I had a great talk with Cheryll Watson today. If you haven't yet had a call with her and have some burning questions or comments, you should schedule a call. She was very open and candid, and the conversation went both ways which I really appreciated. Here are her thoughts on the topics I raised.
1. Downtown
Downtown is an important source of tax revenue for the city, and everyone should be concerned about the possibility of it dying. The city needs to look at tax rates and red tape/bureaucracy, because she's heard from numerous business owners about them. The city also needs to repair its relationship with the provincial government; it's far too adversarial right now, and this is unacceptable given that it would be such an important partner in addressing concerns about downtown. From affordable housing to safe injection sites, the province has a lot of sway over the solutions for the homelessness and addiction crises facing that neighbourhood. The city's biggest asset is land. It should talk with social organizations to see what their needs are, where their clients are located, could get jobs, etc., and go off that to decide which land to give those service organizations. These organizations shouldn't be concentrated in one area, like Chinatown, but they also shouldn't be placed in random neighbourhoods for the sake of spreading them out.
2. Transit and transportation
She doesn't have a specific platform policy about alternate transportation, but it's definitely on her radar. She supports the idea of the bus network redesign (and bike lanes, while we're at it), but doesn't think it is well-positioned for future growth. She's also skeptical of the Valley Line; especially the west leg. She emphasized that she is all for public transit and the *intention* of the valley line, but not necessarily its execution. She said her attitude has shifted over time. She used to support the idea of a north-south and a east-west LRT line, plus ways of connecting Edmontonions to those networks. However, she worries that the VLW will have too little capacity and - crucially- be too slow. She does not see this as offering any improvement to the west compared to what is currently offered, and it should instead be built completely above or below ground. She does not think that the current design warrants the VLW's large cost or construction timeline. She instead supports 'microtransit'. I had to tease out a bit of an idea of what she meant by this, but this is the gist: BRT should be used along the VLW ROW until usage numbers justify putting tracks in, and people should be connected with the line via buses, biking, walking, on-demand transit, taxis/ubers, etc. She used the example of DATS, which is very much over capacitated and thus has large wait times. Overall, she wants something done to improve transit in that area, but wants to make sure that whatever happens offers the best value and service possible.
3. The VIA Rail station's location
This actually was not on her radar at all, and she'll look into it. I argued that it is far too remote, has minimal pedestrian/transit connections, and leaves tourists and visitors in the lurch unless they rent a car. It should be in a more central or southern location of the city, where people can get to and from the station without cars, where there are nearby amenities like shops or destinations, and/or close to the future high speed rail line's Edmonton station. it shouldn't just be a waypoint between Toronto and Vancouver.
I'm not a huge fan of her skepticism of the Valley Line LRT, but I'm definitely leaning towards voting for her instead of Sohi. I haven't been impressed by his lack of "organic" outreach (his campaign never responded to my email), and they didn't even send me a lawn sign even though I requested one twice over the spawn of a couple months. In contrast, I'm very impressed that Watson offers times where people can engage with her one-on-one, and I loved that she actually gave honest answers and explained *why* she thought that way, instead of sticking to a script. We had an actual conversation, and that is an important thing in my eyes.
Also, I told her about this site and sent her a link, so be on your best behaviour