Quote:
Originally Posted by powderjunkie
This makes sense considering the entirety of the interchange is on Tsuut'ina land (though really most of the SWRR is until Fish Creek Blvd). The nation rightly used time constraints as a negotiation chip, so we literally would have had to 'buy' more time to make any changes (in addition to the cost of the changes themselves).
I'd argue that is in fact completely acceptable (though not ideal) to have moderate backups at peak hour, even on a brand new project. 11/12 movements being excellent is good enough in my book. Of course the big issue here is backups happening down the middle lane which is obviously no buono. Even if they didn't anticipate this much volume for whatever reason in the original design it sucks that they failed to weigh the impact this kind of failure could have
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My argument to this is that this project is strangely overbuilt in some key sections such as the size of the land it occupies. It lacks considerable safety features, signage and more and it appears to have dropped the ball in very key, high growth areas.
This is all happening in one of the richest provinces in the country, it's largest city, one of Canada's fastest growing cities and more.
We also pay an incredible amount of taxes to all levels of government for what is very marginal infrastructure. This was not the complex project that a lot of people want this to be. There are some engineering aspects for sure but let's be honest, it's mostly flat, a lot of the land was set aside years ago and the basic design has not changed very much in 40+ years. In essence some dirt was moved, a base was formed, some bridges and overpasses built
The construction team worked hard but the truth is they didn't tunnel under a bustling city, or cut through a difficult mountain pass or need to deal with an ocean, significant archaeological concerns and more.
We sometimes forget just how easy certain transportation projects can be here but we make them difficult. You have cities and countries all over the world that wouldn't allow a road/rail like this to be built in this fashion full knowing the concerns with specific aspects of vital sections.
Sorry about the rant, you are not to blame or anything. I am always perplexed with how we allow this mediocrity to occur here. It's become second nature.
We have huge swaths of the Trans Canada Highway in BC being in essence's a country, rural road from the 50's in a poor country when in reality, this road should be been twinned decades ago.