Ring Road To Nowhere

[Calgary14]

For the low-quality, wood frame, multi-unit buildings nowhere near transit popping up I would guess their break even point is so low they can handle a low price environment.

I would be very curious to know the average break even point on a new condo unit.....obviously depends on a ton of factors like location, finishings, builder etc but I would venture to guess many builders make so much money off them they can keep building them even now. Why else would we continue to see them saturate the market in a low oil price, negative growth economy?

Another obvious factor is the city leans towards being builder-friendly and they have stated they want to increase the tax base so approvals may be easier in Calgary compared to other cities

[Fuzz]

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[InglewoodFan]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

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100% agree. Great insight.

[Nancy]

Originally Posted by Ahuch

Agreed. I totally get density, but all the wood framed condos popping up in far flung neighborhoods that don't even have transit service? Seems to go against all of the citys plans to become a bustling, european city

This particular area, especially, as there is no major employment centre anywhere on the West end of the city, so you are talking lots of cars with long commute distances, primarily through Bow & Sarcee, which is already a cluster#####. I think the city is setting itself up for a traffic problem that is going to be expensive to fix.

I am not sure how will this development is doing, financially, as they've had to sell a number of buildings to the government as low income housing.

[Fuzz]

Originally Posted by InglewoodFan

100% agree. Great insight.

LOL. Whoops. I was vacuuming my keyboard earlier.

[Acey]

A lot of big changes on 22X next week. It starts at some point Monday when access from Shawville Blvd to 22X closes, and both the 6 Street and McKevitt interchanges partially open. Then on Tuesday parts of the new 22X/Macleod interchange start opening. Life gets easier for some people, and permanently more difficult for a lot of people.

Good luck with the mayhem as people will have no idea where they're going.

Spoiler!

[CaptainYooh]

Why not the full standard cloverleaf on Macleod/Stoney, I wonder? Seems like enough room on all four corners. This is way more complicated in all regards.

[Acey]

Originally Posted by CaptainYooh

Why not the full standard cloverleaf on Macleod/Stoney, I wonder? Seems like enough room on all four corners. This is way more complicated in all regards.

It's not a matter of room, cloverleafs suck because of weaving and nobody builds them anymore. This is much higher capacity... think about how much faster you can drive on that yellow flyover (answer 100 kph in a half decent car) vs a loop ramp. You don't even have to slow down.

If you look at the two loop ramps in the bottom half of the interchange, the extra bridge offsetting the EB-NB loop ramp means that the traffic making the movement do not conflict (weave) with traffic on the blue SB-EB ramp. This is how 2 of the loops on the Stoney/Crowchild cloverleaf are built:



Functionally it's a cloverleaf, but it removes weaving both ways on Stoney. Downside: you have to slow way down on those tight loops and they're very low capacity. Alberta has built a bunch of these hybrid interchanges on the ring road and knows they're doing at this point.

[Calgary14]

Acey, if Im reading that correctly there will be no access to 22x from Sheriff King but full access to Shawnessy from Silverado via the overpass?

[Acey]

Originally Posted by Calgary14

Acey, if Im reading that correctly there will be no access to 22x from Sheriff King but full access to Shawnessy from Silverado via the overpass?

Correct. No access at all to 22X. The removal of access to EB 22X is permanent, but a new ramp for access to WB 22X will be opening at some point. For now you have to follow a somewhat convoluted detour.

[timun]

Originally Posted by timun

I noticed they have some of the signage up at Glenmore/Sarcee/Hwy 8; maybe I wasn't paying close enough attention but I could have sworn the signage from westbound Glenmore to southbound ring road said Stoney Trail, not Tsuut'ina Trail. I thought the ring road was supposed to be Tsuut'ina Trail from Glenmore/Sarcee to at least Fish Creek?

Originally Posted by Acey

It's pretty dumb how they did it, wanting to name only the section of the ring road with in Tsuut'ina as Tsuut'ina. So there's a little bit of it behind Grey Eagle where the name goes back to Stoney Trail before it hits Glenmore, and Glenmore west of Sarcee is now Stoney.

Extremely dumb and confusing on the part of Alberta Transportation; the whole section from Glenmore down to 22X should have been named Tsuut'ina.

I drove the section between Anderson and Fish Creek Blvd. on Sunday, just for the hell of it (and to buy cheap gas); the naming is so, so confusing and dumb. As you said Acey, I don't understand why they didn't name the entire stretch from 22X to Glenmore "Tsuut'ina Trail", it would have been much more intuitive. As it stands now there are signs at SB Fish Creek Blvd. that read "201 Tsuut'ina Trail ends", "201 Stoney Trail begins". WTF guys, it's the same frickin' road?!

[Acey]

I have a theory that is not based on fact whatsoever. At one point there was discussion that Tsuut'ina wanted the entire ring road named Tsuut'ina. Stoney, obviously wasn't a fan of that idea. I have to think that Alberta Transportation would have preferred for the entire ring to be called Stoney and had the right to do so, but the naming of the TTN section is more of a gesture of good faith. Maybe Stoney specifically did not want any of the road outside of TTN to be named Tsuu'tina.

I could be over thinking it, but the ring road has understandably been a very contentious issue for the Tsuu T'ina Nation and I can't pretend to be in tune with the intricacies here. The only hint is here:

While the Province is officially embracing ‘Tsuut’ina Trail’ as the name for one segment of the ring road, Chief Crowchild suggested taking the renaming one step further. He stated “We believe that the entire ring road can, and should, be named Tsuut’ina (Trail)” and noted the significant role that the Nation has played in helping to get the road finished.

Transportation Minister Mason was reportedly only made aware of the idea to rename the entire road within the last day or so, and was cautious, yet willing to explore the idea. “It doesn’t take a political science graduate to see the difficulty, but certainly I’m prepared to talk to the chief and if necessary, to talk to the three chiefs and the Stoney Nation as well and if they can reach some sort of agreement, I think we can too.” he said.

I have a bigger issue with major roads in Calgary and Edmonton hinging on their name as opposed to the route number.

[Fuzz]

They should have given each segment a name, so there is no confusion over intersections like when the traffic reporter says there is an incident at TCH and Stoney. Of course now it's all just a confusing disaster. I'm sure they'll sort this out in 10 years once all the signs have been up for awhile and they can spend loads of money on new signage.

[Acey]

I dunno if having 5 names would be even better. It would likely force "201" into common usage, or more likely just "ring road".

There are already 2 TCH/Stoney interchanges, 2 Country Hills/Stoney, 2 Stoney/Deerfoot, and now 2 Glenmore/Stoney interchanges and 2 Sarcee/Stoney. In any of these, a quadrant suffixed to either road would sufficiently clarify if identifying it for reporting purposes, which I see done.

[CaptainYooh]

Acey, if you know, how does the Province assign highway and major road numbers? What is the rationale behind 201?

[undercoverbrother]

Originally Posted by Acey

A lot of big changes on 22X next week. It starts at some point Monday when access from Shawville Blvd to 22X closes, and both the 6 Street and McKevitt interchanges partially open. Then on Tuesday parts of the new 22X/Macleod interchange start opening. Life gets easier for some people, and permanently more difficult for a lot of people.

Good luck with the mayhem as people will have no idea where they're going.

Spoiler!

Sweet jesus, I'm ####ed.

[getbak]

Originally Posted by CaptainYooh

Acey, if you know, how does the Province assign highway and major road numbers? What is the rationale behind 201?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...1_-_216_series

The numbers applied to these highways are derived from compounding the assigned numbers of the core north-south and east-west highways that intersect with the rings roads. In Calgary, Highway 201 is derived from the north-south Highway 2 and the east-west Highway 1. In Edmonton, Highway 216 is derived from the same north-south Highway 2 and the east-west Highway 16.

[Acey]

Originally Posted by CaptainYooh

Acey, if you know, how does the Province assign highway and major road numbers? What is the rationale behind 201?

201 (Stoney)
Links/bypasses highways 2 and 1

216 (Henday)
Links/bypasses highways 2 and 16

All the others have some story, some haphazard and some logical. Highway 2 is the oldest highway and was therefore originally Highway 1, and Highway 1 was Highway 2, but they were swapped when they wanted to make a unified Highway 1 across western Canada for the TCH. Some others, and a bunch of the secondaries, look like they're roughly numbered in sequence by geography.

Originally Posted by undercoverbrother

Sweet jesus, I'm ####ed.

I'm going down to Okotoks tonight, might swing by and check out the chaos.

[timun]

I presume that the portion on Tsuut'ina land had to be named Tsuut'ina Trail as part of the land swap deal. (I have a copy of the agreement somewhere, but I don't really want to go fishing for it at the moment, hahaha.) It is a bit of a slap in the face to name the road after another tribe, one which had essentially no involvement in the road's development. I'm guessing that Alberta Transportation followed through but in the bare minimum way possible, such that literally only the part of the road on Tsuut'ina land is named Tsuut'ina Trail, otherwise keeping the Stoney name on the rest of it, leading to this malarkey where Tsuut'ina Trail begins/ends at (presumably) Tsuut'ina Parkway and Fish Creek Blvd, instead of everything between Glenmore and 22X.

[TorqueDog]

Originally Posted by undercoverbrother

Sweet jesus, I'm ####ed.

Please record your first attempt to navigate this thing and post it. Preferably when you have somewhere to be and left yourself insufficient time to figure out where the hell you're going.