News   Apr 03, 2020
Pastel Morning
 5.7K     1 
News   Apr 02, 2020
A Message to Our Readers
 7.4K     3 
News   Apr 02, 2020
Soon to be Gone
 4.4K     0 

Roads, Highways & Infrastructure

Stoney Trail Bridge construction: One of the three remaining gaps in the bridge is now connected. Two left!
P1140601exp.jpg
P1140590exp.jpg
P1140652exp.jpg
P1140637exp.jpg
P1140662exp.jpg
P1140673exp.jpg
P1140678exp.jpg
 
The nonsense that was the 60km/h speed limit on Glenmore Trail between Sarcee/Stoney Trail and 37 Street to accommodate weaving traffic is being eliminated. Looks like their setting up to go back to the original design where SB Sarcee doesn't have access to 37 Street.

Yes! Sanity prevails.
 
Pardon my ignorance but what is happening heading north of the round about on Highway 8? Is that all work for the Springbank flood mitigation or something else?
 
A part of me is really hoping they do a partial opening of Stoney i.e. the bridge to OBCR. This section seems so close to being done I don't see why they couldn't just open it in phases like the south west ring road.
 
They still need to do the ramps down to tie into Stoney Trail from OBCR. But, the new bridge is open and traffic is now crossing the TUC on it, so the detour has been removed to allow for the construction of the ramps. I really hope it opens up soon too!
 
MichaelS said:
They still need to do the ramps down to tie into Stoney Trail from OBCR. But, the new bridge is open and traffic is now crossing the TUC on it, so the detour has been removed to allow for the construction of the ramps. I really hope it opens up soon too!
Click to expand...
Any idea if a pedestrian lane is open (and connected to the sidewalks by Cougar Ridge)?

It's been hell getting across that TUC to cycle in Springbank.
 

Improvement Areas - Deerfoot Trail Improvements

www.deerfootimprovements.ca www.deerfootimprovements.ca
This is quite disappointing, really scaled back from their initial plans. They claim 4 continuous lanes but if you look at the plans there are a lot of lane drops so you’re down to 3 in some areas with the need to merge over as the lane ends.

At Deerfoot & 17th Ave. it seems they can only widen Deerfoot by one lane under the newly built BRT overpass (as I feared). The additional lane has been added to the NB side but SB will still only be 3 lanes.

I really don’t know why they are even bothering with the Deerfoot - Glenmore improvements if this is all they can afford right now. Still have the ridiculous NB Deerfoot to WB Glenmore exit through the auto mall and still only 2 lanes on Glenmore. Might as well hold off until it can be done properly.
 
Last edited:
FCC1982 said:
a lot of lane drops
Click to expand...
The lane drops are maddening, everyone knows the zipper merge, no one does the zipper merge. This is almost as bad as weaving. At Deerfoot and 17th, the lane ends on SB Deerfoot to accommodate the merge from Memorial on to SB Deerfoot. So bad!

FCC1982 said:
only widen Deerfoot by one lane
Click to expand...
I have to disagree, its been said before but adding lanes don't actually help much so I'm not too worried about the lack of lanes. What's wild and a waste is the ramp from EB Memorial on to NB Deerfoot being just a little bigger. What is the point in that?! They even waste money on a bridge over the ramp from NB Deerfoot to EB Memorial. Those are marginal at best and a huge waste.

FCC1982 said:
I really don’t know why they are even bothering with the Deerfoot - Glenmore improvements if this is all they can afford right now. Still have the ridiculous NB Deerfoot to WB Glenmore exit through the auto mall
Click to expand...
A grand total of zero dollars should be spent on these changes. You mention NB Deerfoot to WB Glenmore, that at least flows decently because of the free-flow lane into Heritage. The craziness is SB Deerfoot to EB Glenmore and thus EB Glenmore to NB Deerfoot. My radical idea for how to fix that is:

Remove: NB Deerfoot to EB Glenmore Ramp

Add: ramp from WB Heritage to NB Deerfoot and larger slip lane at Heritage Drive and Heritage Meadows Road, Weave bridges for EB Glenmore to NB Deefoot via Glendeer Circle and NB Deerfoor (exit ramp) to EB Glenmore; WB Glenmore to NB Deerfoot and Heritage Drive to WB Glenmore; SB Deerfoot to WB Glenmore and WB Glenmore to Blackfoot Trail.

Eliminating a ramp and adding another along with three weave bridges gets rid of the merging interactions that grinds this interchange to halt and causes crashes. It also saves you from having to dramatically reconfigure this interchange with massive flyovers and who knows what else. I'll explain:

Take out the ramp from NB Deerfoot onto Glenmore EB (just have drivers use Heritage Meadows Road NB like they do for WB Glenmore). You could even have a free-flow lane that doesn't stop at the light at the intersection of Heritage Meadows Road and Heritage Meadows Way to allow traffic to keep moving NB. This means you would have to make a bigger slip lane from Heritage Meadows Road on to Heritage Drive because the increased traffic accessing Glenmore EB through here would likely backup at the light.

By eliminating that ramp you get rid of a weave when you add a ramp from WB Heritage on to NB Deerfoot. This ramp is now required because... Build a weave bridge east of the existing interchange for EB Glenmore traffic using Glendeer Circle to access the new ramp to go NB on Deerfoot and SB Deerfoot traffic trying to go EB on Glenmore.

Next, you get rid of the weave of people merging on to WB Glenmore and exiting Glenmore to go into NB Deerfoot... Build a weave bridge east of the existing interchange for WB Glenmore traffic going to NB Deerfoot and NB Deerfoot traffic merging from Heritage Drive to WB on Glenmore.

Finally, the last pain point here is SB Deerfoot to WB Glenmore and WB Glenmore to Blackfoot Trail... Build a weave bridge on the NW corner of the interchange to eliminate the weave.
 
I am not a highway person but some of these improvements seem pretty weird, non-standard and unconventional - like this one at McKnight:

1663342547239.png


Essentially it's a 3 lane off-ramp merging into a 3 lane road with a signal to control it, but only for east-bound traffic. I don't think I have seen any ramp this wide on a Canadian urban highway in any of the bigger, busier cities (Toronto, Montreal or Vancouver). And only for a single direction too, the only ramps close to this number of lanes often have both directions access.

I suppose the capacity is increased with cars now able to queue to access McKnight, but if this was a no-brainer, why haven't others done stuff like this? Why aren't more intersections like this even on Deerfoot?

It always seems like we are re-inventing highway designs/interchanges here for no reason rather than creating a standard, predictable practice or just take a model that works fine in other places and apply it.
 
You must log in or register to post here.

Back
Top