Transportation in Edmonton

Dudley B. Menzies LRT Bridge

In 1978, Edmonton became the first city with a population of under one million to operate a light rail transit (LRT) system in North America.[1] The LRT currently runs on two lines – the Capital Line and the Metro Line – extending 24.3 km.

The system runs from Clareview Station in northeast Edmonton, across the North Saskatchewan River, to Century Park in the south; and northwest from downtown to NAIT. Of the 18 stations on the network, six are underground, running through the downtown core and the University of Alberta main campus, with the rest at ground level. As of 2022, the city was constructing the Valley Line to the southeast and western parts of the city. A two-stop Capital Line extension to the Heritage Valley Transit Centre was under construction as well.

The ETS operates a fleet of well over 960 buses across the city with 180 regular routes. Edmonton was one of two cities in Canada (the other is Vancouver) that operated a trolley bus system until service was discontinued in May 2009.[2] The ETS also operates a specialized system for disabled people called DATS (Disabled Adult Transit System).

Commuter service to Edmonton's suburbs is provided by Strathcona County Transit and St. Albert Transit.

Edmonton is connected to British Columbia and Saskatchewan via the Yellowhead Highway (Highway 16, or Yellowhead Trail within city limits), and to Calgary and Red Deer via the Queen Elizabeth II Highway (known as Calgary Trail (southbound) or Gateway Boulevard (northbound) within city limits, on the alignment of the former Calgary and Edmonton Trail).

Anthony Henday Drive (Highway 216) is a 78 km (48 mi) ring road encircling the City of Edmonton completed on October 1, 2016. In a clockwise direction, the 78 km (48 mi) of free-flowing road spans from the Yellowhead Trail (Highway 16)/Meridian Street in the east to Manning Drive Highway 15 in the northeast. The southeast leg from Calgary Trail/Gateway Boulevard to Highway 14 opened on October 23, 2007.[3]

The northwest leg of Anthony Henday Drive from Yellowhead Trail in the west to Manning Drive in the northeast opened on November 1, 2011.[4] The remaining 9 km (5.6 mi) leg in the northeast, from Manning Drive to the Yellowhead Highway in east Edmonton, began construction in 2012, and was completed on October 1, 2016.

Connors Road facing north as it goes towards downtown.

Edmonton's roads were originally all named (as opposed to numbered) and arranged so that roads titled "avenues" ran north–south and "streets" ran east–west. The first move to a grid-style system began as the city expanded west - the streets west of Queens Avenue were switched to run on a north–south orientation with 1st Street (now 101 Street) being west of Queens Avenue, and the street numbers increasing further west (i.e. 10 Street was one block west of 9 Street).

West of Queens Avenue, the avenues also switched (running in an east–west direction); although, unlike the streets, the avenues were never numbered. This led to a confusing situation with avenues becoming streets despite no change in direction. For example, MacKenzie Avenue (now 104 Ave) became Boyle Street west of Queens Avenue, and Athabasca Avenue (now 102 Ave) became Elizabeth Street west of Queens Avenue.

The city of Strathcona had adopted a grid and quadrant system before its amalgamation with Edmonton, with the city being centred on Main Street (now 104 Street) and Whyte Avenue (also named 82 Avenue). This street system was similar to that of present-day Calgary's system, having NW, NE, SW and SE quadrants. Strathcona's grid/quadrant system was abandoned in 1914.

In 1914, following amalgamation with Strathcona, Edmonton adopted a new street numbering system, which with a few small modifications is still in use. The centre of the city, Jasper Avenue and 101 Street, was set as the starting point. Jasper Avenue was one of the few streets that was not assigned a number. The other avenues were numbered as if Jasper Avenue (between 124 Street and 97 Street) had been 101 Avenue.

Several other streets have maintained their names despite of having been reassigned as numbers — these include but are not limited to Whyte (82) Avenue, Norwood Boulevard (111 Avenue), and Alberta (118) Avenue, while others were given new names over time, such as Rue Hull (99) Street - which is a segment of what used to be Queens Avenue.

Wayne Gretzky Drive

Avenues run east and west; streets run north and south. Avenue numbers increase to the north; street numbers increase to the west. When a street lies between two numbered streets, letters are appended as suffixes. For example, 107A Avenue lies between 107 Avenue and 108 Avenue. Occasionally the letter B will be used and more rarely C, to denote multiple streets between 2 different street numbers. For example, 17A, 17B and 17C Avenues all lie between 17 Avenue and 18 Avenue.

Houses with odd numbers are on the east side of a street or the south side of an avenue. Dropping the last two digits of a house number tells what two streets or avenues the house lies between, for example 8023 135A Avenue is between 80 Street and 81 Street, and 13602 100 Street is between 136 Avenue and 137 Avenue.

As the city grew in the 1980s, it began to run out of street numbers in the east, and avenue numbers in the south. Therefore, in 1982 a quadrant system was adopted. Quadrant Avenue (1 Avenue; only constructed west of the river) and Meridian Street (0 Street) divide the city into four quadrants: northwest (NW), southwest (SW), northeast (NE) and southeast (SE). The vast majority of the city falls within the northwest quadrant, 105 Avenue SW (Highway 19) being the south boundary, 33 Street NE being the farthest east the city extends, while in the other direction the city extends west of 200 Street NW and north of 200 Avenue NW.[5]

All Edmonton streets now officially have their quadrant included at the end of their names, but it is usual — even on official signage — to omit the "NW" especially when there is no possibility of confusion with a street in another quadrant. The city's emergency services, however, have begun to encourage residents to get into the habit of using quadrants in all addresses.