Bottom line is that Glenmore is not a freeway, which is why they caved and allowed this. All this work was done as part of the ring road project so I think we need to just take a step back and remember that this would absolutely not fly on the mainline ring road and they wouldn't have even entertained the idea. An almost identical configuration exists on Deerfoot between Cranston Ave/Seton and 22X with people calling for the southbound barrier to be nuked in 2013 so they could cut across and not trek all the way down to Dunbow Rd to u-turn. Deerfoot is a freeway, so AT said no. Coincidentally a much shorter u-turn now exists down there with the completion of the 212 Ave interchange.
Yes Glenmore is 8 lanes wide and carries 130k vehicles daily over the causeway making it one of Canada's busiest roads... but it's still not a freeway, despite doing a pretty good job masquerading as one since the completion of the GE5 project. So things like the pathetic 14 St interchange, and now this, are allowed to exist.
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Originally Posted by Roger
Acey, what is your opinion on how NB Deerfoot to WB Stoney and WB Stoney to SB Deerfoot weave underneath Deerfoot in the north? Do you know if there are any plans to change/upgrade that spot? I can see it being a big disaster in a few years as the central north keeps filling up with new houses.
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Yep what Mazrim said covers it - if it begins to bog it's off the mainline so it's fine. That WB-SB loop barely has anybody using it, and even as growth continues in the NE I don't anticipate a ton of demand for that movement.
What's interesting is that the new 22X/Macleod interchange is a functional copy of Stoney NE/Deerfoot, but improved with additional bridges to reduce overall footprint and yet another bridge to remove the weave by way of a Crowchild/Stoney-style unrolled loop ramp.