The Calgary Traffic Thread

[Kavvy]

This is already being discussed in the layoffs thread, but does anyone have any theories on why it seems Calgary has extremely low traffic right now? Today around 6 Crowchild north bound was empty.


Is it spring break?
Is it layoffs?
Is early March a typical 'get away from the cold' season for Calagarians?

According to the link below, March does indeed have less volume then the average month, but not by a whole lot. Also, interesting fact, Monday has the lowest traffic volume for the work week!

http://www.calgary.ca/Transportation...%2054%20Av.pdf

Any other theories?

[ken0042]

PD day so many kids didn't have school. So parents sometimes take an extra day off to spend time with their kids.

[Acey]

Excluding holidays/PD days, I'm surprised Monday is higher volume than Friday. In Calgary (and Edmonton) Friday has always been a shorter drive for me in the morning. Noticeably less volume than the other weekdays.

[skudr248]

This morning was the usual traffic / a bit larger volume than usual coming from SE to downtown, but the way home today (5PM) was surprisingly not busy on Deerfoot going south from Glenmore. No jam from the Anderson bottleneck there

[troutman]

People playing hookey for trade deadline.

[Ahuch]

Originally Posted by skudr248

This morning was the usual traffic / a bit larger volume than usual coming from SE to downtown, but the way home today (5PM) was surprisingly not busy on Deerfoot going south from Glenmore. No jam from the Anderson bottleneck there

Deerfoot/Southland was quiet around 4:30 today too.

[troutman]

Texas Independence Day

[Acey]

Originally Posted by troutman

People playing hookey for trade deadline.

Didn't have the privilege of driving during the '04 run but the last time I drove a dead Deerfoot during a sporting event was the '12 Grey Cup vs Toronto.

Can't imagine what it must have been like in '04.

[Sr. Mints]

Originally Posted by Acey

Didn't have the privilege of driving during the '04 run but the last time I drove a dead Deerfoot during a sporting event was the '12 Grey Cup vs Toronto.

Can't imagine what it must have been like in '04.

I remember horns would start going off all around whenever the Flames scored. It was pretty cool.

[ken0042]

Originally Posted by Acey

Excluding holidays/PD days, I'm surprised Monday is higher volume than Friday. In Calgary (and Edmonton) Friday has always been a shorter drive for me in the morning. Noticeably less volume than the other weekdays.

The other factor you have is many Oil & Gas companies have flex Fridays, so the employees work and extra half hour per day to get every 2nd or 3rd Friday off. I know they are not always in sync from when I worked in O&G, so on any given Friday there are a certain number of companies closed.

[mrkajz44]

There was less traffic on Deerfoot South yesterday because there was a five or six car accident on Memorial going out of downtown. It took up three of the five lanes and created a huge bottleneck. The flow of traffic from downtown to Deerfoot was constrained, and made Deerfoot a much smoother drive.