1900 Marda Loop | 23m | 6s | Sarina Homes

As an area resident I could speak at the public hearing. It's not currently scheduled but I'm pretty busy in the new year. I think you can still submit written submissions. Maybe I'll work on a write up in support of it. Arguments in favor of it are pretty easy to make.

Density where it should be; on a main street next to existing commercial and other density. Adding population to the area; which increases vibrancy and adds people to an area with existing city services (library, pool, etc.). Sarina is a trusted developer in the area completing projects like Avenue 33 (directly across the street) and COCO (which has no commercial space but still integrates well with the street and sidewalk). The forthcoming Main Street project and possible future Primary Transit Network transition will help make 33rd Ave a destination meaning the commercial space will be successful. I also believe commercial vacancy in the area is quite low.

Those are just the things I can think of while I sit in a Thursday morning work meeting.
 
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adamyyc said:
My hope is that the Main Streets improvements will cause drivers to use alternate routes. 50, Flanders, and 26 may prove to be better options for those who live on the periphery of the community but don’t need to pass through the BIA, once streets are narrowed, traffic calming measures are implemented, and traffic/pedestrian crossing signals are installed.
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Would be nice if 26th had an on and off ramp to Crowchild at least on the east side of Crowchild. It would make things busier for 26th, but it would offload a lot of the traffic from 33rd..
It would make things busier for 26th, but it would offload a lot of the traffic from 33rd and it might help 26th into coming more of a corridor.
 
It's a scary thought but 33rd Ave, even with the changes for the main street, will still be exactly what it is today: Access to the businesses. Access to and from Crowchild for Mount Royal, Elbow Park, South Calgary, and Altadore. During peak travel times it will continue to gridlock. Opening up 26th will only really help South Calgary so it won't really move the needle. It's vital to the livability of the area to improve transit.

It's almost like they knew something all those years ago when they ran a street car to the area...
 
Surrealplaces said:
Would be nice if 26th had an on and off ramp to Crowchild at least on the east side of Crowchild. It would make things busier for 26th, but it would offload a lot of the traffic from 33rd..
It would make things busier for 26th, but it would offload a lot of the traffic from 33rd and it might help 26th into coming more of a corridor.
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CalgaryTiger said:
It's a scary thought but 33rd Ave, even with the changes for the main street, will still be exactly what it is today: Access to the businesses. Access to and from Crowchild for Mount Royal, Elbow Park, South Calgary, and Altadore. During peak travel times it will continue to gridlock. Opening up 26th will only really help South Calgary so it won't really move the needle. It's vital to the livability of the area to improve transit.

It's almost like they knew something all those years ago when they ran a street car to the area...
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Adding an exit to 26th Ave would risk turning one of the better opportunities for a high-capacity bicycle route with solid bus service on 26th into another car sewer, while not moving the needle on the congestion issues of 33rd. Cars are noble gases after all - they will fill whatever volume you give them.

What the Main Streets work in Marda Loop will hopefully do is reduce the negative impact of being a car sewer, not necessarily solve all congestion in one project. Make it easier and safer to cross the street at all times for pedestrians, boost an alternative corridor with a multi-use path along 34th Ave, and reduce all the terrible parts of cut-through traffic, noise and safety. Myopic local views (e.g. save the parking spots, don't add stop signs, don't replace any space for cars with space for anything else etc.) probably limited what should have been done in the street design, but it will still be a big improvement.

Indeed solving congestion is likely impossible, because we define success as reducing car congestion in isolation of all the other goals of life and city building:
  • The problem isn't too many people living in Marda Loop - it's too many cars cutting through the area. More people living in the area attracts more retail to the area and reduces average trips, as many more people don't have to leave the community anymore.
  • The problem isn't there isn't enough parking - it's that there are too many cars trying to park. Cars are a terribly inefficient use of public space, combined with a collective refusal to regulate their size or usage of that public space in any meaningful way. Because of their inherent space inefficiency, there is no feasible path to allow enough parking to solve parking issues at popular destinations - unless you remove the destination entirely. See parking craters of hollowed out cities everywhere in North America for the end game of that "solution".
  • The problem isn't congestion - it's that for some reason we feel that we must act on this "Issue" to help commuters that have to wait a few lights to cut through the neighbourhood, for the 3 hours a day . I say "issue" because it's debatable whether this is actually something we should try to solve at the expense of other objectives. A regular reminder that adding any peak-hour car capacity is unlikely to materially impact the congestion, and would only trigger worse behaviour the other 21 hours a day as 33rd is encouraged to be an even higher-speed, more unpleasant & more unsafe cut-through route - making the full 24 hours of day loud and dangerous for residents and pedestrians.
Limiting development or adding more car access won't address anything - only through better land uses (density + retail) and alternative mode improvements (transit, walking, cycling) can you actually move beyond congestion. The great irony of course, is that the redevelopment needed at the intensity that makes retail, transit, walking and cycling more feasible is often labelled by myopic community members with their own agendas as the cause of the problem, not the solution to it.
 
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I’m all for seeing Crowchild access go away, if can’t happen add a couple more lights to 33rd, as well as a couple more crosswalk lights.
Adding more lights and pedestrian crosswalks with lights might be even the better way to go as people going to Marta Loop as a destination could at least get in off of crow child, but the extra lights would make it more of a hassle for people cutting through.
 
haltcatchfire said:
42nd should have gone through to Crowchild and 26th needs on/off ramps. Next option is a tunnel.
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There's no way a tunnel could ever make financial sense.

It would be pretty easy to extend 42nd to Flanders Avenue by cutting out a slice of park space, but unpopular, and I'm not sure how much of the issue it would actually solve. We'd need a study to see the impacts.
 
FriendlyDrunks said:
I could be wrong, but it sounds like 1900 Marda Loop is back in play.
globalnews.ca

Proposed Marda Loop development is a ‘tipping point’: residents - Calgary | Globalnews.ca

The rezoning proposal would make way for a six-storey, 120-unit residential building with ground-floor commercial space along 33 Avenue S.W.
globalnews.ca globalnews.ca
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Well that was probably one of the more annoying articles I’ve seen. Why do we do give such so much of a voice to negative nancies who have nothing better to do but complain?
 
Opposition is ramping up. Opponents have started a petition and letter writing campaign, dropping off templates for neighbours to submit to the file manager at the City.

Interestingly, the person who started the change.org petition is a realtor (presumably they own adjacent properties).

www.change.org

Sign the Petition

Save Our Marda Loop Community
www.change.org www.change.org
 
This stretch of 33rd is pretty fascinating. There are infill duplexes that are around 10 years old (maybe older or younger) that now are zoned out because of the addition of the apartment buildings. If you bought or built one of those you're likely looking at a tough uphill battle to sell. Not to mention the people that back onto the apartment buildings.

So on a personal level for those people, this is bad. On a city building and even community building level, the addition of these developments is good for the city and the community. The immediate residents are losing or you could argue (I would) have lost the battle. They're fighting, but they're fighting a ghost. I'd wish them luck, but I disagree with them.
 
The land use for this one goes to CPC next week.
Report, Background, Applicant Submission, Engagement Report, BIA Support Letter

While there is no DP submitted yet, the applicant submission had the following images:
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