Troy Pavlek

A timeline: Duncan Kinney vs. The Edmonton Police

2022-10-28T00:00:00+00:00

On October 14th charges were laid against Progress Alberta journalist Duncan Kinney, allegedly for vandalism of a statue that had occurred one year prior. It's easy to take this event as an isolated incident, and let it colour past and future reporting. It's easy to indict Kinney without his date in court.

But, this event is part of a long series of conflicts, accusations, investigations and rhetoric that is tightly interwoven with police accountability, budgeting and politics.

He may be guilty, he may be innocent. But the process, the players involved and the timeline give this regular watcher of municipal news pause.

Progress Alberta is a "known critic" of the Edmonton Police, and has broken and reported on many stories critical of the Edmonton Police including:

Duncan has had public and personal conflicts with the Edmonton Chief of Police and has been an ever-present thorn.

So let's look at a timeline of events, including some major players:

December 2019

A statue of Roman Shukhevych was vandalized with red tape. No charges were laid for the vandalism.

July 23, 2020

Duncan Kinney writes about the vandalism.

The Ukrainian Youth Unity Complex say that the vandalism is being investigated by the EPS hate crimes unit, but the EPS eventually confirm that it is not being investigated as a hate crime.

September 1, 2020

Progress Alberta, after a fight with EPS, is recognized as accredited media by EPS.

The director of legal services for the Edmonton Police, Geoff Crowe said that "The decision to exclude Progress Alberta from comment by the Edmonton Police Service was provided without reasons and appeared to be arbitrary."

August 2021

The statue of Roman Shukhevych was vandalized again, and a second monument honouring the 14th Waffen SS Division was also painted with red paint. It has never been established exactly what date this vandalism occurred, but it was before August 10th.

August 10, 2021

Duncan Kinney writes about the vandalism on the Progress Report.

He characterizes the vandalism as "unclear when this happened".

January-Feb 2022

Convoy protests begin in Edmonton (and across Canada). Honking, noise and disruption is very high in Edmonton. The Edmonton police, under scrutiny from the public, issue very few tickets and are seen to be friendly and co-operative with the participants in the convoy.

February 11, 2022

With plans for a disruptive weekend of more convoy protests, the City of Edmonton seeks an emergency injunction against the noise. It is granted. Many, including the City Manager, are optimistic this will quell the disruption for the coming weekend.

It does not.

Duncan Kinney and the Progress Report continue to write very critical reporting of the police handling of this issue.

February 14, 2022

Progress Alberta breaks the story on the secret EPS airplane.

It is widely circulated to many outlets, and further damages EPS credibility at a time when it is already being stretched thin.

Feb 16, 2022

Intense criticism has been levied against the Edmonton Police, who many feel have completely bungled the policing of the convoy protests. The emergency injunction, while granted, was not used nor enforced by the Edmonton Police over the weekend.

Councillors, and the mayor, unable to direct the police, encourage citizens to write the police commission and speak at the meeting on February 17th.

Edmonton Police Commission Chair John McDougall writes an op-ed in the Edmonton Journal, defending the Edmonton Police, arguing that they did a very good job during the protests and essentially quashing any hopes of accountability prior to hearing from the public at the commission meeting on Feb 17.

At a press conference with the EPS, there is a heated exchange between the Chief and Duncan Kinney, who does not believe the police will do anything different at subsequent convoy protests.

Here's @duncankinney's exchange with @DMMcFee today at the self-congratulatory do-nothing presser the EPS threw. We apologize for the weird audio feedback, it happened with multiple people on the call. #yegcc pic.twitter.com/lvyUcMuVNU
— The Progress Report (@ProgressAlberta) February 17, 2022

The op-ed is widely panned for being inappropriate including in a counter-op-ed by academic Temitope Oriola.

Feb 17, 2022

At the police commission meeting, many members of the public show up to express discontent with the policing.

Duncan Kinney asks about the op-ed, and commissioner Jodi Callahoo-Stonehouse confirms that the op-ed is the position of the entire commission, and anyone that disagrees can speak up now. No one does.

In a follow-up, Anne Stevenson says she is unable to speak to the media as a commissioner, and begins seeking legal advice. It is notable that the police commission format requires commissioners to support the decisions of the commission publicly, and that only the chair is authorized to speak to media on behalf of the commission.

Feb 24, 2022:

The EPS cuts off Progress Alberta's press credentials. No details were given on the reason why, other than they could "apply to get them" - which Progress Alberta had already done, a year ago.

Mar 3, 2022

The integrity commissioner dismisses a complaint by Edmonton Police Association head Michael Elliot. The complaint asserted that councillor Michael Janz was amplifying "known critics" of the Edmonton Police Service. The Progress Report was identified as one such "known critic".

Mar 17, 2022

At a police commission meeting, Taproot Edmonton and Anne Stevenson asked questions about why press credentials were getting revoked, and the EPS said they would not respond publicly. They did not respond privately either, or give any reason for the revocation.

Stevenson asked if there was any policy that determined which media should and shouldn't have press credentials. There was none.

April, 2022:

Jodi Callahoo-Stonehouse announces she's seeking the NDP nomination in Rutherford.

April 22, 2022

Councillor Anne Stevenson, after seeking thorough legal advice regarding what she can and cannot say in public, appears as a guest on the Speaking Municipally Podcast.

She speaks about the lack of openness and transparency on the Police Commission and her preference for the commission themselves drafting recommendations, rather than the police service drafting their own recommendations for approval by the commission.

She also said that she regrets not speaking up during the meeting when Callahoo-Stonehouse pressed the commission to disagree with the chair.

"If I had the information I have now, I definitely would have responded differently."

May 18, 2022:

Jodi Callahoo-Stonehouse, at a city council meeting debating the police funding formula, called for Anne Stevenson's removal from the police commission for "conflict of interest". She alleged that since Stevenson had employed someone critical of police, she was not able to fulfil her role on the police commission without conflict. It is not relevant to the council discussion that day, which was about including photo radar funding in the base police budget.

It's not clear why Stonehouse was even at the meeting, given that the chair was there.

Experts are confused why Stonehouse thinks it's a conflict of interest, and the Mayor says he has full confidence in Stevenson.

June 6, 2022

Ashvin Singh, police commissioner, with an intention to leave his position to move to Vancouver, writes a letter to Mayor Sohi asking him to "investigate" Stevenson for "ethical issues".

In the letter he says Anne Stevenson has tried to "actively influence an investigation" of Duncan Kinney.

It is not clear why a police commissioner would know about an investigation of an individual, and if he did, it seems like telling others, like the mayor about the investigation would violate confidence. Ashvin has never responded to either of these questions.

Despite requests from Kinney's lawyer, there has never been an answer as to whether Kinney was actually under investigation at this time, nor what the purported investigation was for.

It's not clear who leaked this letter to the media.

Mayor Sohi responds has no power to do anything, nor "investigate" this.

Progress Alberta files a complaint with the commission about Singh's letter. Tom Engel, Kinney's lawyer says the police commission closed the investigation after Singh resigned. The police association continue to use the letter from Singh to attack Kinney and Stevenson.

June 10, 2022

Progress Alberta reports that Chief McFee is highest paid Chief in Canada.

October 14, 2022

Charges are laid against Duncan Kinney for one of the two statues that were vandalized. It has now been over a year since Duncan Kinney wrote about it. The charge is "mischief under $5,000".

Very few charges of "mischief under $5,000" are publicized, nor released.

October 25, 2022

News outlets get hold of the charge and write about it. It's not clear the source of this information, whether they were tipped off by Police, Kinney himself, or if an enterprising reporter just spotted it on the court docket.

Now

The timeline of events show an Edmonton Police Commission intent on shutting down those asking difficult questions or seeking accountability for the police, a Police Service and Chief openly hostile to a journalist that regularly reports on police budget and misconduct, a web of accusations and investigations that seem to break and hold confidence at a whim and mischief charges laid on a journalist after nearly a year-and-a-half investigation into a single statue's vandalism.

As far as sniff tests go, something smells rank.

Duncan Kinney will appear in court on Nov 10.

Cheryll Watson launches an uninspiring and unfocused campaign

2021-02-02T00:00:00+00:00

It's been 112 days since Cheryll Watson announced that she would be running for the mayor's seat and started her "listening campaign". A campaign to hear from Edmontonians, and build her platform from conversations with real people.

The idea is laudable, and it definitely could yield good policy and a great candidate.

For a non incumbent, this is a steep mountain to climb. #YEG is a city of over 1 million people. Candidates need to be able to build name recognition, a team, and fundraise as much as they can for as long as they can. Hence launching early.
— Cheryll Watson (@CheryllYEG) January 28, 2021

However, three and a half months of listening has culminated in the release of a first plank that has the tenacity and scrappy spirit of wispy clouds on a meadow breeze. The best she could muster after a quarter of a year has been her plan to establish a Chief Accountability Officer.

The problem, she alleges is twofold:

Council spends too much time asking questions that have already been asked, building things that have already been built, or making motions that undermine the city's agreed-upon goals.
Council lacks a strong advocate in the seat of the mayor who can collaborate with the provincial government effectively meaning plans stall out.

Her solution to all of this? Adding another layer of bureaucracy outside of City Administration, to provide information that we already receive.

@include('_partials.image', [ 'name' => 'platform-plank.png', 'caption' => "The policy statement direct from Cheryll Watson's campaign page" ])

Among a plan most riddled with problems, perhaps the most damning is how little it actually looks like a plan.

Half of Watson's identified problem is establishing a collaborative relationship with the province, but the policy presented does nothing to increase or foster that collaboration. Voters are simply meant to trust that Watson is the right person to do it.

Trust, based on what? Remember voters were meant to trust that an inspiring platform to push the city forward and was still to come following listening and consulting with Edmontonians.

@component('_partials.bigass-quote', [ 'no_quotes' => true ]) Trust, absent evidence, is naïveté. @endcomponent

There's also an intense irony in substantially increasing waste in a policy designed to reduce waste.

Watson proposes that the Chief Accountability Officer would sit outside administration and outline how proposed motions align with existing City objectives and goals, and research how other jurisdictions have accomplished their goals.

We already do that.

Look no further than a report to Executive Committee this Monday on the Growth Investment Strategy.

The report, like every one produced by City Administration concludes with a simple table outlining the metrics that will be used to evaluate how the content of the report aligns with overall city goals and objectives.

@include('_partials.image', [ 'name' => 'outcomes.png', 'caption' => "Every report is evaluated against exiting City goals and objectives"])

Beyond that, the Executive Summary at the start of the report details at length how the proposed strategy directly aligns with the newly-passed City Plan.

In a city as risk-averse as Edmonton there's not a new proposal that doesn't include a component of researching how other jurisdictions have done similar things.

Criticisms of the policy itself aside, that this was chosen as the standard bearer to launch Watson's platform signals to me a campaign struggling to find a reason to exist. Even as a self-identifying political wonk, I struggle to find the effort to care about the issues she's highlighting.

Certainly, I was upset when bad-faith councillors attempted this term to reset tens of millions of dollars of work and decades of planning to upend Valley Line West at the 11th hour. But this policy doesn't address that very real fear other than promising that Watson is such a strong leader that "a collaborative, aligned council" will coalesce behind her.

Edmonton is in the throes of a once-in-a-century global pandemic; our city has virtually no representation in a provincial government that is slashing and burning city supports; we're on the cusp of redesigning for a city of 2 million; and we're about to start construction on the largest — and most expensive — public transit project the city has ever undertaken.

In light of the challenges we're facing, what does Watson choose to target as her launch plank? Establishment of an esoteric office that will deal with the minutiae of council inquiries and processes. Who does this target? Who does this inspire? Where did this come from?

In short, Watson's first platform plank, the one that will — and has — set expectations for her upcoming campaign is very revealing: so far her repertoire of exciting and impactful policy is precisely as empty as many have accused it of being.

As a newcomer candidate, Watson has said at length that she aims to build name recognition and show Edmontonians that she deserves their vote in October.

So far, I only recognize her as someone with an uninspiring campaign that lacks focus.

I reached out to Cheryll's campaign team for comment, I've included the full reply below:

Troy,

Thanks for the opportunity to comment. You picked up an issue of version control between our media release and the policy statement we published on our website. We’re going to correct this today. Thank you.

A couple of points I will share in advance of this. The policy is meant to address a few current issues:

Maintaining historical and institutional knowledge on our City Council that is currently at risk should some of our veteran Councilors move on at the end of this term
The motion assessment and plan alignment work needs to be done up front vs. when the report is completed as it is today
You often talk on Speaking Municipally about:

a) Our city leaders being inconsistent in executing against current strategies and plans

b) Unnecessary pilot projects being created when there are clear demonstrations of program implementation in other cities

We are also assessing our media list to make sure it’s fully representative and that you are included on release distributions going forward. Attaching the related release here.

Yours in collaboration.

imgpath}}cheryll-signature.png" />

[Platform Press Release]({{ $page->imgpath }}watson-release.pdf)

I appreciate Watson's willingness to engage with admittedly harsh criticism and she earns credit for owning up to a communication lapse. The press release is more thorough and defines the problem space better.

I'm less convinced that clarifying the problems, which I certainly agree are valid problems, does anything to address the criticism the policy does not seem to effectively mitigate those problems.

Watson certainly appears ready, willing and able to listen and engage. I hope we see more inspiring results of that engagement through the remainder of her campaign.

Ten months away, the candidates for Edmonton's 2021 election look very different

2020-12-22T00:00:00+00:00

With ten months remaining before Edmontonians go to the polls in the 2021 municipal election, the field has already begun to form with a makeup very different from three years ago.

It's no secret that Edmonton City Council looks very male and very white. A mere look at the very visible demographics of council is enough to lift that shroud of secrecy. However, with seventeen candidates declared according to daveberta's election tracker, the status quo has taken a surprising shift:

eleven (65%) of the candidates declared so far are women
eight (47%) are visible people of colour

At the end of February 2017, a couple months later in the process from where we are now and with most of the incumbents declared, Daveberta tracked 31 candidates

nine (29%) of the candidates declared were women
nine (29%) of the candidates declared were visible people of colour

According to Rhiannon Hoyle who is running in Ipiihkoohkanipiaohtsi, an area roughly similar to the ward in which Michael Walters announced he wouldn't be running for re-election, this change represents a community that was always working, but decided now to step up and make their runs visible.

@component('_partials.quote_attribution', [ 'img' => '/img/election-2021/rhiannon-hoyle.jpg', 'attribution' => 'Rhiannon Hoyle' ])

I’m only one person so I can only speak for myself, but I believe many of us from underrepresented groups are continuously working to improve representation on council that, at a minimum, reflects the population demographic of Edmonton. I hope letting Edmontonians know early that there are more of us stepping up to run will not only give us more exposure, but will also encourage others to get organized.

@endcomponent

Shamair Turner, a candidate in Karhiio, the new ward that roughly encompasses Mill Woods, Summerside and Ellerslie, points to this summer as the point where pent-up tensions in the Black, Indigenous and People of Colour communities culminated into a rallying call for meangingful action from the people historically most marginalized.

@component('_partials.quote_attribution', [ 'img' => '/img/election-2021/shamair-turner.jpg', 'attribution' => 'Shamair Turner' ])

People have become much more aware that a lot of spaces exist that have traditionally not been as welcoming or accessible to women and Black, Indigenous, People of Colour (BIPOC) and have realized that representation is more important than ever before.

@endcomponent

She speaks to that in her own experience on deciding to declare this early

@component('_partials.quote_attribution', [ 'img' => '/img/election-2021/shamair-turner.jpg', 'attribution' => 'Shamair Turner' ])

I used to feel that politics was something that goes on separately from regular people’s lives. I would hear about and discuss political events and once every few years participate through elections but it really is much closer to our lives than that. Politics influences how our neighborhoods look, who gets access to resources and power, and what gets prioritized.

Over the last few years I've come to realize much more than ever before that if we only ever have the same kinds of people from the same backgrounds with the same political career ambitions getting elected, we’re going to keep getting the same circles of influence and control over our communities. If we want to innovate, and improve accountability, we need new voices in leadership. Coming to this realization made me want to seek opportunities where I could get involved and have a greater impact on the community I live in.

@endcomponent

But for the candidates just stepping up to run, especially first time candidates, they can expect a challenging, uphill climb. Incumbency advantage is strong in Edmonton, in the past 20 years, there have only been two examples of a sitting incumbent running and losing: Mike Nickel lost to Don Iveson in 2007 and Dave Loken lost to Jon Dziadyk in 2017.

We might not be due for another upset for another four years.

Where less than a third of Edmontonians show up to the polls to vote in their municipal elections, name recognition becomes worth its weight in electoral gold. Incumbency is one of the best forms of name recognition, but if one is a candidate long enough and puts in the effort, one might be able to earn some of that name recognition.

At least that's the hope.

Rhiannon Hoyle says "running in a ward with no incumbent typically leads to a larger number of candidates that step up to run."

Certainly that appears to be true so far in this race — the wards with the greatest number of candidates declared are the wards that are expected to be empty.

In Ipiihkoohkanipiaohtsi, Michael Walters has announced that he does not plan to seek re-election. In Karhiio, Mike Nickel is predicted to run for mayor. Even though the new ward of Metis has substantially different boundaries than Tony Caterina's Ward 7, he's not predicted to run in 2021, leaving signals of a third open ward.

@component('_partials.quote_attribution', [ 'img' => '/img/election-2021/shamair-turner.jpg', 'attribution' => 'Shamair Turner' ])

I also think the reason for an early announcement, at least for me, is because I am not a household name. In order to break through we need time to get our name out there and connect with the community. We need the time to learn how to do this right in a way that we will be successful and that means finding volunteers, people with campaign experience and most importantly time to raise donations. The candidate is the top of a pyramid of team members and building that foundation takes time.

@endcomponent

As far as incumbents go, the most towering among them won't be making an appearance in 2021. Don Iveson, the runaway victor of the 2017 election with over 70% of the vote has declared that he won't be seeking another term, opening the gates for others to declare for the top chair in the city.

For Cheryll Watson, one of the first candidates to declare in the race, a success would mean she would be the first woman to sit in the Mayor's chair since Jan Reimer was defeated 25 years ago, and the second woman ever.

She's excited at the prospect of a shakeup

@component('_partials.quote_attribution', [ 'img' => '/img/election-2021/cheryll-watson.jpg', 'attribution' => 'Cheryll Watson' ])

Diverse representation allows us to make better decisions as we build our city. I've wondered if we would need groups like WAVE (Women's Advocacy Voice of Edmonton) if we had gender parity on council? An anti-racism task force if we had more diversity? While I commend Council and Administration for setting these things up to fill a void, I'd like Edmontonians to ask these questions of themselves and then show up to vote. Not only do I want to see the makeup of council change, I want more than 31% (speaking on past averages) of our population to care about this.

@endcomponent

And with just two women and only two BIPOC councillors on a council of thirteen, there certainly is a lot of room to shake.

Coming from a background of tech sector leadership, most recently the VP of Innovate Edmonton, Watson is no stranger to working in rooms filled with men — the STEM fields notoriously are plagued with few women. Leaning on her past experience of engagement, hard work, and drive, a win certainly doesn't seem impossible. If she's already found her way into one room where it happens, why not another?

@component('_partials.quote_attribution', [ 'img' => '/img/election-2021/cheryll-watson.jpg', 'attribution' => 'Cheryll Watson' ])

I'm not naive to think throwing out a bold statement like "vote for me" doesn't take work. I need all the time I can get interacting and connecting with voters. And lastly, I wanted Edmontonians to help build my policy platform. This takes time, it takes many conversations, it's learning and listening and providing a platform for tangible feedback. We're in the early stages of that and it's been great so far but I have a lot more people to talk to!

@endcomponent

For the candidates, and all Edmontonians, it's still early. With another ten months to go until the election, policy and divisive issues still have plenty of time to take shape and find their homes with candidates.

But if early candidate declarations are anything to go on, this coming election will not look like any we've had in a long time.

Edmontonians go to the polls Monday, October 18th, 2021.

Staffer who "took full responsibility" for Mike Nickel's rape joke is still managing Mike Nickel's Facebook page

2020-04-20T00:00:00+00:00

Despite "taking responsibility" and apologizing for disrespectful social media usage, Councillor Mike Nickel and the same team that caused him to apologize for lapses in judgement in 2016 appear to be doubling-down on the very same tactics that got them in hot water.

In 2016, Councillor Mike Nickel apologized for a rape joke posted to his Facebook page.

His Facebook page showed an image of a drugged snow white with then-convicted-rapist Brock Turner and now-convicted-rapist Bill Cosby lurking over her. It was captioned: "We couldn't resist … We're just going to post this here and see what happens."

After an outcry, the image was removed and Mike Nickel threw the page manager Matthew Altheim under the bus. Matthew Altheim "took full responsibility" for the post and said that he saw the image and chose not to remove it. It was a "lapse of judgement" for Matthew Altheim, and it was a "lapse of judgement" for Mike Nickel.

But, we learned this weekend, the team of Altheim and Nickel are still very much exercising bad judgement and posting offensive, divisive content on Mike Nickel's Facebook page, without taking any responsibility for the consequences.

In the past month, Mike Nickel has been criticized for politicking during a pandemic. This weekend, he took it one step further and made several posts that many believe to be a soft-launch of his mayoral campaign for 2021. The culmination of these posts was an attack on his council colleague Andrew Knack, that clearly violates the council code of conduct (pdf) sections regarding respectful communication.

@include('_partials.image', [ 'name' => 'nickel-andrew-knack.jpg', 'caption' => 'Mike Nickel posted a cartoonish gif of colleague Andrew Knack "burning" taxpayer dollars on bike lanes.' ])

Why would Mike Nickel choose to personally attack a council colleague like this, and why would he choose a target like Andrew Knack, who is well known in the Edmonton political scene as being very easy to get along with?

It's because when Mike Nickel published a divisive post strewn with misinformation, Andrew Knack sought to correct the record.

After Mike Nickel's post was widely shared, his colleague Andrew Knack dispelled some of the myths and lies in a post titled "Facts Still Matter".

But disrespectful, code-of-conduct-violating language and communication is not the worst of this affair.

The team of Matthew Altheim and Mike Nickel seem to be back at their earlier tactics of posting divisive, offensive content in order to sow discontent and outrage and boost their engagement and their profile.

Perhaps when Matthew Altheim "took full responsibility" for the rape joke posted to Mike Nickel's Facebook page, no responsibility was taken at all.

@include('_partials.image', [ 'name' => 'altheim-posted.jpg', 'caption' => "A now-deleted tweet by Mike Nickel shows a screenshot of the page manager's view of his Facebook page, where Matthew Altheim is posting on Nickel's behalf." ])

Mike Nickel deleted that tweet shown above and reposted it with a new tweet that hides Matthew Altheim's name. This has the appearance of a councillor aware that working with this individual shows an abdication of his responsibility for respectful discourse, but does so anyway for his own benefit.

Mike Nickel is incorrectly lambasting the hardworking City of Edmonton staff and council for lack of leadership and irresponsible spending during a pandemic.

The councillor needs to address if he believes what he's doing now is leadership, and what he thinks responsibility looks like. It seems for Mike Nickel, "taking full responsibility" is avoiding taking any responsibility at all. It's time for the councillor to be held accountable for what he says in public and on social media.

I've reached out to Councillor Nickel with this post for comment. I don't expect to hear back.

Introducing the #YEGCoreZone

2019-04-18T00:00:00+00:00

A new, community-driven idea will be presented to Edmonton City Council's Community and Public Services Committee on April 24th, the #YEGCoreZone

@include('_partials.page.embed', [ 'embed_page' => (object)[ 'url' => '/core-zone', 'img' => '/img/core-zone/yeg-core-zone.jpg', 'title' => '#YEGCoreZone', 'sub_title' => "A plan to rapidly implement livable streets in the core
(interactive map)", 'wrapper_class' => 'shadow-md -mx-8' ]])

So what is the #YEGCoreZone?

In a nutshell, the Core Zone will allow us to pragmatically and rapidly implement livable, safe streets in the core areas of the city. With a focus on quick, efficient implementation, according to research done by the City of Edmonton we could see up to 39% reduction in collisions on our local roadways, and reduce the severity of the collisions that do occur.

For a long time, Edmontonians discussed speed limits and speed reductions, often with intense passion or vitriol. We saw this with the city's implementation of playground zones. When the city attempted a blanket approach, pushback forced council to revert the zones in some scenarios where they didn't make sense and frustrated drivers.

At the same time, advocates for safety in the city have rightly pointed out the massive increase in survivability of collisions at 30km/h compared to 50km/h, as well as the ease and comfort of walking, cycling and playing along streets that have calmed traffic. Walking along a sidewalk directly beside a road with trucks moving at 50km/h can be a lot scarier than walking along one with traffic moving at slower, community-appropriate speeds.

Most recently, council has proposed a motion that would have a blanket approach, and apply 40km/h limits to all local, residential roadways. This would not apply to any collector or arterial roadways. This approach has several downsides.

It doesn't help very much. 40km/h is better than 50, but we know that 30km/h is a safe speed for areas where people live and use the streets in active, shared ways.
It doesn't apply to collector roadways, where residents tend to have the most concern about speeds.
It doesn't address the criticism about suburban contexts. Many complain that new developments have wider roadways and are designed for higher speeds than the old, mature neighbourhood roads so a blanket solution might not be best.
It doesn't propose any way to increase compliance other than what we've already been doing, signs and photo radar.

The solution we are proposing to these issues is the Core Zone. We would take the dense areas in the centre of the city that tend to have far more active transportation mode use like walking, cycling and using public transportation and draw a line around them. This line would be drawn along major arterial roadways so it's easy to know when you've entered and left the zone.

Within the zone, we would propose that all local residential roadways would be 30km/h and all collector roadways (roads that are designed to "collect" neighbourhood traffic and move it to an arterial road) would be 40km/h.

Arterial roadways would not change within the Core Zone.

@include('_partials.image', [ 'name' => 'road-type-map.jpg', 'caption' => '

blue represents the boundary of the zone.
green represents local roadways which would be 30km/h inside the zone.
yellow represents collector roadways which would be 40km/h inside the zone.
red represents arterial roadways which would not change.

' ])

While simply changing the speed limits does have a positive effect - we've seen that in Edmonton communities that have trialed a default 40km/h speed limit - posting signs is not enough. That's key with the Core Zone proposal.

Areas within the Core Zone tend to have narrower, mature streets, with on-street parking and trees that give drivers the sense that they should be moving slower. Where the streets might communicate a higher design speed, it is imperative that we implement quick, effective and inexpensive design solutions that are proven to naturally slow down drivers.

Speeds in the Core Zone shouldn't need to be enforced via Photo Radar. The road should communicate the safe speed to drivers leading to natural compliance. Given the limited size of the Core Zone, city administration will be more able to implement these solutions quickly and broadly in the zone - to prove that they work.

@include('_partials.image', [ 'name' => 'tactical-urbanism.jpg', 'caption' => 'Some examples of inexpensive roadway treatments to increase safety' ])

There's already precedent for this. The neighbourhood of Strathcona, which is undergoing neighbourhood renewal in the coming years has voted overwhelmingly to lower their speed limits to 30km/h and crucially, for the roadways to reflect a design speed of 30km/h. Council has already voted to approve this design speed.

These changes won't solve everything. But they're a start, something that Edmonton has not done much of since it adopted Vision Zero in 2015. The debate on speed reduction has been ongoing for several years, with council continually kicking the can to "decide later". Meanwhile, by the city's own data and projections, every time we wait we're causing material harm to residents.

@include('_partials.image', [ 'name' => 'collision-reductions.jpg', 'caption' => 'Data from the city of Edmonton projecting the reduction in collisions from these speed changes' ])

Where the current council motion proposes to do nothing with residential collectors and target a 6-9% reduction in collisions on local roadways, the Core Zone would take a more ambitious approach, reducing collisions up to 39% on local roadways and 6-9% on collectors.

If you support the idea of a rapidly-implemented Core Zone, please write your city councillor and let them know.

We will be presenting our proposal to Council on April 24th.

Addressing Criticisms

The Core Zone is not ambitious enough, collectors should be 30km/h too!

I agree, and I hope there's a path to getting there. However, a year ago City Council directed administration to look at the different types of roadways we have in Edmonton and recommend some maximum speed limits based on how the road looks and functions. That work did not get completed and won't be completed until this September at the earliest. Unfortunately, right now collectors, even in the core, are not made equal.

@include('_partials.image', [ 'name' => 'classifications.jpg', 'caption' => 'Both of these roadways are classified "Residential-Collector"' ])

This is another pragmatic decision of the Core Zone proposal. We need action now, without delay. Waiting for roadway reclassification would cause too much of a delay in implementation. The Core Zone proposal will suggest that once the reclassification work is complete, neighbourhood-context collectors with two lanes of traffic and homes on both sides should be lowered to 30km/h as well.

The Core Zone is arbitrary. It should have included community [x]

I'm glad you want safe speeds in other communities as well. This criticism is pretty fair, overall. The boundaries of the Core Zone were chosen because:

They represent mostly-similar mature areas with similar street types and design
They cover the areas in the city where active and public transportation have the highest proportion of use
They are along major, easily identifiable arterial roads, which make it simple to locate the zone
They represent areas that have shown demand for traffic calming in the past.

Other areas absolutely might be at home in the Core Zone - and I would be ecstatic if it wasn't a zone at all, but simply a safe city. Unfortunately, this comes down to politics. Many suburban councillors will not vote for a proposal that applies a blanket approach, and many wider community roadways on the edges of the city would require more costly interventions than the Core Zone is proposing. That costs money - money which absolutely should be allocated, but money which our current council has made clear won't be allocated to traffic safety in the near future.

I would be happy if council decides to expand the boundaries of the Core Zone. But, because perfect shouldn't be the enemy of good, and because we need to make forward progress, having a community clamour to be included is preferable to having communities clamour to be excluded.

This doesn't do much for safety Downtown

You're absolutely right, and that's a critical and ironic flaw of the Core Zone. The downtown core itself is almost all arterial roadways with some collectors.

This issue is a longstanding one in Edmonton and addresses a city planning question of who our downtown streets are for, people living and using them in a variety of active ways, or people driving through. The Core Zone simply can't address the scope of that problem, but thankfully some other projects like Imagine Jasper and our LRT construction are improving and increasing the livability around some of those roadways.

The Core Zone would absolutely love to make downtown streets more livable - 102 ave and 100ave which both recently had separated bike lanes installed come to mind as fantastic starting points. However, with their arterial classification, our hands are tied until the city does roadway reclassification work. In the interim, delaying the Core Zone until that reclassification is done doesn't make sense.

Wrap-up

Yes, the Core Zone is not perfect. But it is leaps and bounds ahead of what we have now. And most importantly, it is something that is politically possible to pass, even with suburban councillors.

And that's why I will be supporting it at council on April 24th.

If you want safe, livable streets in Edmonton please contact your councillor and let them know. Speed reduction has been delayed or stopped several times because of politics, and the quickest way around political problems is to let the politicians know that this is what their constituents want.

City Council opts to keep playground zones, will only look at "anomalous" zones

2018-08-16T00:00:00+00:00

Last week I wrote about the report going to Edmonton City Council that could lead to the removal of 68 standalone playground zones.

@include('_partials.posts.post-embed', [ 'slug' => 'keep-playground-zones' ])

There were a lot of reasons that the results of this report didn't make a lot of sense, but most of it came down to why this report was asked for in the first place. Edmonton City Council has a political problem with reduced speed zones. People don't like change, and the playground zones were a big change, one that was not popular with voters who primarily commute.

In the implementation of the playground zone project, the city opted to be extra cautious: it made more sense to install the playground zones in more places than might be strictly necessary, because if they chose not to install a zone in a particular location, and then there was a fatal collision at that location, administration would have some tough questions to answer.

While understandable, this implementation had the unfortunate outcome of installing zones in a couple places that didn't quite make sense. A great example is the field by W.P. Wagner High School. The road is an Industrial Collector, with a limit of 60km/h.

On a curve, the speed jumped down to a sudden 30km/h for the playground zone. Frankly, it was dangerous, far more dangerous than not having the zone at all as the implementation was going to cause collisions, not prevent them.

@include('_partials.image', [ 'name' => 'wagner.jpg', 'caption' => 'It looks like industrial, because it is' ])

This was one of the first playground zones to get removed, as it was relatively easy to see the failings in its implementation.

Why the absurdity of it wasn't caught during installation is another question entirely, of course.

These are the types of zones that get thought of when people say there are problems with the playground zones we've added. People don't typically think of the small zones on narrow, mature streets, by the parks and green spaces in our communities.

Unfortunately, those small, mature green spaces were precisely the zones that would have been removed according to this report.

It all comes down the mechanism by which playground zones are evaluated. It's difficult to assign a quantitative measure for which areas deserve reduced speeds and which areas do not. City Council attempted to use the Alberta Infrastructure guideline on school and playground zones to accomplish this, and the results were less than ideal.

We've been touting the success of school zones since they were installed in 2014 - they've led to a substantial decrease in collisions and injuries. However, if we were to be using only the Alberta Infrastructure guideline to inform where they should be installed, we simply would not have any.

According to the provincial guideline, any elementary school that has a fence and also has sidewalks does not earn the 80 points required for a reduced speed zone.

I spoke at council this Wednesday to highlight some of the critical and crucial flaws that accepting this guideline would introduce into our traffic safety system, and Community and Public Services Committee agreed.

Council will not be pursing the removal of the 68 mentioned playground zones.

However, this doesn't address the political problem that council has, and thankfully they recognized this and opted for a purely political solution. Over the next 12 weeks, councillors will talk with city administration and write down a list of the "anomalous" playground zones in their wards; the playground zones that were installed for every reason but just don't feel like they make sense.

@include('_partials.image', [ 'name' => 'playground-anomaly.jpg', 'caption' => "See you later, Playground Anomaly" ])

At the end of this three month period, the city will provide engineering guidance to council and a bylaw amendment will be prepared to remove those playground zones, if council agrees it is safe to do so.

One might ask "What makes Edmonton so special? Why are the Alberta guidelines not good enough for Edmonton?"

It's a good question, and a valid point. The issue comes down to Edmonton's lack of commitment to material traffic safety action. Edmonton doesn't fund the installation of crossing infrastructure - that can only come from the automated enforcement reserve. We have a list of over 600 crossings that are deemed unsafe, but at the current funding level we're over a decade out from improving just what's on our current list. We currently do not have any procedures at the city level for handling Community Traffic Management, so communities are completely unable to increase the safety of their streets.

Except through playground zones. That is all we have left in Edmonton.

The Alberta Infrastructure guideline specifically says that playground and school zones are not to be used the way we're using them

Zones and Areas should not be provided in an attempt to increase the safety of crossing the roadway; other devices have been developed and should be applied for such a purpose

Maybe one day Edmonton will truly embrace the goals of Vision Zero and use the right tools - with the right funding - to combat the dangers of our roadways. But until then, we have playground zones. And for now, we're not going to lose them.

City Council will look at removing 68 playground zones

2018-08-10T00:00:00+00:00

On May 8th, Councillor Cartmell put forward a motion that was unanimously approved. It asked administration to look the "Alberta Transportation Guideline for Schools and Playground Zones and Areas" and evaluate all of the newly established playground zones against those criteria.

That report has come back in and it's a doozy. It suggests that if that the guideline council asked administration to use was employed in practice, that would result in the removal of 68 playground zones.

The provincial guideline suggests scoring playgrounds with their scoring sheet, requiring a score of 80 to be established as a 30km/h zone. Most of the score comes down to how many children the playground has capacity for, which is measured solely in equipment size. If it doesn't have play equipment, it's not going to make the cut.

Interestingly, and running contrary to the common understanding, fencing doesn't matter a tonne. The guideline only adds ten points (out of 100) for not having a fence. What makes or breaks the ranking is road classification, playground capacity and distance from the road.

For example, if there's a field with some basketball courts, soccer fields, a hill to go tobogganing on and the whole area has no fence at all and is directly adjacent to the roadway with no separation or sidewalks... such an area would be impossible to qualify as a playground zone under the provincial guidelines. You lose 32/100 points for not having swings or a jungle gym.

You can view the full list, but the following is a highlight reel of some of the playground zones that appear.

@include('_partials.image', [ 'name' => 'ecole-maurice-lavallee.jpg', 'caption' => 'This field and crosswalk in front of Ecole Maurice Lavallee is a candidate for a 20km/h increase' ])

There's this playground zone, right outside Ecole Maurice Lavallee, by the Mill Creek Ravine. It's on a straight, tree-lined street in a mature neighbourhood. There's a crosswalk to get across from the neighbourhood to the soccer field and the school.

The street is very straight, and links up to Connor's Road. Especially with construction, this flat, straight and unencumbered road is very enticing to shortcutters, if they were able to go fast on it. Let's let them.

@include('_partials.image', [ 'name' => 'folk-fest.jpg', 'caption' => 'The Cloverdale Community Hall, spray park and playground. Or, currently, Folk Fest' ])

Normally the Cloverdale Community Hall is just that a Community Hall with a spray park and playground for children to enjoy. Currently, it hosts folk fest. Pedestrians are advised to walk on the road, protected by a couple orange pylons.

The report suggests that this stretch of road ought to be 20km/h higher than it is.

@include('_partials.image', [ 'name' => 'scona-school.jpg', 'caption' => 'Old Scona School, in the middle of Strathcona, a community which Council directed to have a road design speed of 30km/h' ])

Perhaps the most surreal entry in the document, this stretch of road in front of Old Scona School is suggested to have its playground zone removed. This, in spite of the motion that council passed recently directing administration to design the entirety of this neighbourhood for a 30km/h speed limit.

Except the place in front of the school. That's exempted from the design decision.

What I'm saying is look #yegcc: You've had your fun. You've gotten your report. You've "explored" what reclassifying playground zones looks like.

Now knock it off, lets get serious, and let's get back to business. @doniveson @Cartmell_Ward9 @estolte #visionzero
— Troy Pavlek (@troypavlek) August 10, 2018

Certainly Edmonton's administration drops the ball on many files. This past week is a great example of that, with administration callously removing memorial plaques, kicking heritage days out of the barn and altogether making Don Iveson pissed off.

However, this decision does not lie with administration. The City bureaucrats installed the playground zones and Council asked for a report with revised guidelines. Council will have to decide if the removal of 68 of these zones makes sense.

Perhaps there are some on the list that do make sense for removal. Certainly I feel I've given three solid examples above that probably don't make sense to remove. Is council going to waste several days debating each zone individually and manually approving them?

Budget is coming up, Council is just back from break and they have a lot of important items to deal with. Edmonton has been floundering on the Vision Zero file, and we shouldn't be fighting to spend a lot of time and money to take another step backward when we've only just made such a small incremental step forward.

Tune in August 15th.

From #yegcc's request, @CityofEdmonton is proposing 3 options for Playground Zone speed limits: keep, raise, or remove. 68 zones could be removed. @troypavlek has a blog coming soon to explain further & explore the proposed sites. #yeg #yegwalk #yegbike pic.twitter.com/t7iQtkJtlv
— Edmond Chui (@EdmondChuiHW) August 10, 2018

Improving a podcasting room with DIY Acoustic Panels

2018-08-09T00:00:00+00:00

For the past several years I've been on-and-off recording some kinds of podcast or audio content in my upstairs office. I've hacked around with blankets, done a lot of editing in post and cranked down the gain shoving my face right up in the mic all attempting to reduce echoes in the room.

I just started a new podcast project, and decided enough is enough. It was time to get some better sound.

The project: Build some wall-mounted acoustic paneling that look good, on the cheap.

All prices in Canadian Dollars

The materials:

Roxul Safe'N'Sound ($6.25/panel)
1x3 lumber from Home Depot (~$4/panel)
Screws of varying sizes (~$1/panel with a bunch of leftovers)
Angle Brackets ( $2.25/panel)
Fabric ($10/panel + scraps from sewing room)

So all in I'm at about ~$23.50 Canadian per 8 sqft panel.

Finally got the first two panels fully up.

Way more work than I bargained for. Next time I'm just going to make @mastermaq set up a studio pic.twitter.com/zR80PsbpqR
— Troy Pavlek (@troypavlek) August 9, 2018

The project itself was actually quite simple and barebones. I went with Roxul Safe'N'Sound insulation over a more popular choice like Corning 703 because it's harder to get a hold of in Edmonton, Alberta. The Roxul product was available at the Home Depot by my house and, crucially, it's Good Enough™.

The first step, of course, is to paint the room. Once I put these panels up, I'm not going to want to take them down, and my office was quite plain. I wanted something more exciting.

I painted pic.twitter.com/xodWbKmH24
— Troy Pavlek (@troypavlek) July 29, 2018

If the room was just for podcasting I might have saved time and done the whole room in deep purple. But only the back half of the room is for podcasting, the front half is my office (I work remotely) and I didn't want the room to be dark and dingy when I'm trying to work. The side I face is bright and light blue, and the podcasting studio is a deep and interesting purple.

The frames are trivially constructed, I just measured 1x3 pieces of lumber from Home Depot and screwed the boards together at 90 degrees. Yes, it's a bit less stable and won't stand up to a lot of abuse. It's less secure than perhaps using a corner brace.

But it, like everything else in this project, was Good Enough™.

@include('_partials.image', [ 'name' => 'panel-frames.jpg', 'caption' => 'A couple completed frames' ])

I cut the frames to exactly fit an uncut sheet of Safe'N'Sound because cutting wood with a circular saw is a much more pleasant experience than cutting mineral wool insulation.

Putting them together was quite simple, the uncut sheet of mineral wool just went inside and I used my staple gun to put whatever scrap fabric from the sewing room on the back, wrapped nicely on the front with fabrics that I picked out and purchased.

I learned after the first panel that it was worth it to hammer in some brad nails on the sides of the frame to hold the insulation in place inside as there's about an extra quarter inch of horizontal clearance inside the frame.

My project started this week: building some acousting panelling. Costs are only around $18 per 8sqft panel pic.twitter.com/AnRgQwNZrE
— Troy Pavlek (@troypavlek) June 24, 2018

Mounting the panels to the wall is, in theory, very easy. I just purchased some four inch metal corner brackets, screwed one side into the studs on the wall and slipped the other end into a notch cut on the fabric and screwed it into the frame.

No there's an angle bracket underneath the fabric that I'm screwing into to mount to wall pic.twitter.com/KBnplGF4LC
— Troy Pavlek (@troypavlek) August 9, 2018

The dimensions of my particular room made the task more difficult than I bargained for. Protip: when planning out where to mount these, give yourself at least a few inches of clearance to screw them in.

TFW the angle is too tight to fit a screwdriver pic.twitter.com/TSzRKEZMEj
— Troy Pavlek (@troypavlek) August 9, 2018

Having put together three of these bad boys, I fired up the mic and did a sound test. There's absolutely no processing, gating or filtering done on either of the tests.

Wondering if it's worth it to invest some time and materials into making acoustic paneling? The answer is an unequivocal yes #podcasts #podcasting pic.twitter.com/BgYshT9Hmf
— Troy Pavlek (@troypavlek) August 1, 2018

As you can hear, the difference is profound. Absolutely worth the effort.

You can hear the results on my new podcast being launched: Speaking Municipally, a podcast about municipal politics in Edmonton, Alberta.

@include('_partials.youtube', [ 'video_id' => 'RAyFYWOlFOs'])

Which direction is that damn bike going? Just point

2018-07-30T00:00:00+00:00

If you've ever read an online post that - even tangentially - mentions cycling, invariably one of the top comments will be something along the lines of

Cyclists constantly break the rules and I have no idea what they're doing!

or the more common, but subtly insidious

If cyclists want to be treated like a vehicle they need to start acting like one.

First, a point of clarification: cyclists do not want to be treated like a vehicle, that's a symptom of what a person on a bicycle actually wants. A person cycling simply wants to get from point A to B safely.

In Alberta, a dogmatic subscriber to the religion of vehicular cycling, that desire manifests as asserting a cyclists' rights as a vehicle. We've politically and legally swept rational thinking about cycling safety under the rug in the hopes that please oh-pretty-please if we just ignore them long enough the cyclists will go away.

But, some bad news, we just don't seem to be going away.

It's time we start thinking about problems differently. Certainly many cyclists break the rules. At the risk of this being the only sentence talked about in the comments, I'll mention that I personally Idaho Stop.

@include('_partials.posts.post-embed', [ 'slug' => 'a-quick-stop-in-idaho' ])

I'm not going to relitigate the Idaho Stop again (today). My goal here is to start small. Much, much, smaller.

Let's change our ridiculous hand signals to ones that actually make sense.

I recently went on a bike trip overseas to Amsterdam, a place many might call the cycling capital of the world. I went on a bike tour, and the tour guide took great pains to say: "Despite what you Americans do, our hand signals are very simple here. Point where you want to go".

It's that easy.

So how did we get in this situation where Occam's Hand Signals aren't what we use, and instead we have to remember what does it mean when the arm is angled up vs. angled down?

Well, like most of the cycling rules that don't make sense for cycling, it's because the rule was designed for cars.

@include('_partials.image', [ 'name' => 'hand-signals.jpg', 'caption' => "From the Alberta Drivers' Manual. It never actually describes a cyclist using hand signals. It only shows drivers signalling and then asserts that a cyclist is a vehicle." ])

In North America we drive on the right side of the road, with drivers sitting in the left seat. The first Ford Model T simply did not come equipped with signal lights. It was desirable to understand where that heavy metal death machine (and in those years they were rightly feared as such) would go. So the driver would stick their hand out their window and signal. Obviously the driver could not point to the right side because their right arm wasn't long enough.

Some would argue that it's not broke, so don't fix it. But it is broke.

I was very nearly in a cycling collision the other day. I was cycling south off a multi-use trail, turning left. Another cyclist was cycling west on a perpendicular road, turning right. They "properly signalled" their right turn with a bent arm. A sampling of my thought process is as follows:

Hey that cyclist is coming up over there.
They're waving at me. Hi!
Wait, no, they're signalling.
Ok, their arm is up, but it's bent. They're going right.
Wait, my right or their right?
Oh nvm, they're already right in front of me. Ding, ding!
Hello darkness my old friend...

When a vehicle is driving you can easily determine which way they're going by the side of the vehicle that is flashing. If left-hand signals were a good solution, we'd still be using them instead. Let's stop with the one-size-fits-all solutions. Bikes are different than cars, and cyclists are not going away. It's time to embrace them and write rules that make sense for cycling so that we can reduce frustration for all users of the road.

The nature of signalling is to communicate with other road users, so if half of us are using sensible hand signals, and the other half are obeying the law, we've only made things more confusing. It's time to change the laws.

In the past, these changes to enable enhanced cycling safety were always kicked down the line. It was a provincial concern, and the province would have to do "extensive consultation" to make changes. MLAs didn't want to fight that fight. They don't have to anymore. Our local city councillors can make this change tomorrow.

@include('_partials.image', [ 'name' => 'city-charter.jpg', 'caption' => 'The City Charter regulation that is currently in effect' ])

We're now living under phase one of Big City Charters, and the regulation explicitly allows Edmonton to modify the hand signals used by cyclists in the city. We've set a goal of encouraging active transportation. We've set a goal of eliminating traffic fatalities with Vision Zero. We've set of a goal of sensible, intelligent policy.

It's time to take that teensy, tiny, incremental baby step forward.

For now I'll just point to section 13.1 (1) (c). Because that's where I want to go.

The Radical Bike lobby is skewing bike grid data

2018-06-15T00:00:00+00:00

When my sitting city councillor Mike Nickel pondered if there was "any insight to the allegations of fanatics aiming to skew the numbers" in regards to the downtown bike grid measurement, he had no idea how close he was to the truth.

We now have video evidence of radical bike lobbyists implementing Don Iveson's anti-car agenda and skewing the stats in their favour.

@include('_partials.youtube', [ 'video_id' => 'YyLWzXbG7yo' ])

Why hasn't this news been widely circulated? Well it's all a media conspiracy organized by the sympathizer in Iveson's back pocket: Ryan Jespersen.

When asked about this salacious evidence, Nickel responded:

"Oh, what? City-related stuff? I'm already a whole seven months into my term, so I'm focusing on getting a different job".