Edmonton Construction 12 (December 2013)

[Shodan]

City needs 66 new interchanges over next half-century: report

By Gordon Kent, Edmonton Journal October 9, 2014

EDMONTON - Edmonton needs 66 new or significantly upgraded interchanges over the next 50 years to keep traffic flowing smoothly, a new city report shows.

The vast majority of the work is required in suburban areas such as Anthony Henday Drive, the future 170th Street highway south of the Henday, and in the northeast.

But there are 21 priority projects officials say should be built within 30 years.

These include:

- w Yellowhead Trail interchanges at 215th Street, 149th Street, 127th Street and 121st Street;

- w Railway underpasses to deal with daily rush-hour disruptions on 75th Street and 50th Street;

- w Terwillegar Drive interchanges at 40th Avenue, Rabbit Hill Road, 23rd Avenue, Haddow Road and the Henday;

- w The Henday at 135th Street, 66th Street and 17th Street...

© Copyright (c) The Edmonton Journal

http://www.edmontonjournal.com/story_print.html?id=10278622&sponsor=

[Rogie]

Originally Posted by Shodan

City needs 66 new interchanges over next half-century: report

By Gordon Kent, Edmonton Journal October 9, 2014

EDMONTON - Edmonton needs 66 new or significantly upgraded interchanges over the next 50 years to keep traffic flowing smoothly, a new city report shows.

[/url]

More car-centred thinking...

[YegFan]

^ when was the last time you got stuck on 50th street in the morning during rush hour for 30 minutes while waiting for the CN train to pass through... I find it hard to believe that people complain about improving flow of traffic on a major streets in the city. Vast majority of us who work in the city have no choice but to drive as not everyone works downtown.

[Daveography]

^^ Yup, the only way to keep good flowing is to build more roads, which in turns brings more cars which brings more congestion, which requires more roads, ad nauseum.

Maybe if we continued to push for a compact, transit-friendly city, that would help keep the number of cars down and keep good flowing more smoothly. But that's just radical thinking.

Especially when you consider that the cities that drive our economies also incidentally have the worst traffic problems. I question the numbers of those costs.

[Hallsy's Toupee]

LRT is a much higher priority, I agree. But the Yellowhead needs to be free-flow, and that work should be funded by the feds and province.

[Hallsy's Toupee]

BTW did anyone watch CTV News last night? As part of their 60th anniversary series, they talked about 60 years of city development, most notably the CN tower.
http://edmonton.ctvnews.ca/celebrating-60-years

[Albicaulis]

Originally Posted by RTA

^^ Yup, the only way to keep good flowing is to build more roads, which in turns brings more cars which brings more congestion, which requires more roads, ad nauseum.

Maybe if we continued to push for a compact, transit-friendly city, that would help keep the number of cars down and keep good flowing more smoothly. But that's just radical thinking.

Especially when you consider that the cities that drive our economies also incidentally have the worst traffic problems. I question the numbers of those costs.

100% agree, although the CN tracks crossing 50th St. and 75th St. could use some grade separation.

[dansk]

LRT is the highest priority as the city has stated. But you need a balance, even well designed cities (LRT wise) have great transportation option for cars as well. You have to make sure there is a balance. Gridlock hurts the city.

[MalcolmTucker]

It would be interesting to see different growth patterns modeled - given the amount of industrial activity, would a more compact form for residents help appreciably?

[Daveography]

Originally Posted by dansk

LRT is the highest priority as the city has stated. But you need a balance, even well designed cities (LRT wise) have great transportation option for cars as well. You have to make sure there is a balance. Gridlock hurts the city.

We are nowhere near balanced, and nowhere near gridlocked, either. I'm not against planning for the long term, but I feel like we might be overplanning, or at least still not focusing our planning in the right direction.

Also, I do agree about road/rail grade separation, that's a bit different.

[dansk]

We aren't near balance that is correct. But I see nothing wrong with some over passes on roads that obviously are reaching overcapacity, to increase flow. This is a long term goal of the city, and long term plan. This isn't going to happen over night, so I see nothing wrong with good planning.

[mcc16]

watched a doc recently that made me think city planning is definitely a catch 22... I belive the doc was focused on Copenhagen ( but it could have been elsewhere in Northern Europe) Anyways, point was that our tendency to want to locate everything in the the centre of the city actually ends up screwing us over. Yes it creates vibrancy, but it also creates a major headache to provide transportation options. The city that was profiled discouraged the development of a CBD and instead had mixed use developments throughout the city. By doing this it was much more achievable to live where you work...unfortunately by creating a vibrant downtown, there will never be enough supply for everyone to live downtown ( or housing options for people to want to live downtown). Here in toronto the vibrancy is amazing, but the transportation is a nightmare. It does not seem sustainable at all to have hundreds of trains and busses and hundreds of thousand of cars bringing people into the city centre everyday. If theses giant office towers and universities were spread throughout the city you'd have less of a need for mass transit, but then vibrancy suffers... Tricky situation...

[Airboy]

Another COE Crane base is on site today.

[GreenSPACE]

We simply can not afford to build 66 new intersections. It's just not financially possible.

If the province/feds help, why would be take our hard-earned surpluses and plow it into interchanges? So we're taking oil out of the ground with future environmental costs, plus our labour (income tax), and putting it into interchanges? Can you say largest misappropriation of capital in history? (end rant)

[Edmontonium]

We all could live in small towns, drive and walk around in 10 min, but for some reasons people choose to live and work in the big cities. So my conclusion is that vibrancy wins over traffic inconveniences..

[mcc16]

Missed my point completely but thanks for the input...can tell you put a lot of thought into that... By the way, the small town of Copenhagen has a metro area of 2 million...

[EdmTrekker]

Originally Posted by GreenSPACE

We simply can not afford to build 66 new intersections. It's just not financially possible.

If the province/feds help, why would be take our hard-earned surpluses and plow it into interchanges? So we're taking oil out of the ground with future environmental costs, plus our labour (income tax), and putting it into interchanges? Can you say largest misappropriation of capital in history? (end rant)

1% Provincial Sales Tax would do wonders to fund these and lots of other infra that is needed. Albertans can't continue to have lowest taxes, no PSR and expect oil revenue to fund all we need. Something has to give.

[feepa]

Guys - These 66 overpasses are the estimated needs over the next 60 years of this city. Chill out. Reality of this city is that most people need there vehicles even if transit was the best transit system in the Canada.
Some of you need to remove the wool over your eyes.

[GreenSPACE]

^60 years it may be but even our City's economists don't know how we're gonna pay for these. So it's a real issue.

Again, do we really want to put all the capital and wealth that we're creating as a society into interchanges? Cause that's the value proposition here.

[itom 987]

I've noticed that vehicle line ups at almost every stoplight in Edmonton are almost twice as long as they used to be 5 years ago.