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Urban Development and Proposals Discussion

This is a far superior location to Currie or Westbrook though.

At the intersection of 2 busy roads, surrounded on 3 sides by warehouse development, and nowhere near a major park? It might be a good location for office development, if Calgary ever sees that again, but it would be a poor place to live.
 
At the intersection of 2 busy roads, surrounded on 3 sides by warehouse development, and nowhere near a major park? It might be a good location for office development, if Calgary ever sees that again, but it would be a poor place to live.
It depends on your situation. Personally I would prefer Westbrook or Currie, but I can see why this would appeal to some. If you’re a couple where one person works downtown and one person works in a suburban location this works very well. Also the shopping and retail options are better than Westbrook or Currie.
 
dont know what these are called but they are going in along the entire west side of 2nd ave sw

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That's part of the 2nd Street project for better pedestrian crossings and dedicated cycling lanes from Elbow to the 12 Ave. The idea is they reduce the crossing distance for pedestrians (less time in the road to be hit) and make them more visible around parked vehicles (more likely to be seen). https://www.calgary.ca/transportati...ements/2nd-st-sw-complete-street-project.html

The specific infrastructure is a "bump-out" or curb extension and is a well documented tool to improve safety and traffic calming.
 
They are mid way through doing this on 8th Avenue SE in Inglewood. I went to the open house Transportation and the Councillor put together. There were generally concerns about the implications to safety in general. If you can believe it they are actually putting in a traffic circle at the intersection of 13th Street SE, and 8th Avenue SE. The curb flare at 14th street SE and 8th Avenue will guarantee our insurance premiums will go up....
(Correction : Bump out as per CBBarnett)
 

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That's part of the 2nd Street project for better pedestrian crossings and dedicated cycling lanes from Elbow to the 12 Ave. The idea is they reduce the crossing distance for pedestrians (less time in the road to be hit) and make them more visible around parked vehicles (more likely to be seen). https://www.calgary.ca/transportati...ements/2nd-st-sw-complete-street-project.html

The specific infrastructure is a "bump-out" or curb extension and is a well documented tool to improve safety and traffic calming.

They also change the turning radius of vehicles, which helps to slow the speed at which they can take a corner.
Want to make a community safer and more pedestrian friendly? This is a low cost intervention to do so. We eeed more of this design approach throughout the city.
 
I walk this road almost every day, of course pedestrian safety is crucial. I don’t have a car. But, It’s a relatively low volume low speed road that was in decent shape prior. I don’t think it’s effective to redo the entire street to add these.When this road and others in need of maintenance, I’m all for implementing these. Just being cognizant of a 200m deficit.
2nd Street was already scheduled for repavement due to the condition of the roadway. Plenty of surface cracking, patches from utility work, drainage issues etc.

If the City waits too long to mill and repave a roadway, they have to do a full depth repair and replace all the road gravels too, which is a lot more expensive.

Combining traffic calming with road resurfacing is a lot more cost effective than doing it as a project on its own.
 
i thought they may have been reverting it to one way north, a good idea imo.

love to see the city do something with 5th st. no bike path, sidewalks are a joke. seems the options would be one lane one way or expropriate frontage of properties along the road. doubt eliminating parking would go down well.
 
i thought they may have been reverting it to one way north, a good idea imo.

love to see the city do something with 5th st. no bike path, sidewalks are a joke. seems the options would be one lane one way or expropriate frontage of properties along the road. doubt eliminating parking would go down well.
5th Street south of 17th Ave is one of the best examples of where there is a clear pedestrian infrastructure/public realm gap that I often rant about.

Remember: our past choices have determined that parking is more important than adequate sidewalk width here. Choices are not immutable laws of physics, we should revisit them. We only don't have enough right-of-way for sidewalks (or a pathway) because we choose that 1/3rd of the right of way should be for private automobile storage at no cost. We also make the choice that in order to achieve even normal-width sidewalks, we must expropriate and expand the right-of-way rather than reallocate what we have. These are all choices - bad ones - that make the street less safe, less walkable, more expensive and contradict the neighbouhood character itself - one that is one of the otherwise most walkable areas of the City/province.

Yes, residents would complain to lose something they get for free - but the same residents have been complaining that the sidewalks are dangerous and narrow for decades. Of all parking v. sidewalk trade-offs in the City I think 5th Street has to have some of the highest local support for making that trade.*

Speaking as a local resident for the past 10 years - including occasionally living directly on 5th Street*
 

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