FCC1982
Senior Member
Doesn’t the City have a transportation project priority list ?
Maybe LRT & Crowchild are too large of projects to be on said list ?
Maybe LRT & Crowchild are too large of projects to be on said list ?
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Roads, Highways & Infrastructure
- Thread starter Oddball
- Start date
lemongrab
Active Member
What would the process for sinking Crowchild look like? Temporary lane(s) on the edges where the on/off ramps and MUP will be?
Looks like this basically kills nearly all of the retail along the east side from the law office strip mall at Kensington Rd to the Esso station. Just the Abominable Ski building would be untouched, but obviously loses access.
My initial thought was that it would be an improvement in E-W connectivity for all modes...but it's probably just going to end up like Glenmore, isn't it?
Am I crazy, or might elevated actually be the better option for Crowchild (at least from Memorial - 5th)?
Looks like this basically kills nearly all of the retail along the east side from the law office strip mall at Kensington Rd to the Esso station. Just the Abominable Ski building would be untouched, but obviously loses access.
My initial thought was that it would be an improvement in E-W connectivity for all modes...but it's probably just going to end up like Glenmore, isn't it?
Am I crazy, or might elevated actually be the better option for Crowchild (at least from Memorial - 5th)?
trtcttc
Senior Member
Not sure if I’m understanding correctly, but the plan is to elevate the E-W connection and drop Crowchild deeper. Similar to 33rd Ave at Marda
Loop. There may be some loss but the main retail at that spot is the car wash and gas station. I’d argue if this was done the pedestrian retail would improve. There’s Grand Trunk Park and there’d be more pedestrian oriented retail if it wasn’t so close to major highway.
CBBarnett
Senior Member
You'd be correct - it will be a improvement for connectivity and traffic volumes, at least temporarily. It will also end up in a hostile, ginormous concrete canyon that bleaches the potential out of the areas nearby.
Here's from the Crowchild long-term plans. Takes the road in many places from 6 lanes to 10 to 12, with weaving sections. Right-of-way approaches 100m wide, up from 40 - 50m wide or so today.
I don't oppose free-flow Crowchild and some improvements to reduce weaving, but that's a ton of hectares of development potential so close the university, downtown and LRT. A step in the wrong direction and yet another expensive, and futile in the long-run, de-bottlenecking road.
Keep Crowchild to 60m right-of-way and don't prioritize turning vehicle movements from every corridor to every other corridor and plan can lose about 50% of it's bloat.
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lemongrab
Active Member
E-W will stay mostly flat with a bit more elevation for the bridges. It looks a lot more like Glenmore/Elbow and Glenmore/5 St than Marda (though that interchange is pretty hostile, too).
In addition to the car wash + gas station (which are never particularly pretty, but do serve as a hub for kids to get slurpees/etc), a wellness centre (spa/massage), butcher store, craft store, taekwondo dojo, law/insurance/etc office will all be demolished. Not bothering to look up values now, but that's gotta be like $15M in property acquisition plus corresponding property tax losses.
I'm not saying those retail experiences were amazing, and some of it will eventually be replaced along 5th or Kensington Rd, but I don't think it would have been unsalvageable. Being below elevated structures isn't always the worst thing - e.g. 10 Ave SW under the blue line or Bridgeland - both of which retain hostile barriers in form of CPKC tracks/Memorial Dr that wouldn't be as bad here...you could have simple pedestrian crossing lights at both 2nd or 3rd Ave
trtcttc
Senior Member
Some of that seems to be city land already (purple) so there isn't really a tax loss. And the impact on the N-W lot is pretty minimal as it's parking for Co-op liquor. I see your point with the 2nd Ave retail. In the grand scheme of things it's pretty minimal, and there's a lot of opportunities to develop retail along Kensington Road.
CalgaryTiger
Senior Member
I've got a radical idea... Turn Kensington and 5th and 16th and 24th Aves into grand linear traffic circles that requires no lights and no left turns across traffic. It would mean taking a right and driving a little more than you would normally. The volume is probably much to high but the solutions isn't always an interchange.
MuzikMachine
New Member
"Medium Term " was defined as 10+ years back in 2017. Considering that's a section that should have been done right the first time over 50 years ago, they'll probably go with the +.Deerfoot = Province
Crowchild = City
Speaking of Crowchild, the “Medium Term” improvements could start in 2027 - I hope they do
Crowchild Trail Upgrades: Medium and long-term plans
www.calgary.ca
whatchyyc
Active Member
Squint and it's just like Glenmore, giant trench with a SPUI and diamond pedestrian blender
We're forever doomed to repeat the mistakes of the past
MichaelS
Senior Member
No they don't unfortunately. Got rid of it 8-10ish years ago. A frustrated council finally got the GM of infrastructure services to say they will create a new one for the next budget during the mid-cycle budget debate last November, but nothing has been shown or prepared yet.
Honestly, I am surprised we have gone this long without one. I don't know how you can competently plan a fast growing city without a clear infrastructure priority list. I guess when every bit of funding was going to the greenline or cultural buildings (a stretch to call the event centre one, but c'est la vie) it doesn't matter. It is not like serious analysis was going into the capital plan anyway.... Okay, rant over
FCC1982
Senior Member
How is Glenmore a mistake ?
whatchyyc
Active Member
In terms of connectivity it's obviously important, just that what's actually there is a gigantic loud dirty canyon with dangerous intersections that have killed multiple people
CalgaryTiger
Senior Member
I go back and forth on this... On one side, Glenmore is the result of bringing to Calgary what cut up and divided cities in the US in the highway expansion era. It is a permanent car canyon dividing that section of the city. On the other side, it was a vital east-west artery in the southwest. What else could they have done? Capping it would've been the answer but that would probably have been value engineered out even if it was proposed originally.
In the mind of efficiently moving cars... Glenmore and 14th Street SW interchange should not have been rehabilitated, it is a horrible bottleneck that forces people to take risks.
trtcttc
Senior Member
But isn't that how you achieve connectivity? When there's Deerfoot and Crowchild and Sarcee feeding into it? Not to mention being one of the main E-W connectors? Have there been more fatalities on Glenmore than elsewhere? I know the one last Christmas happened there but as sad as that was, it was more the fault of the perpetrator than the road design.
lemongrab
Active Member
There's a lot more orange than purple as you go further north. Either way there is a big opportunity cost. You convert fairly valuable land from an asset to a liability in perpetuity, while displacing residents and businesses. All for an ultimate result of shuffling the congestion around to other places so you can build more road expansion projects to shuffle congestion around to other places.
IMO elevated is a slightly lessor evil than a canyon, but there are better + cheaper options. Limit movements at those intersections and slap some lights on Memorial/19th and maybe 16th too (which also means another level crossing for active modes) - do we really need that brief stretch of 70 kph? That lets you kill all 4 left turn movements at Kensington/Crow, and really helps the busses that use Kensington Rd.
5 Ave is a bit tougher, but I wonder if you could do traffic circles at 25th and 23rd, and again kill all left turn movements at Crowchild. Converting the lefts off of crowchild into through lanes would also let you give right turns onto crowchild their own lane instead of a yield (not that we need to add any more slip lanes)
Or we could spend hundreds of millions to give the illusion of improved flow while working against pretty much every other city goal.