The City of Medicine Hat has entered a second year of partnership with Strong Towns. (CHAT News)

By Eli J. Ridder, Jesse Gill

Second year of Medicine Hat-Strong Towns partnership focused on cost effective ‘small bets’, city planner says

Apr 10, 2024 | 10:59 AM

Medicine Hat’s second year of partnership with the Strong Towns urban planning organization is leading to more small, cost-effective improvements, according to a member of the city’s planning staff.

“We’ve implemented many projects in the city that are saving us a lot of money,” Shawn Champagne told CHAT News on Tuesday.

“Rather than tearing up an entire street to completely redesign it, for example, our municipal works department has implemented some pilot programs for traffic calming using temporary bollards that they install at a very low cost.”

The city has put up traffic-calming projects on Third Street downtown and in the school zone by St. Francis Xavier School.

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Taking “small bets” — a phrase often-used by Strong Towns — by implementing smaller-scale pilot programs allows for the city to quickly test ideas for a fraction of the cost of larger initiatives.

“We’re able to implement them right away with not much scrutiny and then take an opportunity to observe how it actually functions,” he said.

(Ross Lavigne/CHAT News)

From there, city hall can work on incremental improvements, Champagne explained.

“It’s working exactly as it should because it’s providing us the information we need to make the next decision,” he added.

During Monday’s council meeting, Champagne used the example of getting public parking information out to the community by starting with listing where it could be found on Google Maps.

Now, staff are working to create a physical handout to give to local business owners downtown that lists where parking can be found and at what cost.

These “small bets” are made possible through more collaboration between departments at the city, according to Champagne.

“Participation in this program has created a lot of cohesion amongst city departments that often wouldn’t collaborate as much in the past,” Champagne said.

His comments come as Medicine Hat’s $212,000 partnership with the non-profit Strong Towns enters its second and final year, transitioning from a community consultation and education phase to a focus on implementation.

Champagne pointed to a local, independent conversation group as an important aspect of the Strong Towns partnership.

(Ross Lavigne/CHAT News)

“This local conversations group is entirely independent from the city, so they are coming up with initiatives on their own and implementing them on their own,” he said.

Kelly Allard, co-chair of the conversations group, said its members are all about taking action.

Instead of waiting for the city to act, we bring ideas to the table that others have not thought about, we see things that the city does not,” Allard told CHAT News.

“We then either fund it ourselves like we did with the recent hot chocolate and marshmellow roast or we apply for micro-grants from the city.”

Those looking to get involved in the conversations group can reach out to Strong Towns Medicine Hat or contact MedHatConversations@gmail.com.

The Strong Towns book is also available at the Medicine Hat Public Library, Champagne said.

Those interested in learning more about the Strong Towns partnership can visit the Shape Your City page on the City of Medicine Hat website.