Listen to this article
Estimated 4 minutes
The audio version of this article is generated by AI-based technology. Mispronunciations can occur. We are working with our partners to continually review and improve the results.
City of Edmonton staff say the focus for the upcoming construction season is to finish what they started.
A presentation given by city administration to the city’s infrastructure committee on Monday outlined lessons learned from 2025, when Edmonton roads were plagued by concurrent projects driving traffic pressures. City councillors are hoping drivers will see some relief.
“I think what people can look forward to is certainly a better summer than last year,” Coun. Anne Stevenson told reporters.
“Last year was the perfect storm with a number of our major projects overlapping, projects that just couldn’t be delayed any further happening at the same time.”
Administration said traffic congestion was largely driven by LRT expansion, Yellowhead Trail renewal and population growth.
During an interview with CBC’s Edmonton AM last week, Jason Meliefste, branch manager with the city’s infrastructure department, said the city is working to avoid that in 2026.
“I think we’ve been able to selectively look at different projects that are opportunities for deferring work, avoiding key corridors and it all starts with looking at better ways to sequence and schedule our work,” he said.
Part of that plan is delaying work planned for the Low Level Bridge until 2027 to minimize traffic coming into downtown.
Some projects the city plans to finish this construction season include:
Wellington Bridge (102nd Avenue)95th Avenue (from 163rd Street to 170th Street)Stage 2 of the Terwillegar Drive expansion (Whitemud Drive at Rainbow Valley Bridge)
City staff told council they are also speaking to all of the city’s contractors to push for innovation to reduce disruption.
One example given was work on the Dawson Bridge where contractors built scaffolding on the riverbank instead of the bridge. This allowed for an additional lane of traffic to be open for multiple weeks.
The Wellington Bridge replacement project was also sped up, reducing the timeline from 24 to 14 months, administration said.
Mayor Andrew Knack said the city experiment with accelerated construction on the Valley Line West project was a success story. He said he is encouraged to see a more concrete plan for 2026.
“We need to do construction, but that doesn’t have to be causing significant headaches for Edmontonians at the same time,” he said.
Multiple councillors told administration that they would like to see approaches like the one used to accelerate work on the Valley Line West project continue to be explored going forward.
Administration cautioned there will still be delays on the roads, particularly for the following areas:
215th Street south and north of Whitemud Drivethe 50th Street and Anthony Henday interchange41st Avenue S.W. east of the QE2 highway
Meliefste said the city has also been co-ordinating with utility providers like Epcor and Atco to space out construction work.
However, he said they can’t plan for everything — like emergency work that utility companies sometimes have to do.
“Those are the things that probably keep me up at night [and] that I have less control and less influence over, but [for] the things that we know, we’ve got a solid plan,” he said.
The city said it is also hoping to improve communication about traffic pinch points. It could do that by posting more notices online for residents and by sharing data with third-party map providers like Apple and Google.