Quote:
Originally Posted by You Need a Thneed
Any other route that doesn't involve the reserve involves buying up copious amounts of houses to provide a roadway of a significantly lower standard.
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This is what it all boils down to. Sure, they could route the road along Glenmore and 37th (along the city limits), but it would require a tighter than ideal turning radius to round that corner, speed limit reductions, and still a large number of expropriations. This is whether you go above ground or underground. So we'd get a crap road, have a major effect on Lakeview and the Weaselhead, and it would cost more.
The last offer was rejected due to some items that needed clarification (the wording of the land swap left a grey area that left the possibility that it might never happen, if I remember correctly). Why would they sign onto something that couldn't even be guaranteed?
I want to see the ring road completed as much as the next guy, but the fact of the matter is, the city and province have backed themselves into a corner quite literally by building right up to the reserve limits. All of the alternative options would give us a much lesser road at a higher cost. Maybe I'm an optimist, but I think that a deal is closer now than ever and the main sticking points require clarification and guaranteeing and not a complete renegotiation. To build an ineffective road at an astronomical cost simply to spite them, even though they don't even have to consider negotiating with the city/province in the first place if they don't want to, would be a huge mistake.