Month: February 2011

Media Monday Edmonton: Week in Review #2

Here’s my second week in review:

I was fortunate enough to take part in an informal conversation on local media on Thursday evening. It was a great discussion, and I came away with lots to think about. I was reminded of this post from April 2009: Newspapers, cities, and the local web.

You can follow Edmonton media news on Twitter using the hashtag #yegmedia. For a great overview of the global media landscape, check out Mediagazer.

So, what have I missed? What’s new and interesting in the world of Edmonton media? Let me know!

Meet me on the bridge: The Edmonton City Centre Redevelopment

It was 1974 when City Centre Place was completed, part of the Edmonton Centre development across from Churchill Square. The shopping mall we now know as Edmonton City Centre has had an interesting history, to say the least. TD Tower was added to the complex in 1976, and Oxford Tower and the Sutton Place Hotel followed in 1978. As Christopher Leo notes (archive), downtown was the place to be back then:

In the 1970s, downtown Edmonton was the retail centre of the metropolitan area, and the city had a policy of sustaining that role by supporting the viability of residential neighbourhoods near the centre of the city and placing limits on the amount of permitted suburban shopping centre development.

The development of West Edmonton Mall by the Triple Five Corporation in the 1980s had a significant negative impact on downtown Edmonton, and on the City Centre mall in particular. The policy limiting suburban shopping centre development was forgotten. As a result, efforts to restore life to downtown began and Triple Five came along with a solution: Eaton Centre. Christopher has documented the ups and downs of that project very thoroughly, so suffice it to say that what was eventually built in 1987 was a mere shadow of the original vision.

The two malls staggered along until 1999 when the Eaton’s chain went bankrupt. It was around that time that Randy Ferguson came to Edmonton on a mission to straighten things out. He remembers his boss at Oxford Properties, Jon Love, telling him two things before he left. “Go get the job done in the best interest of the community and this company,” and “remember one thing: that’s my hometown”. Randy’s journey began on January 2, 2000.

“There was very little energy downtown,” he recalled. Eaton Centre and Edmonton Centre had separate identities. Thinking back to the amount of space they took up downtown Randy told me how he felt: “it was depressing.” He had a job to do however, and his first task was to convince the Oxford board that they should spend money in Edmonton, their weakest market. “We said, don’t think about this as a retail play.” Randy pointed out that 40% of the office space downtown fed into the property. Four office tower lobbies and two hotels directly. The board gave Randy the go-ahead, but with a budget of just $44 million.

Randy and his team made a number of big changes over the next few years. Randy felt that a department store facing Churchill Square was inappropriate, so they convinced The Bay to move to the other side of the mall, to the vacant Eaton’s location. They turned the basement of the now empty east side into a parkade, and managed to attract Sport Check, Winners, and CBC. There were challenges along the way, of course. In the fall of 2001, Randy had arranged to have the western executives in charge of CBC’s TV and Radio divisions come to Edmonton so that he could pitch the idea of consolidating CBC’s properties in the mall downtown. The morning of the presentation was September 11. Needless to say the deal didn’t happen until many months later!

City Centre Wide Bridge

Merging the separate Eaton Centre and Edmonton Centre identities was an important aspect of the redevelopment. Randy wanted to do something architecturally to combine the two properties, and thought about a pedway bridge. “I think our bridges are terrible,” he told me. “They’re ugly, utilitarian, and generic.” In fact, Randy dislikes our pedway bridges so much that he pitched the idea of wrapping each one in scenes depicting the events taking place at the 2001 World Championships in Athletics. Unfortunately, the City didn’t go for it.

Randy wanted the bridge joining the properties to be more than just a pathway, he wanted it to be iconic. That’s how he came up with the wide bridge concept. “I wanted it to become the meeting place,” he recalled. “You know, ‘let’s go for coffee…meet me on the bridge!’” He envisioned a Starbucks and a patisserie on the main level of the bridge, with the rest of the space available for seating. They built a second level as well, a space that Randy thought would make an excellent wine bar. “We put two circular staircases on the bridge, ran power, and even roughed in plumbing.” As it turns out, Randy’s vision was never fully realized. “It has never been programmed the way I imagined it.” Today the bridge is home to a Tim Horton’s, a Telus Mobility kiosk, and a few retailers including a Bell store. The second level is empty and inaccessible. That’s unlikely to change anytime soon, due to the leases that are in place.

Edmonton City Centre Wide Bridge

Randy and his team had to be creative in order to achieve everything they wanted with the redevelopment project, which was finished in 2003. “We accomplished an $80 million spend on a budget of $44 million,” he said. He had spent some time studying funding programs elsewhere in North America, and came across a tax increment financing (TIF) project in Florida. “I liked it because it had a direct connection to rehabilitating the area, and it had a sunset, it wasn’t forever.” Randy worked with Al Maurer, City Manager and Randy Garvey, then the GM of Finance at the City of Edmonton, to see if he could make such a program work here. Alberta’s CRL legislation didn’t exist yet, so they could only apply the tax increment from the City to the project, the school taxes could not be touched. They followed the sunset model, whereby 100% of the tax increment went to the project in year one, 90% in year two, and so on. Randy thinks it might be the first example of a TIF used in Alberta.

City Centre Wide Bridge

When the time came to build the wide bridge, Randy again was out of money. Recognizing that it technically wasn’t on land that Oxford owned, they applied for a local improvement levy. The City studied the legislation and agreed that the funding mechanism was appropriate, so that’s where the money for the bridge came from. Further funding for the redevelopment project came through the creative use of a Commercial Mortgage Backed Security, something that would never happen today given the current recession.

Given his history with the concept, I asked Randy for his thoughts on the idea of using a CRL to help pay for the downtown arena. “I am a huge fan of CRL or TIF – it can make things happen that otherwise wouldn’t.” He doesn’t think the proposed formula is the best one, however. “I believe the school tax portion of CRL should be sacred, it shouldn’t be in play,” he told me. Randy also feels the sunset approach is better than 100% for 20 years as the current legislation allows. “We need to benefit from that growth, along with the guys that are making the investment.” He suggested that the City should get some local experience at the bargaining table, someone like Randy Garvey.

Randy supports the proposed arena project, even though it is competition for ProCura where he is COO. “It’s about critical mass. It’s about creating a new day.”

Media Monday Edmonton: How fast are local media websites?

On the web, page speed matters. If your site takes too long to load, people will go elsewhere. Google proved this by purposefully slowing down its search engine. They found that even just half a second caused fewer searches. Bottom line: users love fast sites!

With that in mind, I decided to look at local media sites – how fast or slow are they? Rather than looking at page load times, I decided to use YSlow to determine the performance of each site. Lots of factors can impact the amount of time a page takes to load (your ISP, the speed of your computer, where you are geographically,etc), but everyone has to download the same amount of data for a web page, so I figured YSlow is a little more fair than a stopwatch.

Here are the fourteen sites I looked at (you can download all the data here):

As you can see, none of the sites received an “A” grade. The only one to receive a B was Only Here for the Food. The grade can be somewhat misleading, however. Here’s what the front page performance for each site looks like:

It turns out that Sharon’s blog is the heaviest of them all with an empty cache (the first time you visit the site). This is due to the large number of images she has on her site. In fact, almost all of the weight of the page is due to the images. If you look at the primed cache (subsequent visits to the site) then the Edmonton Journal is the heaviest. The Edmonton Journal has the worst performance improvement going from an empty to a primed cache:

To be fair, I decided I should compare an “article page” on each site as well. With social media in particular, an article page is more likely to be a visitor’s entry point to the site. For this test, I simply clicked on the top article on each site:

One caveat: I used the second story for iNews 880, because their top story was over 25 MB in size! Evidently they think it is fine to embed full size, uncompressed images.

As you can see, Valerie’s blog is the heaviest, again due to the number of pictures she has. Once again, the Edmonton Journal has the worst performance improvement going from an empty to a primed cache:

Final Thoughts

I thought there would be more of a difference between the new and traditional media sites, but there isn’t really. In general the heaviest part of the blogs is images and the heaviest part of the traditional media sites is Javascript, but there are exceptions. On average, the first time you visit the front page of one of these sites you’re going to have to download just over 2 MB. On a 56.6 Kbps dial-up connection, that would take you nearly 5 minutes. On a typical high-speed connection, it’s more like less than 10 seconds.

I think perceived performance is often more important than actual performance, but that’s obviously harder to measure. In my experience, most of these sites load fairly quickly. When I do notice a speed issue, it’s usually because the page I am trying to load has a lot of stuff on it.

Another thing I learned from this exercise is that all of the sites have room for improvement!

What has your experience been like? Which sites do you find slow?

Edmonton Notes for 2/20/2011

Here are my weekly Edmonton notes:

Silver Skate Festival
Art Burn at the Silver Skate Festival

Blue Bay Station
Blue Bay Station by Kurt

Edmonton Twilight Rush-Hour
Twilight Rush Hour by POD

Art Burn at the Silver Skate Festival

The recent temperature plunge came at the worst possible time for the Silver Skate Festival. It was easily thirty below with the windchill this evening, and you could really feel it in the relatively wide open Hawrelak Park. To be honest, had it not been for the fact that Sharon and I had agreed to guest judge the 2011 Art Burn fire sculpture competition, we might not have made it out tonight. But I’m glad we did, because it was quite the show! And what’s a winter festival without a little cold, right?

There were six Art Burn fire sculpture artists: Maria Butler, Randall Fraser, Will Truchon, Tanya Garner-Tomas, Vergilio le Paz and Marissa Kochanski. Here’s a little photo tour of the evening.

Silver Skate Festival
We arrived early enough to check out the awesome snow sculptures.

Silver Skate Festival
Some artists were still busily working!

Silver Skate Festival
Sharon just had to sit in the Yelp throne.

Silver Skate Festival
Gather around the fire, that’s how you keep warm!

Silver Skate Festival
Vibe Tribe performed just before the Art Burn.

Silver Skate Festival
I know they had fire in their hands, but I bet they were still freezing.

Silver Skate Festival
This was Marissa Kochanski’s sculpture before the burn.

Silver Skate Festival
Here it is during the burn. Her sculpture was the winner!

Silver Skate Festival
More sculptures burning!

Silver Skate Festival
Randall Fraser’s “hand” sculpture was another favorite.

You can see the rest of my photos here.

Sunday night is “Fire in the Belly”, during which a larger communal sculpture created by the artists will be ignited. So if you missed out on the fire tonight, you still have an opportunity tomorrow! Just make sure you bundle up.

Thanks to Erin and Ritchie for having us, and congrats on another successful year!

City’s Standing As Metropolis Declared To Hinge On Coliseum

Recently I have been doing some research on the history of Rexall Place. I thought it would be useful to understand what happened in the past when trying to make sense of our current downtown arena debate. As part of that research, I spent some time at the City of Edmonton archives. I wasn’t sure what to expect or how to approach my research, so I simply asked for anything related to the construction of the Coliseum. Sherry Bell, Reference Archivist at the Archives, was incredibly helpful and came back with a thick file folder labeled “File 1, 1963-1974”. She told me it was the first of many, just the tip of the iceberg.

Coliseum History at the Archives

I read through the entire folder, taking notes as I went. The documents inside, mostly clipped Edmonton Journal articles, tell the story of how the Coliseum came to be, from the push for a downtown arena in the early 1960s through to the construction of what we now call Rexall Place in the early 1970s.

The title of this post comes from an article in the Edmonton Journal published on September 12, 1963. In it, Alderman Les Bodie made his case for the proposed downtown coliseum of the day, saying:

“I think the successful city will be the one with a stable economic base combined with a stimulating economic climate, and the coliseum will be a major factor in attracting interest in our city.”

It was one of many gems I found in the file, some of which I have shared below, and some of which I’ll share in future posts.

In total, I recorded 93 headlines (I skipped some). Here’s the breakdown of the articles I looked at by year:

Lots was written early on in the debate, and less was written as construction got underway and progressed. Here’s a sample of the headlines:

  • Coliseum Site Studied – May 11, 1963
  • City Approves $10 Million Coliseum Plan – June 25, 1963
  • City Has ‘Escape Hatch’ If Coliseum Voted Down – August 29, 1963
  • City’s Standing As Metropolis Declared To Hinge On Coliseum – September 12, 1963
  • Mayor Hits Coliseum Critics – September 24, 1963
  • Coliseums Seem To Spark Growth – September 28, 1963
  • Coliseum Complex Rejected By Almost Half Ratepayers – October 17, 1963
  • Mayor Anticipates Verdict On New Coliseum Proposal – March 1, 1965
  • A Coliseum Or A New Arena? – March 25, 1965
  • Alderman Warns City Taxpayers Will Have To Subsidize Coliseum – July 20, 1966
  • Ex arena to be constructed just north of Gardens – April 22, 1972
  • Oilers won game but public the real winner – November 11, 1974

I was immediately struck by how similar today’s debate is to the debate in the 1960s. In short: a downtown arena is proposed and tied to the future of the city, people argue over the location and other details, but the process really gets stuck on the money.

One of the first documents I found in the file was a pamphlet published by The Hamly Press (which as far as I can tell no longer exists) entitled, “the Coliseum Plebiscite: a test of our Faith in Edmonton as a Great Metropolis of the North West”. Here are some of the statements found inside:

  • “A downtown showplace that will publicize Edmonton as a progressive, positive-thinking city, developing rapidly in all phases of modern city live and endeavor.”
  • “The Coliseum Complex will lead the way in revitalizing downtown activity.”
  • “A Vital Necessity for Downtown Development!”
  • “Construction of the Coliseum Complex will be the city’s first step in the fulfilment of Edmonton’s remarkable plan for the renewal of the downtown city centre. There is little doubt that perseverance with this project now will be a decisive factor in the eventual completion of the entire Civic Centre plan.”
  • And a quote from Mayor Roper: “This plebiscite will be a test of the vision of the ratepayers of our city. How much do we want Edmonton to lead all Canada in bold, imaginative downtown development?”

Edmonton Journal writer Ben Tierney, working in the City Hall Bureau, wrote a lot about the proposed project. In a September 24, 1963 article entitled “Other Cities Find Value in Coliseums” he highlighted what he saw as “three basic benefits”:

  1. Attraction of major sports, entertainment and cultural events that the city could not otherwise hope to obtain.
  2. Attraction of outside dollars to the city through increased convention activity as well as non-local attendance at coliseum events.
  3. Increased tax revenue for the city through construction of new downtown building encouraged by the coliseum’s construction, and a revitalized city centre.

Sounds familiar, doesn’t it?

Of course, the initial plan never came to fruition, and subsequent attempts to rescue it failed also. On October 17, 1963 the Edmonton Journal reported the results of the plebiscite that would have authorized the City to borrow $14,250,000 to finance the coliseum:

“The coliseum complex was strongly backed by the former city council, the Edmonton and District Labor Council, the Edmonton Chamber of Commerce and Jaycees, the Edmonton Exhibition Association, the Edmonton Area Civic Centennial Committee, and the Edmonton Building and Construction Trades Council.”

“55% of voters favored the two money bylaws…but a 2/3 majority was required. Opposition to the project centered on the costs involved.”

Over the next ten years, various attempts to salvage the idea were made, but ultimately the cheaper Edmonton Coliseum was built instead. I wonder how different things might have been had the downtown complex gone ahead?

Recap: Startup Weekend Edmonton 2

Edmonton’s second Startup Weekend was held this past weekend at the Computing Sciences Centre on the University of Alberta campus. It was a fantastic event that saw seven teams create some really interesting things in just 54 hours. Around 50 people participated – lots of programmers, some designers, some writers, and many others. Here’s how the weekend played out.

Friday night was pitch night. Fifteen people got up and made an elevator pitch for one or more ideas, which we stuck up giant post it pages on the walls all around the room. Everyone then had a few minutes to walk around and chat with the idea people, to determine which team they wanted to work on. In the end, seven teams were formed, with sizes ranging from two people to more than a dozen. Teams did a little bit of brainstorming and preparation that night, but I don’t think any code was written.

Startup Weekend Edmonton 2

Saturday was a work day, with teams arriving and getting started around 9am. The atmosphere was exciting if a little relaxed. People lingered at lunch and dinner, taking advantage of the opportunities to chat with others. Some people stayed working past 11pm that night, while others went home to relax or out to party after a long day of hard work.

Startup Weekend Edmonton 2

Most people arrived again Sunday morning around 9:30am, focused on completing as much work as possible before demo time. It was interesting to see the shift in atmosphere from Saturday to Sunday – no time was wasted on food or breaks on Sunday. People called out tasks and things like “it’s checked in!” as they worked furiously. Getting everyone to leave the building for Original Joe’s as 6pm approached was challenging!

Startup Weekend Edmonton 2
Team Victory working right down to the wire at Original Joe’s.

There was a great turnout for the demos. Here’s what was built:

  • A flash-based gamed called Flatlander, a 2D game similar to minecraft.
  • Eartonic, an iPhone app that helps train people to learn music by ear.
  • Google Earth Sounds, a really interesting tool that enables people to add sounds to Google Earth. It’s such a great idea – with StreetView you can see what a street looks like, so why not find out what it sounds like too?
  • Swift, an attempt to make the experience of sending and finding invoices easier.
  • Another game, called Rubber Chicken Assassin. You take a photo of your friend with your iPhone, then beat them with a rubber chicken. It could then share a fun obituary on Facebook!
  • Helping Manual, a crowdsourced website to answer questions like “how do I get a social insurance number”. It’s targeted at communities such as the homeless or immigrants & newcomers, as well as the people who work with those communities. Another really great idea.
  • Team Victory, the team I was on, built LaunchWith.me. It’s part project directory and part people finder. We focused on a single question – would you work with someone again? LaunchWith.me is a way to answer that for colleagues you’ve worked with at companies, on projects, and in groups. You can check out a screencast here.

The weekend was a great opportunity to meet new people, to work with someone you might not otherwise had have the chance to, and to use and learn new technologies. I did all of those things, and also felt the sense of accomplishment that comes from working together to go from idea to working product in such a short period of time. It sounds so cliché, but it’s amazing what you can accomplish if you focus and work hard! Check out Rachelle’s recap for more.

I would like to see more even team sizes at our next Startup Weekend, tentatively scheduled for the fall, but part of the magic of the weekend is that the outcome is entirely up to attendees. Everyone had a role to play this weekend, even on the large teams, so if you have hesitated about attending because you’re not a programmer, keep that in mind for the next event!

Thanks to everyone who participated this weekend, and to everyone who came out to see the demos! You can see the rest of my photos here.

Media Monday Edmonton: Meet the new West Edmonton Local

Last week a new media organization launched here in Edmonton, one that is quite unlike any of the others. West Edmonton Local is a project of Grant MacEwan University’s journalism program focusing on news in the west end of our city. It’s a website, an experiment in hyperlocal news, and a fantastic learning tool for MacEwan students. I talked to the new site’s editor-in-chief Archie McLean and two of its journalists about the project.

“As much as possible, we want to be an authoritative voice for the west end,” Archie told me. I think that statement says a lot about the new project – it might be easy to dismiss it as just thing for students, but to do so would be a mistake. West Edmonton Local is the real deal. “There’s a market for local news,” he declared. Chelsey Smith, one of the site’s contributors, agreed saying “there’s definitely a need for something like West Edmonton Local.”

Archie became the chair of the program back in August, and even then he was thinking about the idea of a local news site. “What’s the best way to channel the output and collective interest of 20 journalism students?” Traditionally, students would have had to write a couple of big articles during the term, giving them limited opportunity to work with editors. For Archie, that would mean 20 big articles all coming in at the same time. “It doesn’t reflect the media reality,” he told me. West Edmonton Local changes the approach – instead of learning to do journalism, students are doing journalism and learning from that experience.

Students are tasked with writing articles every week, and they also need to include a multimedia component. They’ll also do a few feature pieces throughout the term. They’re using Flickr for photos, and might also include Google Maps, video, slideshows, and other rich content. Chelsey told me “it’s a major time commitment, but everyone is so excited about it.” I also talked with Pamela Di Pinto, who highlighted the big head start the project is giving students career-wise. “It’s not often that my work gets published anywhere, so to actually have my name online is pretty cool.” Archie echoed that, saying that the skills students are gaining with West Edmonton Local will be valuable when they move to other organizations.

In addition to Archie wearing the editor-in-chief hat, the site has two student editors that alternate every two weeks. The Managing Editor helps with the articles and content, and the Community Engagement Editor (apparently the title has changed a few times now) focuses on Twitter, Facebook, and other aspects of the project. Chelsey is the Community Engagement Editor until Wednesday, and said she has focused on tweeting links and posting stories to Facebook, so that more than just the feature articles are read. “We want people commenting on our stories on the website, so it’s important to spread the news.”

The site officially went live on February 7. Archie and the team decided to focus on the west end partly because that’s where the MacEwan program exists, but also because the community seemed like it might be receptive to the idea. “It has a distinctive feel, it was Jasper Place until really not that long ago,” Archie told me. The project’s “boundaries” are west of 124 Street, and south of 111 Avenue to the river. There’s lots of potential news stories in the area, such as the Stony Plain revitalization, the LRT extension, etc. The boundaries are just guidelines, however. If there’s news that is relevant to the west end communities, West Edmonton Local will cover it.

While hyperlocal sites are nothing new, there aren’t many of them here in Canada, and certainly not from journalism schools. One of the sites Archie looked at was Mission Local, a hyperlocal site focused on the Mission district in San Francisco. The “trouble” section was borrowed from that site. Crime is one aspect, but there are other things covered in the trouble section, such as noise bylaw complaints, graffiti, etc. Stuff that is relevant to people in the community, but which might not meet the threshold to be covered in something like the Edmonton Journal.

Archie told me that the biggest challenges the project has faced so far are quality control and workflow. “It’s an ongoing challenge to keep a consistent voice.” The journalists are students of course, so they’re learning as they go, and they all have different abilities and experience. Workflow has also been a challenge, partially because the site is running on WordPress. Students pitch their own story ideas, and post the article in draft form. An editor comes in and checks things over, making any necessary adjustments (Chelsey commented that one of things she has learned so far is the importance of editing). Final approval is given from either Archie or Lucas Timmons, the production editor, and then the article goes live. Multimedia follows a slightly different workflow.

One of the most obvious questions about West Edmonton Local is what happens after school is over. “Worst case scenario is that it lives for a few months and then goes away, but ideally we want to keep it going over the summer,” Archie told me. He has applied for some grant money that would allow a student to work over the summer, carrying it through until the next term. Eventually advertising revenue could cover the operational costs, which at this point are quite small. Partnerships is another aspect of the site that Archie and the team are exploring. They’ve focused primarily on getting everything up and running so far, but are eager to speak with organizations in the community about how to work together.

The team sounded happy with the launch and the attention the site has received thus far. Pamela said the experience has been great, and that she’s excited to see the site grow. She also praised the work Archie and Lucas have put into the site. “They really are helping us out, getting our names out there.” Archie, perhaps unsurprisingly, said it is the students that should get the credit. “They’re putting the content up, and content is king.”

For now the site seems to be running fairly smoothly, but discussions about how to improve it are ongoing. “It’s so young, it could go anywhere,” Chesley remarked. Archie stressed that the team is looking for feedback at this stage. “We genuinely want suggestions from people on what we can do better.” If you have a comment or suggestion, tweet @westedlocal, leave a comment on Facebook, or get in touch with Archie.

For Archie, seeing West Edmonton Local come to life has been a great experience. “It was an opportunity to try building a news site from the ground up,” Archie told me. “It’s potentially an infinite amount of work.” His passion for the project definitely showed during our conversation however, so he seems up to challenge. He also knows this is a unique opportunity. “We don’t have any baggage, so we have the freedom to take chances.”

Congratulations to everyone involved in West Edmonton Local on what you have accomplished so far. I look forward to seeing the project grow and evolve!

Love that Menu: Valentine’s Day 2011 in Edmonton

Sharon and I decided to collaborate on this post. Enjoy!

Mack:

Last year, Sharon and I collaborated on a Valentine’s Day post. We decided it would be fun to compare the special and regular menus at a variety of local restaurants in order to find out which one offered the best deal on Valentine’s Day. It was a nice mix of my penchant for stats and Sharon’s knowledge of the local food scene. This year, we wanted to do something different.

Sharon:

Eater nicknames Valentine’s Day “Black Monday” for a reason – restaurants pull out all the stops, hoping to woo diners with their prix fixe menus. Though I’m sure most of them are well intentioned (and Mack and I have certainly indulged in many Hallmark holiday dinners), some seem to be really over the top.

After perusing over a dozen Valentine’s Day menus, we’ve collected some observations. Here are our tongue-in-cheek picks for the best and worst of what the city’s restaurants have to offer this weekend.

  • This Dish Gets Around
    • Aside from fondue, which is a Valentine’s Day staple, Chicken Supreme was the most common dish on the menus we examined. It is featured at Homefire Grill, Vic’s Steakhouse, Sorrentino’s Downtown, and even Hardware Grill. Those chickens really get around, don’t they?
  • Most Appealing Menu
    • Last year we picked Hardware Grill as the tastiest-sounding menu, but this year the honor goes to Madison’s Grill. Five courses with two choices each (plus a dessert course) means there’s a good chance both you and your date will find something to enjoy. Pan seared scallops, pulled pork crepe, and grilled Spring Creek Ranch beef tenderloin are just a few of the delicious sounding options!
  • Best Bang for Your Buck
    • At $45 per person, The Manor might not be the cheapest option, but with three courses (which include a choice of three entrees, with nary a chicken supreme in sight), we’re confident that between the food and their cozy rooms, couples will be well taken care of, and for a price less than a third of the most expensive meal in the city.
  • Big Spender
    • That brings us to the five course prix fixe at Red Ox Inn. If you’re on a budget, this one isn’t for you – it will set you back $160 a person (which includes food, gratuity and tax). Each course is paired with a wine though, and given the meal has been at the same price point at least two years in a row, it has likely continued for a good reason.
  • Best Dish Name
    • With images of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers in our heads, Zinc’s “Cheek to Cheek” entrée is hard to beat. Comprised of a Spring Creek Rank beef cheek and a butter-poached halibut cheek, it also probably tastes as good as it sounds. We used Zinc’s photo above.
  • Worst Dish Name
    • Maybe we need to get out of the city more, but there’s nothing particularly romantic to us about two slabs of meat. That’s what you’ll get at Teddy’s with “Lovers’ Steaks” – an 8oz New York and a 6oz Fillet Mignon. The dish comes with prawns, Caesar salad, and three cheese mashed potatoes for $49.
  • Say Cheese
    • We really thought restaurants would be more forthcoming with the extras they would shower on you and your date, but no dice. So almost by default, The Melting Pot wins this category. You have the option of “enhancing” your meal with different feature packages, such as “The Cupid’s Arrow”, which includes one dozen roses in a vase, rose petals on your table, a bottle of sparkling wine, two champagne flutes to keep, and a framed photo of you and your Valentine. The price tag? $225, which also covers a four course dinner for two.
  • What’s the Point Prix Fixe
    • With a Valentine’s Day menu that is so similar to the regular menu, we have to wonder why Chop even bothered! All of the entrees and most of the appetizer platter can be found on the regular menu. Only the dessert, Dark Chocolate Pecan Banana Cake, is new. If you’re superstitious you might like this option, however – the three course meal is priced at $88 per couple.
  • No Date Required
    • Who says you need a table for two on February 14? Take a look at the menu from Bistro La Persaud and tell us you’re not seduced (braised boar bacon? poached lobster?). Best of all, it’s priced per person! Ooh la laa!

Mack:

However you choose to spend Valentine’s Day, we hope it is filled with love!

Fun with Open Data and Excel: Edmonton’s Busiest Streets

Today the City of Edmonton added a new dataset to the open data catalogue – average daily street traffic volumes from 2004-2009. Here’s the description:

Include traffic counts obtained with automatic traffic recorders over the past six years. The volume shown is a total of all vehicles in both directions, over a 24 hour period, for a typical weekday in a year. Volumes shown as a dash "-" indicate no count was undertaken that year. Seasonal adjustments are made to reflect an average weekday during the year. An increase or decrease in volume does not necessarily indicate a trend for a given roadway. Road construction or the introduction of more advanced equipment in 2009 affect the traffic volume numbers.

I’d like to build something interesting with this data, perhaps as part of a future ShareEdmonton release. But to start, I decided to open the data up in Microsoft Excel, something I often do with new datasets. Here’s what I discovered.

First, a few summary points:

  • There are 1496 street locations in the dataset.
  • Of those, 823 were counted in 2009. The year with the most counted locations was 2006, at 1076. Just 32 locations were counted every year (2004-2009). There were 531 locations counted in three years or more.
  • One of the first things I noticed is that every count ends in zero. I know the description outlines that the data is an average, adjusted seasonally, and perhaps for other reasons, but I wonder how close to reality the numbers really are.

Looking at 2009 simply because it is the most recent, there’s a hint of a long tail for the counted locations:

Here are the 200 busiest locations in Edmonton according to the 2009 count:

To create that map, I used a free utility called Excel to KML. There are all kinds of useful free KML tools online!

Here are the top ten busiest locations in Edmonton, according to the 2009 count:

  1. Calgary Trail SW North of Gateway Park Road SW
  2. Capilano Bridge
  3. 178 Street South of 81 Avenue
  4. Highway 216 NE North of Sherwood Park Freeway NE
  5. Anthony Henday Drive North of  87 Avenue
  6. HIghway 216 NE North of Baseline Road NE
  7. Anthony Henday Drive West of Calgary Trail
  8. 170 Street North of  95 Avenue
  9. Groat Road North of Victoria Park Road
  10. Highway 216 NE North of Whitemud Drive NE

Some of those are expected, some perhaps not. I decided to look at locations that were counted in at least three different years. If you look at the average daily volumes for that subset, here are the top ten busiest locations in Edmonton:

  1. Quesnell Bridge
  2. Yellowhead Trail West of 231 Street
  3. Calgary Trail SW North of Gateway Park Road SW
  4. Capilano Bridge
  5. Whitemud Drive West of 149 Street
  6. Yellowhead Trail West of Fort Road
  7. Cloverbar Bridge
  8. Yellowhead Trail West of  97 Street
  9. Yellowhead Trail West of 107 Street
  10. Yellowhead Trail West of 127 Street

Plotting the top 25 on a map gives a better sense of the really busy roads – Yellowhead Trail and Whitemud Drive:

Interesting, isn’t it? Of course, it could get a lot more interesting with some mashups. I’d love to have collision data for the City of Edmonton, to see how closely the number of collisions is correlated with traffic volumes. That’s just one example.

Check out the new dataset in the open data catalogue. If you do something interesting with it, I’d love to hear about it!