The City of St Albert in Alberta, a community of 65,000, has an abundance of amenities that attract businesses and residents that seek the “small town” environment, yet offers activities common to larger cities. Stepping into St Albert, these amenities are visible to all. Arts and cultural activities are plentiful. St Albert is called the “Botanical Arts City”. Walking through its downtown core is like strolling in a quaint European town with an underlying modern transportation network. Not surprisingly, as the City grows, it is experiencing “big city” problems such as traffic congestion, delays and accidents.
St Albert has taken steps to develop an ITS “roadmap” to protect this future vision of an inviting, vibrant community, The St Albert Transportation Master Plan (TMP) and the Smart City Master Plan both discussed the steps needed toward a more efficient, safer and “smart city” future. Transportation, innovation, information – all key terms in the future city.
To support the City’s transportation goals and smart city aspirations, St Albert’s Engineering Services Department retained the Associated Engineering team with PBX Engineering to prepare an Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) Strategic Plan with strategies and projects to improve the safety and efficiency of the network. The result was 14 strategies and 41 projects over 10 years as part of an innovative plan with guiding principles that will:
* improve safety and efficiency of the network
* support economic prosperity, regional transportation and goods movement
* develop the active and transit transportation network
* encourage innovation and technological excellence
* support and enhance data management
The presentation summarizes the St Albert ITS Strategic Plan (a key part of its smart city journey), highlight some of the unique characteristics of the plan and examine its future within the context of the Smart City environment. The presentation will also explain the St Albert ITS Implementation Strategy, another unique feature focused on the short and medium term projects in the initial 5 years of the plan.
