An Interpretation

Freeway Fracas
by Olive Elliot

Freeway fracas

Its name was METS, and it was the monster that could have destroyed Edmonton.

When it emerged in 1963, it seemed to be the answer to the city's transportation problems. City council embraced it and few Edmontonians realized the full horror of this multi-legged creature.

But METS was too big and its cost was simply too high. The monster's brief life ended in the early-1970s.

Bits and pieces of it survived, however, and one of its limbs twitched vigorously for another 15 years.

METS was the Metropolitan Edmonton Transportation Study and that twitching limb was the MacKinnon Ravine Freeway.

The study, carried out by the Edmonton regional planning commission with funding from the provincial government and member municipalities, produced a plan designed primarily to move people from the suburbs and the surrounding municipalities into downtown Edmonton.

METS called for a system of five major freeways thrusting into the city to link up with a downtown freeway loop circling the city's central business district. The freeways would be supplemented by expressways (as big as freeways, but lacking overpasses and underpasses at most cross streets) and upgraded arterial roads. Six new bridges and innumerable elaborate interchanges would be needed.

All in all, it was a fair imitation of an American urban freeway plan -- and it generated a fair local imitation of an American protest movement.

This was the of age of social protest in the United States -- not just about the Vietnam war but about many other things, including urban freeways. For Edmonton, however, and especially for its city council, it was something new.

Perhaps because METS was designed by technical experts, there was little obvious concern for the impact on the existing city or its river valley and ravines. Freeways would slash through established areas, chew up the downtown river valley and plunge through Mill Creek and MacKinnon ravines.

As the evils of urban freeways were becoming more obvious from their devastating effect on many American cities, citizen and community protest groups sprang up in Edmonton. Although there was a precedent for using ravines -- the road that extended an abandoned railway right of way through Groat Ravine -- opposition to the Mill Creek and MacKinnon freeways was fierce.

When the dust had settled on the freeway issue, METS was dead and city council was conducting itself with a far greater awareness of the importance of neighborhoods and special interests, and of the need to involve citizens in planning and policy decisions.

However, it is not necessarily correct to assume that citizen protests and lobbying were responsible for either outcome.

American cities had built extravagant urban freeway systems with lavish federal government grants. Such largess was never available to Edmonton and its region and the entire METS plan had never had a hope of being implemented, as the city administration finally admitted. It was unaffordable.

In 1963, the estimated (undoubtedly underestimated) total cost of METS was $135.5 million. Forty-one years later, that doesn't sound like much, but, in 1963, a new home in a desirable part of Edmonton cost about $15,000. At any rate, inflation rapidly took care of the original estimate. By 1981, the cost of just the MacKinnon Ravine Freeway was set at about $100 million.

And what applied to the whole METS applied to the major parts as well. Each freeway was part of an interconnected system. Building one freeway would simply create horrendous traffic jams where it ended. Thus, if the MacKinnon Ravine Freeway were built, the south leg of the downtown freeway loop would have to be built -- and that would have to connect with something. The Mill Creek Freeway, perhaps? And on and on.

City Council was aware of the interconnection and the ultimate cost. Therefore, while citizen opposition undoubtedly made it easier for council to ban any kind of freeway through Mill Creek Ravine in 1971 and to halt construction on the MacKinnon Ravine Freeway a year later and delete it from the city transportation bylaw in 1974, it's possible the same decisions would have been made even if there had been little or no opposition.

The same is true of council's decision to adopt light-rail transit (LRT) as an alternative to freeways. Certainly, the professionals who attached themselves to the protests promoted LRT, but the concept was not foreign to city hall, and council discussions at the time indicate that council members were more concerned about cost than environment issues when they endorsed LRT.

Citizen groups can probably take credit for preventing the construction of a four-lane arterial road through MacKinnon Ravine. This was the road that just wouldn't go away. Largely because of rapid growth in the southwest -- which was creating difficulties for commuters, especially those living north of the river -- and the persistence of west-end aldermen such as Olivia Butti, it lurked well into the 1980s.

There was strong opposition to the arterial road from people living near the ravine and the residents of south Oliver community, which would likely have been sacrificed to funnel MacKinnon traffic from Groat Road to the downtown. And, while these might once have been regarded as local issues, there was very real fear that even a small road through MacKinnon Ravine would eventually lead to revival of the whole METS scheme, with all of its environmental consequences.

The extent to which citizen groups changed the way in which city hall operated is similarly debatable. Did citizen groups change city hall or did changes in municipal government create a climate in which citizen groups and protests thrived?

There was an increased requirement for public hearings, which could turn even local squabbles into controversial social issues that politicians could not ignore. The adoption of a ward system in 1971, replacing the at-large election of aldermen, forced the aldermen to become even more parochial. As well, with the election of aldermen such as Ivor Dent (later to become mayor) in 1963 and Una MacLean Evans in 1966, the domination of council by business interests was ending and the era of community-oriented council members was emerging.

With or without METS and the protesters, the times had changed.

But some things haven't. A footnote to the tale of METS: LRT was touted as a less disruptive and far less expensive alternative to freeways. The first leg (Central Station to Bellevue Station) opened in 1978. Since then, construction has proceeded slowly and sporadically. The reason: soaring costs.