St. Albert’s plans to halt trains from blowing their whistles and to find the best route through the city for a future LRT line might be on a collision course.
Coun. Cam MacKay on Monday night put forward a notice of motion to use the approximately $500,000 the city planned to spend on an LRT functional alignment study instead to fund the remainder of the city’s whistle cessation program.
That program, which would upgrade all railways crossings so that CN trains will stop blowing their whistles within the city’s limits, was put on hold last week after council learned its costs would be significantly more than planned. The cost of the upgrades and fencing along the length of the train tracks on both sides is now estimated to cost $850,000, approximately $400,000 more than budgeted.
“Train whistles aren’t something that bother everybody but there is a large segment that lives nearby and is heavily impacted,” said MacKay. “I can see how that would bother and dramatically affect someone’s quality of life. It doesn’t bother me but it sure will bother a group of people in our community.”
Council approved the functional alignment study last December as part of the 2013 budget after previously voting it down twice. The study would examine how to bring a possible LRT line from Edmonton’s future northwest line to St. Albert’s north end. There is no specific date by which either Edmonton would finish construction of its line or St. Albert would begin construction of its line. Estimates range from 15 to 40 years.
MacKay doubts St. Albert will ever build its own LRT line and his motion reflects that, delaying the functional alignment study until 2040.
“It’s a project that everybody knows is not going to happen and train whistle cessation is something people want,” MacKay said. “There’s no sense spending money on something that won’t occur when there is a tangible need in our community.”
But simply switching on what the $500,000 is spent might not be so easy. The money to fund the LRT study comes from a tax levy of $1.50 per $100,000 of assessed value. The city has a specific policy saying how that money is spent and whistle cessation is not included in the policy.
“We can always direct that to other things but it’s on people’s tax bills as a separate item for LRT,” said Mayor Nolan Crouse. “What we don’t want to do is fool the taxpayer and say we collected this for LRT but then we used it on train whistles.”
MacKay’s motion is tentatively set to be heard May 21.
“I’m not very pleased with how (whistle cessation) has progressed but it takes some leadership to say, ‘yes, we’re doing this,’” MacKay said.
