Quote:
Originally Posted by Jimmy Stang
Honest question: Would it really be 1/3 of the community? Obviously, there would need to be a fairly good radius on the curve to get around the corner of the reserve, but 1/3 seems very high.
And now a bit of a tangent: I wonder to what extent could freeway standards be adjusted to minimize the impact on the community? Could there be a short stretch with reduced shoulders/median to allow for a tighter radius? How about a reduced speed limit to allow for a tighter curve? Elevate one direction over top of the other for the curve (probably way too expensive!)? I know that everyone wants a 110 km/h freeway, but in this particular place, maybe there's some wiggle room?
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I think that's where there is some room for change if the provincial government is willing to be open-minded. Right now the plan is for it to be an 8-lane freeway with future expansion to 16-lane (which seems a bit excessive to me), all with no traffic lights and 100 km/h or higher speed limit. The land required for that is huge. If they scale it back a bit, maybe a 6-lane highway with 80 km/h speed limit like Glenmore Trail, it would take up a lot less land and still solve the major traffic problems for the foreseeable future (and in particular provide an alternate route past the reservoir for people going between the south and west parts of the city). That combined with an upgrade of Highway 22 west of the city down to 22X so traffic coming from the west has a route for bypassing the city altogether would, in my opinion, probably more-or-less accomplish the objectives of the ring road while being a lot less disruptive to existing communities.