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Originally Posted by 4X4
I'll tell you what. If I was the guy in charge of designing roads in Calgary, there'd be a few major changes. First of all, no more lights on overpasses. Secondly, no more deconstruction of cloverleafs and reconstruction into overpasses with lights.
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The problem with cloverleafs is that they are only efficient up to a certain traffic volume, and assume that traffic volume is fairly equal in all directions. As that volume increases, they become a bottleneck.
You'll see a lot of the new interchanges with lights and dual turn lanes because it is more efficient in rush hour traffic; most of the communities feeding these interchanges into a large artery have heavy traffic flow in one direction in the morning, and then the opposite direction at the end of the day. The traffic computers can adjust the traffic lights for the volume direction, and they'll put more cars through per 5 minutes than a cloverleaf can.
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Originally Posted by 4X4
Your faith in the city planners in cagary is astounding. Since I'm such a moron, will you please explain to me the logic behind having a completely different overpass on every intersection on deerfoot?
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I suspect it is partially due to the fact that Deerfoot was designed in 4 distinct phases, and also that there were probably changes in design philosophy as well as real estate issues. Sure, the city has made some design mistakes (concrete road surface experiment on Deerfoot, Calf Robe bridge anyone?), but to call them totally incompetent is carrying things a bit too far IMHO.