Airport Tunnel Rejected Again? **UPDATE** It's built!

[#-3]

Originally Posted by Jimmy Stang

I haven't been up that way in a while, but perhaps someone (Thneed?) can tell me:

Have any upgrades been done to 36th Street south of Airport Trail? And also 80th Avenue between 36th Street and Metis?

I picture a lot of the NE airport traffic trying to get through to the tunnel that way, but if the roads are single-lane rural highways still, I can see it getting pretty congested.

Even though the long term solution would make this unnecessary, that's still a long way off, and people are going to want to use the tunnel in the mean time.

Its been mentioned a few times on this thread, The have done nothing to 80th, between 36th and Metis. It is still a Farm road. But is it only 8 blocks and 1 uncontrolled intersection. So not a huge issue to handle a little bit more volume.

36th, they complete removed the farm road, and put in a new road. it is still only 1 lane. But you can clearly tell from the curbs that they intend on making it a 2 lane divided road some time in the near future. But I'm not sure if that's next summer, or in 5 years?

Best way to the tunnel from the S.E will be to take Barlow north of McKnight, and get on 36th by the rotary park.

[You Need a Thneed]

Originally Posted by #-3

Its been mentioned a few times on this thread, The have done nothing to 80th, between 36th and Metis. It is still a Farm road. But is it only 8 blocks and 1 uncontrolled intersection. So not a huge issue to handle a little bit more volume.

36th, they complete removed the farm road, and put in a new road. it is still only 1 lane. But you can clearly tell from the curbs that they intend on making it a 2 lane divided road some time in the near future. But I'm not sure if that's next summer, or in 5 years?

Best way to the tunnel from the S.E will be to take Barlow north of McKnight, and get on 36th by the rotary park.

Originally Posted by Jimmy Stang

I haven't been up that way in a while, but perhaps someone (Thneed?) can tell me:

Have any upgrades been done to 36th Street south of Airport Trail? And also 80th Avenue between 36th Street and Metis?

I picture a lot of the NE airport traffic trying to get through to the tunnel that way, but if the roads are single-lane rural highways still, I can see it getting pretty congested.

Even though the long term solution would make this unnecessary, that's still a long way off, and people are going to want to use the tunnel in the mean time.

Let me answer here.

80th is still the farm road between Metis and 36th.

36th is still the farm road between 80th and Airport Trail.

36th has been twinned and rebuilt between Airport Trail and Country Hills Blvd.

The 36th St/ Airport Trail intersection will be nice, dual lane turns, and dual through lanes, street lights, etc.

There are permanent message boards going up around the tunnel that will alert people as to tunnel status. For example, during a big rain storm, the tunnel may have to close due to temporary flooding.

The untwined portion of 36th will be a pain, but traffic on there still won't be as bad as it was before Métis went through.

[Table 5]

I'm not sure if this is part of THE grand opening or not, but I just got word from my local car club that there will be a Show and Shine inside the Airport Tunnel on May 24th. Because the tunnel is pretty long (over 600m), they have the space to show hundreds of cars, so it should be a pretty neato way to see some cars and check out the inside of the tunnel.

[You Need a Thneed]

That is part of the grand opening, yes.

[Acey]

Thank God that's a Saturday so I can come down to see it.

[You Need a Thneed]

http://www.calgary.ca/Transportation...ent-poster.pdf

[Superflyer]

They are giving a chance to run or walk on the new runway but you have to signup for it.
Run the Runway is on June 14 and Walk the Runway is June 15.

http://www.yycrunway.com/

[calgarygeologist]

Originally Posted by Superflyer

They are giving a chance to run or walk on the new runway but you have to signup for it.
Run the Runway is on June 14 and Walk the Runway is June 15.

http://www.yycrunway.com/

Cool, I registered for the Sunday event. They really should have come up with a better registration system though. I anticipate the process to scan and get into the event might be slow. They should have had a single registration with a single bar code for families. Now I'll have to pull up 4 separate emails/bar codes so that they can scan it for each of my family members. It might be quicker and easier to print the 4 confirmation bar codes but think of the trees and the poor environment.

[You Need a Thneed]

Less than two weeks until the tunnel opens.

Over this lat weekend, they were adjusting the barriers at the ends of the road so that they were more in line with where they are required to be when the road opens.

I've mentioned it before, but they have the ability to completely close off the tunnel to traffic electronically, through electronic signage and the lane control system. I'm not sure exactly how the lane control system is going to be used, perhaps they will have the ability to change the direction of the interior lanes to the other direction, or simply turn one lane into a transit only lane.

Signage indicates that no dangerous goods, period, are allowed in the tunnel.

Line painting still needs to be done.

[Regular_John]

Originally Posted by Superflyer

They are giving a chance to run or walk on the new runway but you have to signup for it.
Run the Runway is on June 14 and Walk the Runway is June 15.

http://www.yycrunway.com/

Doing the 8.4k on the Saturday with my wife and some friends. Should be an interesting event.

[Acey]

Originally Posted by You Need a Thneed

Line painting still needs to be done.

If Stoney Trail SE is any indication, they'll skip this unessential step.

[habernac]

Are they going to pave the twinned portion of 36th before it opens? It's a cow trail right now. I didn't think the road could be worse than before but it is.

[You Need a Thneed]

Lines are painted now, and there is nothing but plastic barrels and barricades blocking the entries.

[You Need a Thneed]

Retail, office and industrial projects springing up near airport tunnel


... To the surprise of no one.

[Acey]

That "Airport 1 km" sign looks really dumb hanging there.

Is there any chance of decent photography here or more likely the Romeo bridge? I'm gonna have to take a look this weekend.

[SebC]

Originally Posted by You Need a Thneed

Retail, office and industrial projects springing up near airport tunnel


... To the surprise of no one.

What's up with the houses on the north side of Country Hills Blvd east of Metis trail? I thought one of the purposes of the airport tunnel was that Country Hills would be a main street, not the back of some community hidden behind a noise barrier (and the butt end of what appears to be an industrial park close to Barlow).

[Acey]

Because it currently doesn't do it, a lot of people in the coming weeks are not going to realize that the primary purpose of the Airport Tunnel is to (once the airport authority decides to stop being dumb) connect Deerfoot Trail to Stoney Trail. In doing so, it will provide much needed relief to McKnight Blvd. The airport authority's silliness on this matter also means that, in the interim, CHB has to play a bigger role than is ultimately intended.

[You Need a Thneed]

Originally Posted by SebC

What's up with the houses on the north side of Country Hills Blvd east of Metis trail? I thought one of the purposes of the airport tunnel was that Country Hills would be a main street, not the back of some community hidden behind a noise barrier (and the butt end of what appears to be an industrial park close to Barlow).

The houses close to Métis weren't part of the urban blvd because when those houses were built, Métis/ Country Hills Blvd was to one day become an interchange.

Now that Métis was downgraded from an expressway, it's no longer in the plans.

Either way, it becomes an urban Blvd just east of what it built now. The area around CHB/60th St is zoned to have up to 20+ story buildings and the future LRT station might be underground below the intersection.

[You Need a Thneed]

Originally Posted by Acey

That "Airport 1 km" sign looks really dumb hanging there.

Is there any chance of decent photography here or more likely the Romeo bridge? I'm gonna have to take a look this weekend.

Probably no opportunity for such signage in the tunnel, so It has to go there.

[kermitology]

I'm pretty sure Bob Hawkesworth is surprised by the impact the airport tunnel is having.