artvandelay
Active Member
I'm surprised they allowed that massive layby.
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Urban Development and Proposals Discussion
- Thread starter Surrealplaces
- Start date
With it being a hotel I guess I'm not too surprised. I don't usually like those very much, but I get that hotels would want them.
Silence&Motion
Senior Member
I clicked "like" until I saw the layby. WTF City of Calgary?
haltcatchfire
Senior Member
Hotels want their guests to have a place to pull in and check-in before they’re given info on where to park. They also need a spot for taxis to stop to pick up guests. Sure it reduces sidewalk width but it’s a necessary fixture and mostly unavoidable in a retrofit like this.
darwink
Senior Member
Fortunately the building set back is significant enough to not reduce the amenity too much. Plus the sidewalk is less wide both to the east and west.
Disraeli
Active Member
Found some historical stats from CMHC on rental vacancy and stock. Gives some context to the rental boom going on. Note the number of rental units in Calgary in the 90s compared with today. The Beltline and DT were also closer to 3 percent vacancy last year which helps explain the continued project starts
Beltline_B
Senior Member
I don’t like lay ways either but you need to have them for a hotel. It’s a bit if a safety issue if you don’t have them with passengers getting dropped off snd loading/unloading
Calgcouver
Active Member
Ah, just what we need, more space for vehicles and ROW width for cars on a one-way freeway through downtown.
CBBarnett
Senior Member
Doctor! you have accurately diagnosed the disease, but your treatment makes the patient sicker!
Exhibit 1: If people can't read that traffic count, it's 15,000 / day in 2019 (lower traffic this year for obvious reasons). Same volume as 10th Street NW (2 lanes + 2 lanes parking) or 17th Avenue (4 lanes, sometimes 5) in the Beltline.
Exhibit 2: Note the 4 lanes of one way traffic, with nearly a 5th lane for parking.
Summary:
- there is no demonstrated need for 4.5 lanes of one-way traffic
- there is a demonstrated need for safe vehicle stopping areas in front of hotels
So rather than a lay-by, perhaps we can use the unneeded right of way for it, freeing up the hotel to use the sidewalk for effective pedestrian traffic flow, staging for people to load bags. As built, the lay-by already made the trade off that that it's okay for pedestrian flow to be interfered with loading and unloading hotel guests, but unneeded vehicle flow should be maintained.
Why did this happen? Probably some dumb combo of road classification inflexibilities, development rules that make the developer pay for the "improvement" (e.g. the lay-by) so it has to be adjacent to the property rather than the whole block, and no opposing political or policy force that counteracts the status-quo that downtown is a defacto freeway rather than a destination. This is just another cut in the thousands that make downtown a hostile place to walk, live and be as a person.
1875
Senior Member
horriible without justification, city just doesnt get it
The Familia
Active Member
Once this building and the Opera building are complete it will make for a very nice and useful area of Stampede with year round uses. What is the big white space to the left of Doherty Hall?
Cyric
Active Member
Right now it is a parking lot, various iterations of the youth campus plan have had more school buildings there
Mountain Man
Senior Member
What is the SAM building again?
Beazley66
Active Member
According to the Stampede Blog "SAM Centre will bring western heritage and culture to life with Stampede artifacts and immersive experiences that showcase the story behind the making of southern Alberta."