Edmonton infrastructure milestones
Just like to see in one place a history of our city’s various achievements.
Dates when various projects were built, replaced, etc.
Anything special about them...
(I’d guess some of them could even rank as notable achievements, “firsts”, etc of some kind or other.)
Dates Anthony Henday built, bridges, LRT...
City Halls
First transit bus
First paved road
First sewer, lights, etc
Major conversions, upgrades,
Sewage / waste water treatment facilities
1956?
1956 - Edmonton’s “first secondary water treatment plant”:
Gold Bar Wastewater Treatment Plant History and Background
Ownership
36 GBWWTP is currently under the Wastewater Section of the Drainage Services Branch of the Asset and Public Works Department of the City, and therefore is wholly owned by the City of Edmonton. It is managed as part of the sanitary drainage utility, which includes the plant and collection system.
The City of Edmonton opens GBWWTP. Originally designed to serve a population of 250,000, the plant is the city's first secondary wastewater treatment facility. It consisted of three grit tanks, two primary clarifiers, four digesters, three secondary aeration tanks, four sludge storage lagoons, a blower and boiler building, and an administration building with adjoining laboratory.
https://webdocs.edmonton.ca/occtopus...ent%202rev.pdf
2007 - ”World's First Industrial Scale Sewage Treatment Facility to Recycle Nutrients Into Environmentally-Safe Commercial Fertilizer”
Edmonton Reveals World's First Industrial Scale Sewage Treatment Facility to Recycle Nutrients Into Environmentally-Safe Commercial Fertilizer - Ostara Nutrient Recovery
EDMONTON, ALBERTA and VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA–(Marketwire – Dec. 3, 2007) – The City of Edmonton’s Gold Bar wastewater treatment plant has met a milestone by successfully operating for over six months as the world’s first industrial-size nutrient treatment facility to remove phosphorus and other nutrients from municipal biosolids and recycle them into environmentally-safe commercial fertilizer.
The technology, developed by Ostara Nutrient Recovery Technologies Inc. of Vancouver, will help Gold Bar achieve its nutrient removal goals, increase plant capacity and reduce maintenance costs, while also creating a revenue-producing product in the form of a high value fertilizer. ...”
http://ostara.com/project/edmonton-r...al-fertilizer/
Last edited by KC; 02-06-2018 at 05:08 PM.
Composting facilities
Year? - “The Edmonton Composting Facility is the largest co-composter in North America.”
“The aeration building is the largest stainless steel building in North America: the size of 14 NHL rinks.”
The Edmonton Composting Facility is the largest co-composter in North America.
• It occupies an area about the size of eight football fields: 38,690 square metres (416,500 square feet)
• Called a co-composter because it composts residential solid waste together with de-watered sewage biosolids.
• It can process 200,000 tonnes of residential waste and 25,000 dry tonnes of biosolids each year.
...
The aeration building is the largest stainless steel building in North America: the size of 14 NHL rinks.
...
https://www.edmonton.ca/city_governm...ngFacility.pdf
Last edited by KC; 02-06-2018 at 04:51 PM.
LRT
1978
“Edmonton became the first city with a population of under one million to operate a light rail transit (LRT) system in North America.”
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]
Transportation in Edmonton - Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transp...on_in_Edmonton
Last edited by KC; 02-06-2018 at 04:52 PM.
Trolley system
Year?
Edmonton was one of two cities in Canada (the other is Vancouver) that operated a trolley bussystem until service was discontinued in May 2009.[2]
Transportation in Edmonton - Wikipedia
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tran...on_in_Edmonton
Streetcar system
1908
Edmonton Radial Railway - Wikipedia
The Edmonton Radial Railway (ERR) was a streetcar service that operated in Edmonton, Alberta from 1908 to 1951.
In 1893 an ordinance was passed permitting Edmonton to construct and operate a tramway. However, it wasn't until 1907 that the tracks for the first tramway line were laid, with service commencing in 1908.[1]
...
The radial railway reached its greatest extent in 1930. Two years later, in 1932, bus service replaced streetcar service on the 102 Avenue line. In the following years, the Edmonton trolley bus system replaced streetcar service on most Edmonton Radial Railway routes, and streetcar service ended in 1951.[1] Now...
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edmonton_Radial_Railway
First paved road
Year? Location?
Early Automobiles in Edmonton | Fort Edmonton Park
“Roads were always a problem, even back in 1905 when there were probably less than a half-dozen cars in Edmonton. Paving continued slowly, with Jasper Avenue only paved one mile in 1905. Seven years later, however, most “roads” ...”
https://www.fortedmontonpark.ca/unca...s-in-edmonton/
Transforming Edmonton » Asphalt Science and the Holey Roads
The Story of Asphalt
1907
Production of refined petroleum asphalt outstripped the use of natural asphalt. As automobiles grew in popularity, the demand for more and better roads led to innovations in both producing and laying asphalt. Steps toward mechanization included drum mixers and portland cement concrete mechanical spreaders for the first machine-laid asphalt.
1915
Canada’s first asphalt paved roads were built in Ottawa, Ontario, and Edmonton, Jasper and Camrose, Alberta.
...
http://www.onasphalt.org/asphalt101/...f-asphalt.html
https://transformingedmonton.ca/asph...e-holey-roads/
Also interesting:
Historic Development of Alberta’s Highway System (1962-2002)
http://altaroads.ca/historic.htm
Canada A Country by Consent: World War I: First Paved Highway 1912
http://www.canadahistoryproject.ca/1...d-highway.html
8 things you probably didn’t know about the Trans-Canada Highway - Macleans.ca
https://www.macleans.ca/society/life...anada-highway/
Last edited by KC; 02-06-2018 at 05:18 PM.
Edmonton’s First Ring Road
Year? Anthony Henday
Final leg of Edmonton's Anthony Henday Drive to open Saturday
Edmonton's completed ring road will be Alberta's first
CBC News , September 30, 2016
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmont...rday-1.3786054
Railroad facilities
Year?
——-
1908A Brief History of Albertas Railways
Excerpt:
“The first railway built into Edmonton, before it was amalgamated with Strathcona, was the Edmonton, Yukon and Pacific (EY&P). It connected to the C&E in Strathcona, and went down the Mill Creek Ravine and across the Low Level Bridge into Edmonton in 1902. The EY&P became part of the Canadian Northern Railway (CNoR). The EY&P lettering is presently used on the steam train in Fort Edmonton Park.
The CNoR main line reached Edmonton from the coast in 1905 but did not reach the British Columbia border beyond Jasper until 1913. During this interval, the CNoR built a number of branch lines in the province, concentrating in central and north central Alberta.
In 1909 the Grand Trunk Pacific (GTP)...”
http://www.albertarailwaymuseum.com/...-railways.html
“roundhouse, repair shop and shunting yards“
100 Years of Calder | Edmonton City As Museum Project ECAMP
https://citymuseumedmonton.ca/2014/0...ars-of-calder/
Last edited by KC; 02-06-2018 at 05:27 PM.
we’ll also soon be able to say edmonton was the first city to demolish a stainless steel building that large...Originally Posted by KC
maybe this - along with everything from the library to the law courts to the tegler building to hemingway’s church to the next on the list ram and the remand centre and the coliseum’s destiny to join the forum etc. - could put us first on some sort of list of most historic/significant buildings demolished per capita?
"If you did not want much, there was plenty." Harper Lee
i think edmonton firsts also include the food bank and community leagues.
insulin could be on edmonton’s list as well as canadian heart transplants and successful islet transplants.
"If you did not want much, there was plenty." Harper Lee
Why insulin? It was created in Toronto, not Edmonton.
there’s a pretty strong u of a/edmonton connection, argued by some that collip, with or without macleod, could have made the discovery - resulting from his ideas - without banting and best but not the other way around me.Why insulin? It was created in Toronto, not Edmonton.
https://www.ualberta.ca/alberta-diabetes/about/history
https://www.folio.ca/from-insulin-to...h-at-ualberta/
"If you did not want much, there was plenty." Harper Lee
Hmmm, maybe. I haven’t read that much into it. But if it’s U of A public relations materials I don’t put much stock in their “facts.”
how about the canadian medical hall of fame:
http://www.cdnmedhall.org/inductees/dr-james-collip
or the insulin library at the u of t:
https://insulin.library.utoronto.ca/about/collip
"If you did not want much, there was plenty." Harper Lee
Okay. Point proven. But Banting and MacLeod were the ones first recognized for the discovery and to this day remain the only names most people actually recognize.
Canada's first licensed airfield:
Edmonton - Wikipedia
The Edmonton City Centre Airport opened in 1929,[35] becoming Canada's first licensed airfield.[36] Originally named Blatchford Field in honour of former mayor Kenny Blatchford, pioneering aviators such as Wilfrid R. "Wop" May and Max Ward used Blatchford Field as a major base for distributing mail, food, and medicine to Northern Canada; hence Edmonton's emergence as the "Gateway to the North". World War II saw Edmonton become a major base for the construction of the Alaska Highway and the Northwest Staging Route.[37]The airport was closed in November 2013.[38]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edmonton
Same source:
“The first mosque established in Canada – the Al-Rashid Mosque, founded by Abdullah Yusuf Ali – is situated in Edmonton.[140] ”
Last edited by KC; 07-10-2018 at 08:34 PM.
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