Mountain Man
Senior Member
Drove through there yesterday, total shit show still.
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Roads, Highways & Infrastructure
- Thread starter Oddball
- Start date
trtcttc
Active Member
For those that use navigation apps, do you prefer Google or Apple? Google definitely has better wayfinding (entrance of the business vs Apple sometimes navigates you to the loading docks) and business directory, but I find the lane guidance to be wrong very frequently. Major interchanges like Crowchild/Glenmore, it's pretty obvious who's using Google Maps when going WB Glenmore, they try to squeeze into the right lane to go NB Crowchild, when both lanes go NB. It also doesn't know Crowchild NB have two lanes to 16th and two lanes staying on Crowchild. These are the major ones, then there's smaller intersections, where it thinks the right or left lane is a turning lane when it's both a turning and a through lane.
Nawads
Active Member
I use Google Maps to look for businesses like if I want to find a coffee shop nearby in an area I don't know as well, etc. But for most directions when driving, I find Apple Maps to give better verbal directions, information on which light to turn at, which lane to be in, etc. I also like that Apple Maps has approximate 3d rending of building envelopes and gives some depth to the map when looking at it.
CalgaryTiger
Senior Member
I use google, I didn't know apple maps was better in those ways. The reason I use google is because it shows biking infrastructure, apple maps does not.
trtcttc
Active Member
For biking, the new Transit bike maps are pretty great and clearer differentiation of what type of road it is.
lemongrab
Active Member
Do you mean these https://www.calgary.ca/bike-walk-roll/maps.html ?
The online interactive map isn't great...it might be better if you could get a satellite view
trtcttc
Active Member
I meant the Transit App, which also happens to be the official CTrain app, so yea very confusing. I like their biking routes because they very clearly mark what part of the journey is on what kind of road. And they differentiate between busy road and residential streets, which has the same amount of bike infrastructure but the latter is much safer.
Transit app is now a bike app, too
Now, our app can help transit riders become bike riders, too, by showing which routes in your city are actually safe to ride.
blog.transitapp.com
Unknown User
New Member
I use google maps exclusively, but my wife using apple maps and it seems like, on a regular basis, maybe 5-10% of the time apple maps just gets something completely wrong.
lemongrab
Active Member
Just checked it out, that is very good. Too bad there is no browser option (or enabled to run ios app on mac), as I like a much bigger screen for bike route planning. For my purposes I wish I could filter off the transit lines (or at least reduce it to showing the stops only), as those lines overshadow the bike lanes even though I've fiddled with the priority settings.I meant the Transit App, which also happens to be the official CTrain app, so yea very confusing. I like their biking routes because they very clearly mark what part of the journey is on what kind of road. And they differentiate between busy road and residential streets, which has the same amount of bike infrastructure but the latter is much safer.
Transit app is now a bike app, too
Now, our app can help transit riders become bike riders, too, by showing which routes in your city are actually safe to ride.
Google maps is very good, except a lot of the 'bike friendly roads' are no longer true (if they ever were). And a lot of MUPs running parallel to roads are incorrectly drawn and show as just running down overbuilt roads like 69 St and 17 Ave. I submit a lot of corrections/additions - the interface is much better to do it than it used to be, but changes are still very slow to take effect. I'm curious what the approval process is - do they grant admin powers to power users?
trtcttc
Active Member
You don't notice any lane guidance issues with Google Maps? The downside to Apple Maps for me is just its poor business directory, and it doesn't know which side of a particular location is the "front". Apple has gotten better last few years with timely road closures and changes.
I also find the different shades of green to be really bad UI. I'm already filtering by biking, so why not make it easier to differentiate what is what. They have a program for reviewers but I don't think there's anything for map updates exactly.
lemongrab
Active Member
Phase 2 of Bow/Sarcee Engagement is open
TLDR: One more lane, bro!!!!
But there is a lot of interesting stuff in here, though for me a lot of it doesn't add up.
Well, the good news is that if we build an interchange here then we get to build another interchange up the hill soon, too (I use that intersection daily and it's totally fine [for cars] except for the islands and slip lanes and terrible pedestrian ramps)! Better fix Richmond Rd at that point, too!
They seem to say that Bow Trail is the driving force behind this, but the plans call for Sarcee to be free flow and Bow Trail to have two lights, and maybe even the expansion of the ped/U-turn light for direct access to Edworthy (which is actually a good idea). I get that you wouldn't want PM WB traffic to back up down the hill as would be the case with free flow Bow Tr, but maybe it just makes sense for traffic to be metered here and we don't need to spend a bunch of money to make it different.
Probably $100M+ to shave some seconds off trips [for a little while anyways]. Disappointing; I really think there were opportunities to do something a lot more sensible here.
TLDR: One more lane, bro!!!!
But there is a lot of interesting stuff in here, though for me a lot of it doesn't add up.
Well, the good news is that if we build an interchange here then we get to build another interchange up the hill soon, too (I use that intersection daily and it's totally fine [for cars] except for the islands and slip lanes and terrible pedestrian ramps)! Better fix Richmond Rd at that point, too!
They seem to say that Bow Trail is the driving force behind this, but the plans call for Sarcee to be free flow and Bow Trail to have two lights, and maybe even the expansion of the ped/U-turn light for direct access to Edworthy (which is actually a good idea). I get that you wouldn't want PM WB traffic to back up down the hill as would be the case with free flow Bow Tr, but maybe it just makes sense for traffic to be metered here and we don't need to spend a bunch of money to make it different.
Probably $100M+ to shave some seconds off trips [for a little while anyways]. Disappointing; I really think there were opportunities to do something a lot more sensible here.
CBBarnett
Senior Member
Great catch.
This is the exact thing I have complained about in action - the city seems to stepping outside of it's mandate, sterilizing lands to accommodate future traffic partially not even from Calgarians. It's a direct reduction of our taxable land to support the development of lands outside the jurisdiction.
This shouldn't be in the city's mandate or models except when a provincially-owned highway enters the jurisdiction:
Also a classic transportation planning fallacy in naked view here:
"Need" is doing a huge amount of lifting here. Who defines this as a need? What are the parameters? Why is the need to widen to 3 lanes rather than provide alternative travel options and transit?
The answer to all those questions - is the black box of transportation engineering and systemic biases in their models. This public engagement does not allow for feedback on that "need" - it's assumed already and immune to input. That's a classic fallacy that has help justify every highway expansion project everywhere for decades.
lemongrab
Active Member
There is little opportunity for development at Bow/OBCR (though there is a hectare on the NW corner that would be ideal to plant a few hundred trees), but there is a prime parcel closer to Sarcee. There are developments backing closely onto Sarcee just to the north of here...it would be pretty appealing if they redesignated Sarcee as a 'parkway' (like Memorial), knocked the speed limit down to 60, and installed a ped crossing signal/direct Edworthy access along here
Speaking of trees, this summer they planted over a hundred between the south side bike path and Bow Tr (and that reddish-brown patch is a pollinator garden planted the year before). These plans call for the access road to shift NW, so a bunch of those trees will have to come out and this nifty eco restoration will get chopped in two.
lemongrab
Active Member
I just had a chance to look at this a little more closely, and this is way worse than I initially thought. For starters, the two "options" are essentially identical, except for WB-SB loop vs a bunch of left turn lanes.
But they want to move the SB Sarcee lanes about 40 meters to the west. The buffer from the greenway paths to the road will go from over 50m in most places to ~20m. presumably this is to put the electricity towers in the median instead of the side (I think there is also gas lines here...), but this will also destroy a natural soundwall:
For my own purposes as much as anything, here are the two "options" (both short term - they also show even more overbuilt long term options) to play spot the differences:
A:
B:
I'd love to know what measurable improvements they can even claim in this. I don't have time for this shit right now, but I guess I've got some emails and phone calls and open houses to attend.
But they want to move the SB Sarcee lanes about 40 meters to the west. The buffer from the greenway paths to the road will go from over 50m in most places to ~20m. presumably this is to put the electricity towers in the median instead of the side (I think there is also gas lines here...), but this will also destroy a natural soundwall:
For my own purposes as much as anything, here are the two "options" (both short term - they also show even more overbuilt long term options) to play spot the differences:
A:
B:
I'd love to know what measurable improvements they can even claim in this. I don't have time for this shit right now, but I guess I've got some emails and phone calls and open houses to attend.
CBBarnett
Senior Member
And I wonder whose fault is that - we've future-proofed an interchange there for so long it's became the entire point, it's both the question and the answer. We have to keep the land because we might "need" an interchange one day, we might need an interchange because we have the land already.
The models are rigged - everyone will drive, congestion is bad, growth continues forever (and if not our growth, then the growth outside our boundary). Assuming these three things we will always "need" an interchange there one-day - in 20 or 200 years, doesn't matter.
They are exercising decision-based evidence-making, not the other way around. They already know the answer - that's why they aren't asking for feedback on the question.
Another tactical choice to get the outcomes they want - either option consumes land and creates massive car-dominated infrastructure. There is no "do nothing" or "do something different" options, these were never a real possible outcome of this project.
The choices are would you like $100M+ of car infrastructure or $100M+ of car infrastructure with a curvy ramp? Both will consume half the right-of-way and greenspace that is currently a dog park and natural area for several kilometres until 17th Avenue SW. That's another couple of hectares of potential park space carved out for road infrastructure - conveniently mostly not pictured on the diagram.
Ah and the cherry-on-top - the "potential" pedestrian overpass/underpass! A classic bait and switch technique dangled to reduce opposition to massively disproportionate investment in car-infrastructure for decades.
Here's the tell - under current conditions, every one of those pedestrian bridges are arguably needed today on safety grounds alone. Sarcee and Bow already are giant, fast roads with lots of traffic that should separate pedestrians and cyclists away from that traffic. Unlike the demand for the interchange, it's not some future thing a decade away based on traffic model forecasts. The demand for pedestrian bridges here exists today.
So why hasn't anything been done about the existing transportation issues of today? Because there is no intention of "solving" the pedestrian and cycling issues. It's not the problem - it's just a tacked on thing to distract people not jazzed about losing so much park space.
10 years from now when people have moved on, and construction begins of an "approved, shovel-ready plan already on the shelf", those ped bridges will be first to be de-scoped quietly when inflation and typical project over-runs occur. By that point, the only thing anyone involved remembers is the problem we are trying to solve - which is defined as "we need to build an interchange."