Calgary Stoney Trail [Ring Road]

[DizzyEdge]

Originally Posted by Acey

The extent of which is the mountain rendering on MSE walls, wild rose emblems on wing walls, and cream/rose coloured sealers on concrete bridges.

No blue rings or random girders supporting a piece of rock.

I like that kind of thing, as simple as it might be.

For me personally when it comes to highway infrastructure, I'd prefer a bit of extra spend on the aesthetics such as that, rather than art 'pieces'.

[milomilo]

Originally Posted by Acey

AB Trans has been conservative in their estimates on the ring roads thus far. They underestimated volume on SW Henday by about half. NW Stoney estimates were off, resulting in the widening to the current six lanes a few years sooner than they anticipated. NE Stoney estimates were off, and will need widening sooner than they had hoped. The eastbound to northbound movement at Glenmore Trail was significantly underestimated. The Campbell Road situation on Henday. The Crowchild situation in the NW. There's so many tangible instances of them using conservative estimates on the ring roads... it is laughable to even consider the possibility that a plan might not have existed and they intended to throw away those hundreds of millions for literally no reason.

This is the Calgary thread so I don't expect you to know the intricacies of what has gone on with Henday since 2000, but it's clearly had a big impact on what has gone on here. To develop this system on what I erroneously called a "non-zero chance" would be such an outlier based on the decisions made thus far... I honestly don't understand how you could even take that position even knowing nothing about Henday.



For what it's worth, the plans for that ROW that you unsurprisingly call a waste are neatly detailed on the AB Trans website, as is pretty much everything else.

I travel the SW Henday regularly, I agree it is underbuilt and needs another lane. But that is a completely different scale - there is a big difference between a 4 lane freeway needing a few more lanes, and planning for a 4x4 collector/distributor for what will likely be the least traveled section of ring road. How much traffic does Deerfoot handle with 6 lanes? Close to 200,000 vehicles a day? It cannot possibly be reasonable to plan for a future where the only solution is a road with more than twice that capacity, when we can decide where future growth goes.

I am also aware that Highway 2 into Edmonton was built with a future C/D system planned (that's why I used it as an example...) - I have much less of a problem with this because the Province actually has plans, unlike this nebulous concept of outer ring roads which appears to have never had much thought put into it. The Province has released all the plans for countless other road projects they have, even ones they don't plan on building for decades. Why is there next to no mention of an ORR in any of these? You're right, it is laughable that the province has wasted money on future proofing for a plan that never appears to have existed.

Anyway, there's not much point labouring this, we both know each others positions. My question is do we think the express lanes will ever be used? Since they will be graded and the overpasses mostly built, the marginal cost of adding them later won't be huge, but I can't see how their use would ever be justified unless we put another Calgary sized city at either end.

[MalcolmTucker]

[del]

[milomilo]

Originally Posted by Acey

There would be decent utility of express lanes at 100k, though you obviously would not need to build them at 100k. Stoney at Beddington was 74k in 2016. Deerfoot Trail at 170k is in dire need of either express lanes or a multitude of basketweaves... the province has outlined the former as part of the Glenmore study, and that's a massive project probably over $1.5B. With grading and lengthened overpasses already done for SWRR, the cost of adding lanes will be significantly less, and a lower threshold might be needed to trigger their construction. However, unlike Deerfoot Trail which is built like 🞵🞵🞵🞵 in many aspects, SWRR with no express lanes will likely not grind to a halt at 125k like Deerfoot did.

Deerfoot is definitely not perfect, but it does handle the levels of traffic we have OK. And that is a road through the middle of Calgary, not skirting it's periphery and away from the most important provincial, national and international routes as the SWRR does. I find it hard to believe a well built 6-10 road wouldn't be able to handle demand for the foreseeable future, unless we deliberately build in a way that would stress it. There are many other sections of road which could be better improved for the money.

Originally Posted by Acey

Yeah there's plenty of proof (including a clear provision in the upcoming SWRR/22X interchange for a south extension) that there are/were concrete plans and potential alignments for an outer ring, I'm not sure why milomilo is refusing to acknowledge that. Difficulty in finding those plans is/was likely attributable to AB Trans' desire to "protect" that alignment, which is what they've done for the last 50 years in regards to land potentially required outside of the TUC.

Plans for the alignment of NW Stoney were kept secret, and they tried to keep a lid on Henday's entire alignment for a decade. Given these precedents, to say "a plan that never appears to have existed" with regards to the outer ring shows little understanding of how Alberta has handled ring road plans up to this point.

That said, the arguments against the necessity of the ring itself are more than valid, given that Mason has now come out and said they aren't doing a greenfield outer ring. But, like I said before... once you start twinning and freeway upgrading these roads that form what could objectively be called an outer ring... you've kinda done it anyway. It just doesn't appear on the AB Trans Ring Road page.

OK, I concede it's possible that AB Trans have planned this behind closed doors while releasing very little information to the public (the previous quote is basically the extent of evidence we have). Why do this, when they have released all the plans of so many other road projects? If it is secret, it is quite disrespectful to the public when so much money has been spent (and now it seems, wasted) on provisioning for something that is not public knowledge.

I am surprised there is not more uproar over this, when the whole province goes nuts over a $500K art piece, yet we can spend unknown tens or hundreds of millions on a ghost freeway with barely a peep.

[MalcolmTucker]

[del]

[milomilo]

Originally Posted by MalcolmTucker

When government makes even speculative plans public, the public seems to take plans as gospel. Better to keep things close to your chest, so you have the ability to iterate and constantly evaluate plans.

Why does the Province operate so different to the City in this regard? Now every road or transit project in Calgary has years of public consultation with every plan shown to the public (far too much, IMO). We all thought we might get a tunnel under Crowchild, then didn't. It wasn't the end of the world.

Originally Posted by Acey

No it doesn't. It was designed for 80k and handles 170k. It has the highest collision rate of any major thoroughfare in the city and comes to a standstill for hours.

Luckily, whether or not Deerfoot is "OK" is not a matter of my opinion versus yours as it has been objectively quantified by traffic engineers in terms of level of service (LOS) on a scale from A to F. Deerfoot Trail is way below the threshold of an F.

Deerfoot Trail is not okay, it is objectively an over-saturated failure.



Yep, Stoney will be fine for the foreseeable future without construction of express lanes. That said, even if SWRR does not form part of an outer ring, the possibility remains that the express lanes could be warranted, and could be constructed at relatively little cost.

As I said Deerfoot isn't perfect and does need a big upgrade, no question.

I'd be interested to see the report you mentioned. Saying it comes to a standstill for hours is a bit of an exaggeration, that isn't something that happens regularly. Sure, there are a lot of slowdowns at peak hour but that is the same as many major roads in a big city. The traffic still gets through, which is why I said it's OK (and no more) - it functions. There are worse roads (like Crowchild, and I'm sure Edmonton must have its fair share).

[O-tacular]

Originally Posted by sammyd

http://calgaryherald.com/news/local-news...f-controversial-calgary-ring-road-bridge

It always struck me as reckless and silly in light of the 2013 flood that they proposed re-routing the river and building an earthen berm bridge. This is just asking for a future flood disaster. Typical short sighted penny pinching that will cost way more to fix in the end unless they change course now.

[MalcolmTucker]

[del]

[Mazrim]

The other reason to keep the plans obscure for the outer ring road is real estate. The government doesn't own all the land they want to place the road on, and they will need to slowly buy up that land over the next few decades to make a TUC for it. If they said exactly where they were going now, people would hold the land up for a king's ransom.

[sammyd]

Originally Posted by O-tacular

It always struck me as reckless and silly in light of the 2013 flood that they proposed re-routing the river and building an earthen berm bridge. This is just asking for a future flood disaster. Typical short sighted penny pinching that will cost way more to fix in the end unless they change course now.

Pretty sure it is not a reckless and silly design. Nor short sighted.

[Porfiry]

Originally Posted by 5seconds

And now the City has removed the FAQ on the Elbow river crossing. It's not showing on their webpage, but the link above is still valid.

Wonder why it was removed.

The city has just reposted that FAQ, but now it’s dated August 2017. I’m too lazy to see if they’ve made any changes.

http://www.calgary.ca/Transportation/TI/Pages/Road-projects/Southwest-ring-road.aspx
http://www.calgary.ca/Transportation/TI/...crossing-faq-water-services-Aug-2017.pdf

[O-tacular]

Originally Posted by sammyd

Pretty sure it is not a reckless and silly design. Nor short sighted.

Wow what a great argument!

[sammyd]

Not surprised.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/stay-construction-calgary-ring-road-appeal-1.4254293

[craner]

Was driving west on NW Stoney toward 16th Ave. today. I noticed a corridor cut through the trees on the slopes, looked like it was recently done. Also seemed to be some pipe stockpiled at the base of the slope.
Anyone know what this is related to ?

[DoubleK]

Should be ATCO's urban pipeline replacement project.

[MalcolmTucker]

[del]

[lubicon]

So we can infer this is the west edge (more or less) of the TUC and the Ring Road will follow approx. the same line up the hill but slightly east. Visually that seems a little further west than I had imagined it would be, not by a lot but it does give you a decent visual of where the Ring Road will climb that hill and how much material they will need to remove to get the grade to an acceptable value.

[DoubleK]

I wonder what that grade value is? 6%?

That would be pretty crazy in the winter.

[ggopher]

It is too bad they had to cut the west portion. I don't know what it would cost. It is small with only 3 interchanges, but it would require a lot of excavation.

[Corndogger]

Originally Posted by ggopher

It is too bad they had to cut the west portion. I don't know what it would cost. It is small with only 3 interchanges, but it would require a lot of excavation.

They never cut it. It's just not going to be built at the same time as the SW leg.