Pedestrian killed by train in Maple Crest area renews emergency access concerns

A pedestrian was struck and killed by a train in southeast Edmonton on Monday evening, reigniting concerns about emergency access to the area.

The crash happened between the Maple Crest and Tamarack neighbourhoods, which are divided by the CN Rail line.

Police were called at 7:30 p.m. to the crash between a CN Rail train and a pedestrian near 34 Avenue, just west of Railway Street.

The victim has not yet been identified. Both the EPS Major Collision Investigations Section (MCIS) and CN Police responded to the scene.

Geographically, Maple Crest only has three access points.

The neighbourhood sits on a pie-shaped sliver of land in southeast Edmonton, flanked by Whitemud Drive to the north and Anthony Henday Drive to the east and south. The nearest major road is 17 Street to the west, but getting to it requires crossing CN tracks.

The main route in and out, Maple Road, was blocked for several hours after the collision.

There’s another route in and out of Maple — Railway Street, a dirt road south of the developed area, which gives access to a flyover bridge that goes east into Strathcona County and also connects with 23 Avenue to the south at 17 Street. But again, that access point also crosses the same train tracks about two kilometres to the south.

“I understand that there’s technically three access points,” said area resident Jody Solomon, “But truly, if someone had a medical emergency and the train was stopped, there’s no way that people could get in because the back way is gonna be full with traffic as well. There’s a lot of gravel. It’s not really well directed as to how to get in here,” she said.

CN Rail said the train began moving again around 11:30 p.m. Monday night.

“People were waiting for four or five hours to get home and, if you have young kids, it’s a nightmare,” Solomon said.

Train delays are a common headache for residents of the Maple Crest neighbourhood.

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“It delays people from coming going home from work, going to work,” said Solomon. “That’s just one part of the issue — really, if there was any kind of medical emergency on the other side here, we would have no way for them to get in.”

The newer area contains a dense mix of apartments and condo buildings, townhouses, duplexes and single-family homes. The city’s most recent census data from 2019 said 2,500 people lived there, and the area has only grown in the years since.

“I’ve been here almost 10 years and in the last five years it’s really exploded with a lot of people, and that’s great, but on the other hand — what are we doing to help traffic flow and emergency services access?”

Solomon said in addition to better access points, she feels Maple Road sees enough traffic each day to warrant expanding it to two lanes in each direction.

“I do regret that people were inconvenienced by it, but police services did need to keep it closed to do their investigation,” said Jo-Anne Wright, the city councillor for the area (Ward Sspomitapi).

When she was sworn into council, Wright said fixing the ongoing problem was one of her top priorities.

A similar collision happened in 2021, when a 34-year-old woman was hit by a train while trying to run across the tracks. She was taken to hospital in critical condition and died the next day.

“Unfortunately a few years ago there was somebody that passed away, got hit by the train, too, and it doesn’t seem like there’s anything going to be done because technically there is three access points, so as a resident here it’s just extremely frustrating,” Solomon said.

Five years ago, Global News spoke with area residents who were frustrated to see fire trucks and ambulances blocked for several minutes at a time on Maple Road as trains passed through.

In January 2021, a vehicle on a driveway near 39 Avenue and 6 Street went up in flames while the responding emergency crews were stuck on the other side of a train for about three minutes. In the end, from the 911 call being placed to crews arriving on scene, 13 minutes had passed. Residents expressed concerns about other more time-sensitive issues such as medical emergencies.

In 2022, the City of Edmonton did look into making upgrades to roads, but council ultimately decided the $11 million price tag was too steep, plus the move could set a precedent since access roads are supposed to be built by developers, not the municipality.

The company behind the Maple Crest area, Dream Development Edmonton, has long been aware of the complaints, and Wright said access has improved.

“We do have other routes out of the area,” Wright said. “The Dream developers, with the last incident that happened in 2021, they were working on getting the other access points out.

“So there is the flyover over the Anthony Henday into Strathcona County and there’s also the 23rd Avenue exit you can approach from Railway Street.”

Solomon said few people know about the back routes into the neighbourhood.

“I’m not sure if the city can do a better job at kind of explaining those accesses or maybe pave it?” she questioned.

Wright said she’s talked to Edmonton Fire Rescue Services and emergency crews are able to access the neighbourhood from both the flyover and southern route.

“If they aren’t able to get in from the west, Strathcona County — we have mutual aid agreements with them.”

Wright has heard many complaints from residents asking for more solutions at Maple Road, such as a bridge over the tracks like what is being built at 50th Street.

She said it isn’t a simple ask.

“Street grade separation at 50th Street — that was decades in the making, at a cost of hundreds of millions of dollars. While I don’t think money should come down to loss of life, it is something that needs to be considered,” Wright said.

“I’ve been in touch with CN — could they construct a bridge? Or move the railroad tracks parallel to the Henday? And again, it’s a cost factor.”

Being aware of the issues in Maple Crest, Wright said she voted against a development elsewhere in the city because it would have faced similar access concerns.

“I kept this in mind when we did have a reasoning request come in a couple months ago for a development in the NE of Edmonton,” Wright said.

“It was saddled by railroad tracks on either side and would have had the same concerns and I couldn’t support it because of that reason.”