Second Freeway in the City?

[ken0042]

Originally Posted by La Flames Fan

Memorial, 130th, Anderson/Southland...You look at those roads, and that's where many of the traffic snarls happen. (It also doesn't help that the multi-lane highway widdles down to two lanes at Anderson).

130th is the one I don't get. There is room for the 130th exiting traffic (southbound) to have their offramp just before (or almost at the same place as Barlow.) Have it wind behind Barlow and then make people merge left; you know- at the same time Barlow exiting traffic is merging left. That way everybody is merging the same direction.

[algernon]

Originally Posted by 3 Justin 3

No it isn't. If we have learned anything from the past it's that what ever the City of Calgary does is going to be incorrect. ie. too small of a road, and then they have to add onto it years later. Just plan correctly and this doesn't happen. But they don't play ahead because they're stupid.

Justin, have you already purchased that large 6 bedroom house that you are going to need once you wife has cranked out that last set of twins? If not, why? Moolah.
I'm not saying the City isn't misguided on things, but, you can't spend triple the cost to build a cadillac road each and every time, and survive politically.

[You Need a Thneed]

Originally Posted by Madman

Glenmore can never truly be a Freeway through the City, (for all traffic that is), as the reservoir doesn't allow hazardous goods over it. Major amounts of truck traffic would not be able to use a Glenmore "Freeway" - wait a minute, that would be a good thing!

Only one class of hazardous goods cannot go over the reservoir. A small portion of hazardous materials.

Originally Posted by Madman

Speaking of dumb Deerfoot; I'd like to thank the genius engineer who decided it would be a good idea to have the base of the most major road in Town be concrete. Its not like it freezes and thaws here at all.

Concrete isn't the problem, it's the era that the concrete sections were done. They didn't get it quite smooth enough.

Concrete roads are more expensive, but last much longer. Asphalt is much worse in freeze thaw cycles, as that is when potholes form.

[Resolute 14]

Originally Posted by JustAnotherGuy

Exactly. It screws up traffic flow. Then people complain about the roads. But the road design is fine. It is just used incorrectly.

Well, the road design would be fine if it didn't go from 80 on Crowchild to 30 over the bridge with a bottleneck of people merging off Mt. Royal Gate immediately before, then back to 80. Course, there isn't much they could do better with the space they have.

And yes, they build that nice 1KM merge lane and idiots slow everything down trying to merge within the first 50m.

As far as freeways go, Deerfoot Tr. and Stoney Tr. are the two legally designated freeways by the province. Glenmore definitely is the next closest to being a fully free flow highway.

[You Need a Thneed]

I imagine that Crowchild might be the next "complete" freeway in the city.

There's lot of shorter sections of freeway in the city though too:
Glenmore Trail - 11km of Freeway and will add a km or two after the 37th Street interchange is complete.

Crowchild Trail - 6km free on the south end & another 12 km free in the NW (once all current construction is complete)

16th Ave NE - 5 km free - that becomes nearly 9 km when the 68th/16th interchange gets built

McLeod Trail S - 6 km Free once Fake Fraser Gate is built. 9.4 km free once 162nd Ave interchange is built after that.

McKnight/John Laurie - has 6 km between lights.

16th Ave W will have almost 8 km of freeway(starting from the city limit on the west end) once the Bowfort Road interchange is built.

In the future, Metis Trail, McKnight Blvd, Airport Trail, Sarcee Trail, Stoney Trail, More of Glenmore, Crowchild will be combined, HWY 22X, and possibly other could be freeways.

There are quite a few roads that just have one or two lights that need to be removed to extend freeway portions, and in almost all of those cases, the new interchanges are on the radar at the city, being talked about.

[Tron_fdc]

Originally Posted by Resolute 14

And yes, they build that nice 1KM merge lane and idiots slow everything down trying to merge within the first 50m.

I drive that road every day, and I've often wondered if cement dividers running the first 80 meters or so would solve the problem. It's really annoying when some jackass is stopped, blocking traffic because he HAS to get in at the start of the merge, instead of driving the length of it, and merging at speed.

[4X4]

Originally Posted by Tron_fdc

I drive that road every day, and I've often wondered if cement dividers running the first 80 meters or so would solve the problem. It's really annoying when some jackass is stopped, blocking traffic because he HAS to get in at the start of the merge, instead of driving the length of it, and merging at speed.

Some people just suck. No matter how well they improve a road, some people will still remember the days when you had to merge early, lest you be forced onto 14th st, so they're stuck in their ways. Likewise for the 14th NB onto Glenmore WB. The right lane goes on forever, yet there are still people changing lanes up on the flyover. FFS, there's still ~750 meters left in that right lane. What's the emergency?
Bah. Strugglers.

[Shazam]

Originally Posted by GGG

A systems Interchange will cost into the hundreds of millions to do all of the fly over ramps. There is an excellent link on the city website explaining why they don't put in clover leafs anymore. The jist is that cloverleafs take up too much space and as they get buisier become less and less effective. And in high traffic volumes a split diamond intersection is just as effective at passing cars through the intersection especially on roads where one road is significantly larger volumes then the other.

http://www.calgary.ca/portal/server....nges.htm?Prn=1

They've been using diamonds in LA since the 50s. They never really went the cloverleaf route, for precisely the reasons you specify.

[You Need a Thneed]

Originally Posted by Acey

To add to this, there's places in California where they are taking OUT full cloverleafs to add partial ones like Deerfoot/130th, Deerfoot/Country Hills. Lights where there were none before is disappointing, but safer because weaving is eliminated with entering and exiting traffic.

Not just California, pretty much everywhere. Calgary has removed at least two (Sarcee/16th Ave & Glenmore/Blackfoot). Calgary has only one full cloverleaf interchange left, and it only remains because it is so rediculously big, combined with the fact that "left turning" traffic is quite low, that it can keep traffic flowing quite well (Barlow/ 16th Ave NE).

Cloverleafs are TERRIBLE interchange designs, except where traffic on the smaller road is VERY low. But when the traffic is that low, a diamond interchange will work just as well, and take up far less land.

[3 Justin 3]

Originally Posted by algernon

Justin, have you already purchased that large 6 bedroom house that you are going to need once you wife has cranked out that last set of twins? If not, why? Moolah.
I'm not saying the City isn't misguided on things, but, you can't spend triple the cost to build a cadillac road each and every time, and survive politically.

I totally understand it has to do with funding issues, but better planning can fix all these issues. Didn't they have to re-do 16th AVE because of a blunder to with the tram lines underneath?

[yads]

This new interchange design is quite interesting


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divergi...nd_interchange

[dj_patm]

reminds me of the mess aka Elbow and Glenmore.

[Shazam]

Originally Posted by yads

This new interchange design is quite interesting


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divergi...nd_interchange

Cool. I actually thought of this design on my own a few months ago.

[CGYTransplant]

Well, the road design would be fine if it didn't go from 80 on Crowchild to 30 over the bridge with a bottleneck of people merging off Mt. Royal Gate immediately before, then back to 80. Course, there isn't much they could do better with the space they have.

I know exactly what you mean- and I would like to point out that the speed limit sign on the flyover from Crow south to Glenmore east is yellow...meaning that the 30 km/hr is suggested, not the law. You can take the turn at 90 if you want. It drives me CRAZY that people don't know the difference between a yellow speed limit sign and the white speed limit signs. Yellow= suggestion, white=law.

Originally Posted by 4X4

Some people just suck. No matter how well they improve a road, some people will still remember the days when you had to merge early, lest you be forced onto 14th st, so they're stuck in their ways.

I know that the merge lane is longer, but to be totally technical, if you're coming off Crow south onto Glenmore east, you will still be forced to exit onto 14th street south if you can't get over- the lanes from the Crow flyover become the exit lanes for 14th Street. And, if you're stuck behind someone going 30 km/hr, you have no hope of getting up to speed in time and getting over. I realize there are limits on how wide the road can be because it's a causeway, but having at least one through lane from crowchild flyover onto glenmore would have made things considerably easier, IMO.

[yads]

Originally Posted by CGYTransplant

It drives me CRAZY that people don't know the difference between a yellow speed limit sign and the white speed limit signs. Yellow= suggestion, white=law.

Lol, tell me about it. I was driving to Fairmont with my wife and she starts nagging

She: "That sign said 50, slow down"
I: "It's just a suggestion"
She: Blank stare

[Red_Baron]

At least Calgary has a freeway...
In Vancouver there isn't really any free flowing roads going east-west or North-South. The Trans Canada touches a small part of Vancouver but doesn't help getting from one end of the city to another.

[dj_patm]

I'm going to make a sign to put on the offramp from Mount Royal Gate to Crowchild that says "YOU HAVE ANOTHER 100+ METERS OF MERGE LANE. F**ING USE IT"

You will see it monday. Your welcome.

[JustAnotherGuy]

Originally Posted by CGYTransplant

..... It drives me CRAZY that people don't know the difference between a yellow speed limit sign and the white speed limit signs. Yellow= suggestion, white=law.
.....

Really? Are you kidding. Is that true? lol I never knew that.

Good thing that most speed limits are only suggestions for me anyway.

[4X4]

Originally Posted by dj_patm

Your welcome.

Whose welcome?

[Madman]

Originally Posted by 4X4

Whose welcome?

Yours