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Urban Development and Proposals Discussion

RyLucky said:
I'm not saying Alberta ought to have better lanes than Germany or the Netherlands, but to me it seems (perhaps naively) easy and relatively in expensive to create a few well-signed rural cycling corridors. Start with a loop through Calgary-Banff-Jasper-Edmonton-Calgary. 1100km, much of which already has something of a path, all of which is well-serviced. Canmore-Jasper could be country skiing in winter. There are many people in the world looking for somewhere they can spend $10000 for 5-7 days of cycling. We may not have vineyards, but the mountain parks are unsurpassed. If parts of the route are successful, extend the network. I just think it would be great to have some basic spine safely connecting the many existing trails.
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It is being looked at, but it is not without its challenges/opposition:
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calga...lds-parkway-jasper-wildlife-habitat-1.4045964
 
There's an interesting Globe & Mail article about how Cochrane is trying to aim itself to be more than just a bedroom community of Calgary. It seemed pretty relevant to the earlier Airdrie discussion.

Crazy fact: Alberta is larger than German and Poland combined and only slightly smaller than France. Our population on the other hand is around the size of Croatia. I don't really want to tread into your bike discussion and how much Calgary and Alberta should or shouldn't have by this point. I just think it's crazy when you consider the scale in relative terms. We're all so used to such big empty open spaces because our sub-national divisions are the size of decently large countries.

As a total aside: Should we be telling BC to take their smoke back if they won't accept our pipelines?
 
RyLucky said:
I'm not saying Alberta ought to have better lanes than Germany or the Netherlands, but to me it seems (perhaps naively) easy and relatively in expensive to create a few well-signed rural cycling corridors. Start with a loop through Calgary-Banff-Jasper-Edmonton-Calgary. 1100km, much of which already has something of a path, all of which is well-serviced. Canmore-Jasper could be country skiing in winter. There are many people in the world looking for somewhere they can spend $10000 for 5-7 days of cycling. We may not have vineyards, but the mountain parks are unsurpassed. If parts of the route are successful, extend the network. I just think it would be great to have some basic spine safely connecting the many existing trails.
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I'm simply stating our size and population is a reason for more highways and less bike lanes in Alberta. You may be onto something. I just don't see a huge market for tourists to go on a 7 day, 1100 kilometre journey through the wilds of Alberta.
 
Always_Biking said:
Earlier this year I rode the Friendship Trail bike path between Black Diamond and Turner Valley, and enjoyed it. too bad it's only 3km, I hope they can extend it down the Sheep River to Okotoks some day.
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It's tragic that many small Alberta towns have had their railways torn-up and now the land lays fallow. The old ROW could easily be converted into a bike path.

Take Drumheller as an example. It's a municipality that gets many tourists every year. The train tracks have been torn up and yet the CPR refuses to sell the the land on the ROW and the accompanying bridges to the town.

But hands down...it would be great if Okotoks, High River, Airdire and Cochrane had a paved MUP to Calgary. Maybe the CRP could fund something like that.
 
No first hand experience, but I've heard it from a few quarters (Parks People, City People, Oil People) this is the CPR's land and we're all just living on it.
 
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Well, I was being a bit glib. It's their attitude. They're old and in some cases it very literally is their land. The Canadian Government couldn't pay the railroad in money so they gave them an incredibly massive series of land grants that alternate in a zipper fashion along the tracks. They're the owner of something like 3% of western Canada. I remember covering this in a history class ages ago, I'll have to see if I can find some proper sources. Either way the point is they don't like to be told what to do and in fact if it's possible, they're rather tell you what to do. The impression I get from the CPR is that they're rather imperious.
 
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Social Justice said:
It's tragic that many small Alberta towns have had their railways torn-up and now the land lays fallow. The old ROW could easily be converted into a bike path.

Take Drumheller as an example. It's a municipality that gets many tourists every year. The train tracks have been torn up and yet the CPR refuses to sell the the land on the ROW and the accompanying bridges to the town.

But hands down...it would be great if Okotoks, High River, Airdire and Cochrane had a paved MUP to Calgary. Maybe the CRP could fund something like that.
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The trail to Cochrane should be finished by the end of the decade iirc.
 
RyLucky said:
I'm not saying Alberta ought to have better lanes than Germany or the Netherlands, but to me it seems (perhaps naively) easy and relatively in expensive to create a few well-signed rural cycling corridors. Start with a loop through Calgary-Banff-Jasper-Edmonton-Calgary. 1100km, much of which already has something of a path, all of which is well-serviced. Canmore-Jasper could be country skiing in winter. There are many people in the world looking for somewhere they can spend $10000 for 5-7 days of cycling. We may not have vineyards, but the mountain parks are unsurpassed. If parts of the route are successful, extend the network. I just think it would be great to have some basic spine safely connecting the many existing trails.
Click to expand...

Here is the national long-distance cycling route network design requirements from the Netherlands. Might be worth looking at given they are world-leaders in intercity bicycle design:
  • clear signposting
  • easy and safe crossings of roads
  • min 2.5m one-way tracks on each side of the road, 4m for dual-direction tracks
  • improved shelters en route (including cycle parking facilities)
  • direct route from A-B
  • concrete or asphalt surface

Perhaps most unusually by our standards - and unwritten here - is that cycling routes should be entirely separated from fast traffic wherever possible, especially on fast-speed rural highways. Of course, this level of design costs more than doing nothing (i.e. what we are doing) but it's what the best are doing. Perhaps some of these features are over-kill /prohibitively expensive with our long distances & low-ridership, but surely we can at least get a few of these boxes checked for any intercity route, namely "direct route from A-B". Tourists/recreation cyclists will use anything, everyone else prefers direct routes. Therefore, only build direct routes.

It's a big pet peeve of our pathway system. We have so many great paths throughout the city - the most kilometres of anyone in Canada/North America - but a relatively low ridership. Why is this? It's because they aren't designed for direct routes (i.e. slow, windy and not to destinations where people go daily), they don't often have efficient, easy and safe crossings of roads, and they aren't often wide enough to allow for safe passing or side-by-side social riding. In most North American cities the challenge is convincing people that bicycle paths/lanes/tracks are worth it at all, here we bizarrely have wide popular support and build kilometres in every new neighbourhood for decades, but we avoid building particularly useful ones for the same price.
 
Same for the tracks that used to run through High River's town centre. Right now it's an empty gravel laneway, but could be so much more.
Social Justice said:
It's tragic that many small Alberta towns have had their railways torn-up and now the land lays fallow. The old ROW could easily be converted into a bike path.

Take Drumheller as an example. It's a municipality that gets many tourists every year. The train tracks have been torn up and yet the CPR refuses to sell the the land on the ROW and the accompanying bridges to the town.

But hands down...it would be great if Okotoks, High River, Airdire and Cochrane had a paved MUP to Calgary. Maybe the CRP could fund something like that.
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Thx and welcome!
Nimbus said:
Calgary Census time:

1.246 Million, growth of 11,166.
Natural increase of 10,192, net migration only 974.
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I don't mean to brag but......
Always_Biking said:
Thx!

Any guesses as to what the growth in 2017 will be? My best educated guess (and that's not saying much) is about 10K natural increase should be around the 10-11k as per usual, but my guess is net migration will be close to even.
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That's a decent number. Much better than last year when net migration was around -5K. The CMA populations should be around 15K growth this year which is solid. Especially considering how bad things are supposed to be.
Nimbus said:
Calgary Census time:
1.246 Million, growth of 11,166.
Natural increase of 10,192, net migration only 974.
Click to expand...
 
Hahaha, don't worry AB, I was gonna look and see who came closest. It think you deserve it, that was a pretty narrow band you set and it's right in there. Not a bad result. We should be cracking one and a quarter for the city on the next one.

Does the city have a full page for the figures up yet? I wanted to see how that net 974 thing shook down.
 
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