Quote:
Originally Posted by cral12
Probably tucked away in this thread somewhere, but any links to the actual proposed route?
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These were released yesterday (dated August 22):
http://www.transportation.alberta.ca...ing%20Road.pdf
Quote:
Originally Posted by CaptainYooh
I doubt they've kept any of those links alive, especially now when the new deal is almost done. The most viable, logical and affordable route was connecting through Lakeview.
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Look at how much land this is going to require. It's a long-term plan for this road to be a high-capacity high-speed freeway. To replicate that and remain entirely inside the existing city limits, would have required the demolition of a significant percentage of Cedarbrae, Oakridge, Lakeview, and Glamorgan (plus, likely some land in Lincoln Park around MRU) it would have been hundreds of homes, if not in excess of 1000.
Anything less would have required a significant reduction in the capacity and speed of the road and would still would have required close to 200 homes minimum in those adjacent communities. Bridging the Weaselhead would have brought up environmental concerns and required restrictions on dangerous goods transportation similar to what already exists for the Glenmore Causeway.
The more compromises to the design that are made, the fewer homes would need to be purchased, but obviously, that reduces the ability of the road to serve its purpose. I believe I read once that a 37th Street compromise that still met the minimum requirements of the ring road would have required the purchase and demolition of 500-800 houses.
If they could do it with 500 houses and paid a slight premium price of $750,000 per home (there are 4 houses currently listed in west Lakeview, all in the $600,000-700,000 range), it would cost $375M. That doesn't include the time and effort to negotiate 500 home purchases, and the cost of demolishing all those houses before work can even begin.
This deal saves all of those houses and only required negotiating with one land owner and the land is pretty much empty right now, so prep work will be minimal.