Quote:
Originally Posted by Fuzz
Not a bridge, but I drove past this yesterday and want to nominate it the most useless sidewalk in Calgary:
https://goo.gl/maps/hnRox1aDeyJ2
Why bother making this? Why so long? Just long enough to trick people into thinking it goes somewhere? |
LOL, I lived in that area for decades and didn't even realize that stumpy section was there.
I suspect I know the answer though - Hawkwood was built in the boom years of 1979 / 80. For the kids here - take the boom of 2005-7, multiple it by 3 and you get a sense of how truly crazy it was here.
Hawkwood phase 1 - the area west of Hawkwood drive and south of Hawkwood Rd was a product of 79/81. You can see it today - houses have wood siding, closed floor plans from the East, and larger sized yards. The stumpy sidewalk we're laughing about was a part of this initial development, left unfinished until the plans for the rest of Hawkwood were drawn up for Phase 2 and beyond. Everything east of Hawkwood Dr still looks like Nose Hill in 1981. The Church you see today was smaller, as they built an extension in the 90's.
1982 hits and IMHO, is twice is bad as the current recession. The housing market is in freefall, and no one's buying (15- 18% interest rates!). The developer of phase 1 (Costain?) either sells the development or goes bankrupt. Hawkwood as a development doesn't grow for 6-8 years.
Somewhere in the late 80's / 90's development resumes on Hawkwood, this time by a different developer (Melcor I think). Oddly, they start on the Eastern side of Hawkwood and move westward to the Phase 1 section. There is no "master" plan to speak of to integrate the two phases and make them harmonious....they just kind of meet up. The sidewalk to nowhere, never gets incorporated by Melcor into their development plans.
TLDR - That useless appendix of a sidewalk is probably representative of the shabby, car based master planning at the time and of the fact a 2nd developer awkwardly took over the development.