Anyone who has spent any amount of time with me around the holiday season will know that I have a borderline irresponsible, obsessive love for the Holiday Train. Every two years the convoy makes its way to our city and Edmontonians young and old get to marvel at the brilliant lights and enjoy a quick, christmas-themed outdoor show. Of course when the Holiday Train arrived this year, I had no hesitation about bundling up and braving the -25°C temperatures to attend.

What followed trumps youthful socks-for-christmas disappointment. It wasn't a disagreement of genres with the performance. It wasn't unrealistic expectations, setting myself up for failure.

What followed was an inappropriately run, un-fun, dangerous embarrassment of an event: the 2016 Holiday Train in Edmonton.

Even as I simply approached the Holiday Train, a sinking pit developed in my stomach. I knew it would not live up to my expectations. As I walked forward, cars were driving directly past my shoulder, only about five metres from the train. Attendees packed themselves tightly between the heavy car traffic and the train as they tried to make their way to the stage area. This was after the train arrived late, and there was no signage, nor warm-up stations or fires present anywhere (and, of course, how could you have fires when there are gasoline cars absolutely everywhere?)

The train itself was parked in front of an expansive parking lot, with people clustered together and tightly packed, trying to avoid cars, that were driving assertively closer and closer to the mass of attendees. Nevermind that the rear of the lot was nearly empty, the place to be was where people were trying to walk. On ice and snow.

That little girl in the pink jacket in the panorama above? You know, the one a breath away from the forward-moving Jeep, below the driver's sightlines? Don't bother worrying about what would happen if she slipped. It happened. Her mom noticed and grabbed her arm to catch her shouting "be careful!"

Heaven forbid she get lost in marvel at the magical-looking railway cars with intricate lights and moving designs. We need her focusing all of her energy on not dying when she's at an outdoor, public winter event.

We couldn't get a great view of the stage. In the area directly in front of the stage there was room on the ground for several thousand attendees to all have a wonderful time. The actual event saw maybe a little over a hundred have a mediocre time. Cars were parked three metres from the stage. They were on, and running. Two people in each car enjoyed the show, with their jackets off, while everyone else at the outdoor winter event choked back fumes and had their view obscured by the vehicles in a better position.

The cars in the front were completely surrounded by people simply trying to get a view of the stage.

The back of the lot in front of the train was empty. The entire expansive lot north of the train was empty. There was more than enough parking for everyone who wanted to attend the event by car.

I talked with the two constables on site at the Holiday Train, they expressed extreme frustration to me that they weren't authorized to the close the lot in front of the train. CP organized this event, not the city, and CP can do whatever they want with their parking lot.

We as a city make sure that if a deck has a railing with vertical guards five inches apart the owner has to rebuild, but if cars want to drive straight through a swathe of pedestrians - including very small children - who are attending a headline winter event, that's perfectly kosher 👌.

We live in a winter city. In parallel with this event happening winter city design guidelines were making their way through committee and council. It's great work to be lauded surely, but designing spaces to be more hospitable to pedestrians is worthless if we allow running vehicles to drive straight through. We need to ensure that we're managing the events that occur in a winter city, as well as the infrastructure.

When an event is expected to draw hundreds of people and is located in a parking lot, that area of the lot should be closed to parking.

This rule doesn't need to exist exclusively for winter, it's a no-brainer all seasons, but it is especially important in winter when conditions are slippery and darkness is abound.

We need to make sure our outdoor winter family events have places for people to enjoy them free from exhaust from vehicles and generators.

And we need to make these event regulations enshrined in bylaw and enforced, because as I've experienced in what I consider to be the premiere holiday event, organizers like CP will not take the safety of their attendees into account unless they're forced to.

I remember when -30 temperatures meant wearing another pair of socks, and bringing an extra scarf. As we've gotten better at hiding from the cold temperatures, we've convinced ourselves that we have to hide from the cold. That's simply not the case; we have resilient clothing and we have the capability to enjoy our city in any temperature. When we allow selfish people to park running vehicles in the centre of our events, you can bet they will. So let's make sure they can't, and winter events will be an accessible, safe and fun way for Edmontonians to spend an evening in the dark.