Quote:
Originally Posted by Kerplunk
It's $200 million for the initial cut and cover, and $300 million for interchange upgrades (if/when needed).
Without the tunnel, the estimate is $345 million in upgrades to improve alternate access. This doesn't take into account cost of upgrading existing roads when planned commercial development goes up along Country Hills and they find that these routes are becoming clogged up.
Of course, if they go "oh crap, we need a tunnel" in the future, the cost more than doubles.
Info doc. I think this is one of the recent ones.
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Your link isn't working for me, it can't find any document apparently.
I was only referencing the story quoted earlier for prices. $200 million tunnel, $300 million upgrades, it makes no difference to me. I'm trying to say that it appears to be grossly overestimated for the initial demand. We don't need free-flowing interchanges along Airport Trail from Deerfoot Trail to Stoney Trail in Fall 2012, we need that in Fall 2030. Building ~8km of four lane road with signalized intersections at 19th Street, Barlow Trail, 36th Street, Metis Trail and 68th Street will not cost $300 million, more like $50-75 million.
If you don't build the tunnel, you will need to construct multiple grade separated interchanges along McKnight Boulevard, Country Hills Boulevard and Metis Trail to support the traffic load. Hence the $345 million cost. This still does not solve the problem in 20-30 years of what happens when demand exceeds the capacity provided by the limited right-of-way available on those corridors to support the large amount of traffic the NE will see by then.
If you look at the cut and cover cost, plus the initial 4 lane road option I listed above, you're not hitting the extreme costs that are constantly quoted to scare people. I fail to see why this eludes so many candidates. If you want to win votes, why not present the most pleasant sounding option to make both sides more open to the idea? Why is it no tunnel or a "$500-700 million" tunnel?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Cscutch
But here is the kicker, After a quick visit with the friend I decided to head home through the internal arteries of the NE, which should be better since the ring road had opened. The thing is the traffic wasn’t any better, 3 to 4 waits at specific lights, just like before, backed up traffic on McKnight Blvd and Barlow Trail.
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The NE Ring Road is not going to take a huge load off the NE internal arteries yet. Why? Because it has no connections at this point. I want to go to the South from Taradale for example, but why would I take Stoney? I have to get off at 16th or 17th Avenue then either take 84th Street south (which sucks), or travel all the way back to Deerfoot to keep going South. It's not attractive yet. In the NW, the Ring Road connects to more major E-W arteries, and is closely connected to more communities than the relatively wide open NE end of the city, so it gets more traffic right now.
I'm willing to bet the NE end will get more busy after the SE Ring Road is completed.