic safety improvements to neighbourhoods using adaptable traffic calming measures,” says Elizabeth Halpin, Senior Communications Advisor for the City of Edmonton. “Each Street Lab project is tailored to the unique needs of the community to creatively address concerns about speeding, short-cutting and other unsafe driving behaviours.”
The first step to hold street labs is the intake. A member of the community can apply for the Vision Zero Street Lab to help with any issues or concerns that can happen in the neighbourhood. The application is then reviewed to see if the lab should be explored in the community. “This year, the city received over 200 applications,” says Halpin. “Our team had to narrow it down to 12 neighbourhoods to engage with this year in order to do a meaningful dive into residents' concerns.”
The session in Spruce Avenue was step two of the street lab — engagement. The neighbourhood is encouraged to either participate in an online survey or an in-person engagement event. During the event held on May 30, the street lab had members stationed in different corners of the room to address pedestrians, vehicles, cyclists, and other traffic concerns. The members wrote down community feedback on large boards and placed star stickers on maps directly related to this feedback. There will be a “What We Heard Report” released.
The next steps are creating a plan, install, and evaluate. City staff will create a plan based on the engagement step and will share the plan with residents. Some adaptable calming measures that could be installed are centre medians, adaptable speed humps, and two-stage crossings. The final step gives community members an opportunity to provide feedback after the new measures have been installed for a few months.
Some neighborhoods that went through the engagement step in 2023 are now in the installation period. To move forward with its street lab process, Spruce Avenue will now wait for the “What We Heard Report,” which is usually released about two months after the engagement session.
It is great to hear about the many positive happenings in North Edmonton.