Field School: Day 4: Stony Plain

My knowledge about Stony Plain was very limited prior to our field trip. I had been to Stony Plain once, about three weeks back, and the only thing that interested me was that big new Freson Bros grocery store. I can now happily say that after this field trip I now have an excuse to return to Stony Plain...for pie at the Heritage Village, possibly some events at the Pavilion, and local groceries at Freson Bros.

My arrival into Stony Plain was rather unpleasant as I got pulled over by a Stony Plain sheriff and fined for having an expired licence plate (in my defence I had no idea it was expired and it wasn't even a full year since I got a new sticker!). Anyways, my bitterness soon faded as I met up with my classmates and was slowly distracted by the presentation on Stony Plain put on by Town of Stony Plain employees.

Like I said, I knew very little about the town prior to the presentation, other than the fact that Dr. Summers and Elise (from our class) grew up there and that they have sheriffs with sharp eyes. My lack of knowledge made the presentation, along with our tour of Stony Plain, even more interesting because, well, everything was new.

Drafts of some revitalization plans created during community engagement meetings

After the presentation we split up into our groups to explore our areas and have lunch. Jalene, Jessica, Dylan, and Elise and I bonded over the Freson Bros salad bar as we discussed the game plan for our group project. After lunch we headed over to the Pavilion area and toured around the site. We had heard that they had good pie at the Heritage village area but it unfortunately looked closed. This made for a good excuse to come back another time. We then ventured off down the road towards Main Street taking lots of pictures and complaining about the lack of pedestrian trail lighting, the poor merits of having a denture and windshield store in the area, and bad railway crossings. Our mini tour eventually took us to the other side of town where we visited the skate park, walked through a ridiculously expensive pedestrian tunnel under the rail tracks, and enjoyed some screamers (slushies with soft serve ice-cream).

Trail that runs half way down the long corridor to Main Street. We thought it was odd that the only
lighting was on the opposite side of the road from the trail.

Back at Town Hall our group began brainstorming ways to connect the rather isolated Pavilion to Main Street Stony Plain. With the assistance of Miles and several other staff members, we were able to get a firm grasp of the current situation, future initiatives already in place, and some possible challenges. This aided us in formulating a feasible, and in our opinion, effective redevelopment plan.

This was the only signage we saw along the corridor. It was oriented towards vehicle traffic yet was very small.
There was also no signage along the trail to let people know where they were going or what attractions
are nearby.

This commercial strip along the corridor between Main Street and the Pavilion does not attract the type of pedestrian
traffic needed to make this area an attractive place to come through. This area should house some type of restaurant,
shopping, or art store to attract tourists and locals on a continual basis.

This used parts lot along the corridor is unattractive and does nothing to draw people into this area.