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

[Bunk]

^ In the case of Crowchild, particularly around 5th and Kensington - it's likely to be literally 'not in my back yard' or more like not in my back yard, front yard or on my house - because many houses would have to disappear - 1950s block-busting style. Same with any 37th street alignment of the SW ring road.

[Mazrim]

Originally Posted by shermanator

Regarding this project, it was done right the first time

That's open to debate. It was one of those "good enough for now" projects with absolutely no intentions for expansion included when designed. The unusual entrances and exits and poor lane balance all speak to a "do it as cheap as possible" mentality which is going to cost the City a lot of pain and money fixing it.

Crowchild from Bow Trail through to 24th Avenue isn't on the books for 10-15 years anyway...I doubt the Airport Underpass would change that.

[mykalberta]

Originally Posted by getbak

I thought the main problem with the project getting shelved by the previous council is that they had allocated roughly 1/3 of the total cost with the assumption that the federal and provincial governments would each contribute their 1/3 of the total cost.

Then, when they put forward their requests for funding to the other branches of government, they didn't put the underpass as a priority, then were surprised when the other branches didn't put up the funding.

Since then, it's been a scramble to try to scrape together the money. Then, Hawksworth saw it as a potenial rallying point of his campaign because he was the only one who was running who was opposed to the "Half Billion Dollar Tunnel", and that's what made it such a big issue.

That was only in late 2009 early 2010 when Stevenson started to make a fuss over the airport changing its long term plan to exclude the tunnel after the City told them they had no interest in building it. Bronco then tried to put together some last minute financing but the Feds and Province who had already commited infrastructure dollars to the City which had spent on other projects werent willing to commit anything more. At that time I believe it was 50mil + 50mil + 50mil

[ken0042]

Originally Posted by Mazrim

That's open to debate. It was one of those "good enough for now" projects with absolutely no intentions for expansion included when designed. The unusual entrances and exits and poor lane balance all speak to a "do it as cheap as possible" mentality which is going to cost the City a lot of pain and money fixing it.

Agreed. Look at northbound; there is only 1 lane that goes across the river. Sure- at any given point there is always 2 lanes; but once again that involves some lane changes into and out of lanes where others are trying to merge.

A few "do it right" examples:
- Deerfoot south of 22X; the "Interchange to nowhere" that now goes to Cranston and is being twinned.
- Same stretch of Deerfoot; all the bridges can be turned from 2 to 3 lanes with some paint, and up to 4 lanes with no structural improvements.
- NE Ring road- all the interchanges are wide enough for 4 or 5 lanes each way even though the road is currently 2 lanes each way.
- The "new" WB bridge over the river on 22X is also ready for 3 lanes of traffic.

OK, so Crowchild went through 50 odd years ago. Fine. It was still done with no forethought; and that is the exact same thing I don't want my grandkids saying about the airport by-pass in another 50 years.

[ken0042]

Looks like the only project that could be impacted is an overpass over the SE Ring Road:


However, much of that comes from cash for future ring-road connections, and the mayor said the city roads linking to a planned ring-road flyover at 61st Avenue S.E. may not be ready for the bridge's 2013 completion.

Sounds like the province will still build the bridge over the Ring Road; but it just won't go anywhere. As a SE resident I say fine, delay that for the tunnel.

[Bobblehead]

Originally Posted by mykalberta

That was only in late 2009 early 2010 when Stevenson started to make a fuss over the airport changing its long term plan to exclude the tunnel after the City told them they had no interest in building it. Bronco then tried to put together some last minute financing but the Feds and Province who had already commited infrastructure dollars to the City which had spent on other projects werent willing to commit anything more. At that time I believe it was 50mil + 50mil + 50mil

Stevenson raised the flag on this less than a month after he took office in 2007. He discovered that while Helene Laroque was Alderman there had been a quiet decision to cancel the tunnel. Everyone has know for years when Barlow would be closed, but there had always been a long term plan re-route to the east and a tunnel to replace the airport access. When Stevenson discovered the cancellation, that immediately became his priority.

It is interesting that in the latest municipal election Laroque tried to get the Ward 3 seat back again and ran on an anti-tunnel platform. She lost pretty handily.

[Mazrim]

Originally Posted by ken0042

Looks like the only project that could be impacted is an overpass over the SE Ring Road:


However, much of that comes from cash for future ring-road connections, and the mayor said the city roads linking to a planned ring-road flyover at 61st Avenue S.E. may not be ready for the bridge's 2013 completion.

Sounds like the province will still build the bridge over the Ring Road; but it just won't go anywhere. As a SE resident I say fine, delay that for the tunnel.

I'm sure some residents of Shepard will be extremely offended that they will have one less connection to the City! How dare they do that to them!!

[getbak]

Originally Posted by ken0042

Looks like the only project that could be impacted is an overpass over the SE Ring Road:


However, much of that comes from cash for future ring-road connections, and the mayor said the city roads linking to a planned ring-road flyover at 61st Avenue S.E. may not be ready for the bridge's 2013 completion.

Sounds like the province will still build the bridge over the Ring Road; but it just won't go anywhere. As a SE resident I say fine, delay that for the tunnel.

The Herald has gotten really bad recently for using sensationalistic headlines that misconstrue the actual content of the story.


The story contains this quote from Nenshi: "That one project on 61st avenue might be slightly delayed; nothing else that is currently on the books is being delayed"

Yet, the headline becomes: "Nenshi warns Calgary airport tunnel would delay southeast connector road"

[You Need a Thneed]

Originally Posted by getbak

The Herald has gotten really bad recently for using sensationalistic headlines that misconstrue the actual content of the story.


The story contains this quote from Nenshi: "That one project on 61st avenue might be slightly delayed; nothing else that is currently on the books is being delayed"

Yet, the headline becomes: "Nenshi warns Calgary airport tunnel would delay southeast connector road"

It should also be mentioned, that the article does state that the Peigan connection would still be completed, in other words, the businesses out on 84th Street will have one MORE access to get to the rest of the city than they do currently. Further, it mentions that Nenshi thinks that the 61st Ave connection may only be delayed by a year.

Big non issue, at least that connection. It will go in eventually.

By the time the Airport trail overpass connection is made up in the Northeast, it will have been delayed 2 years.

[You Need a Thneed]

List of communities for which, going through the tunnel is the quickest way to the airport (remember that the SE ring road will be open as well, and the Airport Trail connects to Stoney):

Skyview Ranch, Saddleridge, Martindale, Taradale, Castleridge, Falconridge, Coral Springs, Whitehorn, Temple, Horizon Industrial, Sunridge Industrial, Rundle, Pineridge, Monterey Park, Marlbourough, Marlbourough Park, Abbeydale, Penbrooke, Applewood Park, Large chunks of Foothills Industrial, Copperfield, MacKenzie Towne, MacKenzie Lake, Cranston, Auburn Bay, Mahogany,Chaparral, Silverado, Sundance, Somerset, Bridlewood, Priddis, Okotoks, High River, Nanton, Chestermere, Strathmore, Langdon, Brooks, De Winton, Alderside, Black Diamond, Turner Valley, Irricana, Beiseker, Medicine Hat.

At slower traffic times on Deerfoot, you could probably add to the list: Evergreen, Shawnessy, Midnapore, Millrise, Douglasdale, Deer Ridge, Deer Run, Parkland, Queensland, and perhaps more.

Remember too, that the closure of Barlow will add some traffic onto an already busy portion of Deerfoot, making backups worse, and thus, more likely that some of the communities in the second list join the first list.

[Bigtime]

That's quite the list YNAT. Zak Pashak is railing against this underpass/tunnel pretty hard on Facebook the last couple of days, so I took the liberty of posting up your list. Nobody has commented on it yet, perhaps seeing it they realize it isn't just a NE thing.

[Art Vandelay]

nm

[Slava]

Originally Posted by You Need a Thneed

List of communities for which, going through the tunnel is the quickest way to the airport (remember that the SE ring road will be open as well, and the Airport Trail connects to Stoney):

Skyview Ranch, Saddleridge, Martindale, Taradale, Castleridge, Falconridge, Coral Springs, Whitehorn, Temple, Horizon Industrial, Sunridge Industrial, Rundle, Pineridge, Monterey Park, Marlbourough, Marlbourough Park, Abbeydale, Penbrooke, Applewood Park, Large chunks of Foothills Industrial, Copperfield, MacKenzie Towne, MacKenzie Lake, Cranston, Auburn Bay, Mahogany,Chaparral, Silverado, Sundance, Somerset, Bridlewood, Priddis, Okotoks, High River, Nanton, Chestermere, Strathmore, Langdon, Brooks, De Winton, Alderside, Black Diamond, Turner Valley, Irricana, Beiseker, Medicine Hat.

At slower traffic times on Deerfoot, you could probably add to the list: Evergreen, Shawnessy, Midnapore, Millrise, Douglasdale, Deer Ridge, Deer Run, Parkland, Queensland, and perhaps more.

Remember too, that the closure of Barlow will add some traffic onto an already busy portion of Deerfoot, making backups worse, and thus, more likely that some of the communities in the second list join the first list.

What is that list based on? Estimated time I would assume? Certainly not mileage!

[Bigtime]

Time > Mileage

At least that would be my priority.

[The Yen Man]

Originally Posted by Slava

What is that list based on? Estimated time I would assume? Certainly not mileage!

Are there actually people who would rather spend more time on the road to save a few kilometres? I've never thought of it that way before. For me, whichever route gets me to a place the fastest is the way I go.

[mykalberta]

Originally Posted by Bigtime

That's quite the list YNAT. Zak Pashak is railing against this underpass/tunnel pretty hard on Facebook the last couple of days, so I took the liberty of posting up your list. Nobody has commented on it yet, perhaps seeing it they realize it isn't just a NE thing.

Who is Zak and why should anyone care what he thinks? He looks like he a classic it wont help me cause I live in Sunalta so I dont want it.

[Bigtime]

Originally Posted by mykalberta

Who is Zak and why should anyone care what he thinks? He looks like he a classic it wont help me cause I live in Sunalta so I dont want it.

Zak took a run at Ward 8 in this last election, and actually garnered a fair amount of votes against Mar. In the last couple of days he has been on a real warpath on the issue, now claiming it is a "Nenshi ego project", it almost sounds like he drank some of Hawkesworth's kool-aid.

[Mazrim]

Originally Posted by Bigtime

Time > Mileage

At least that would be my priority.

Exactly. Reminds me of the discussions people had when the North portion of Stoney Trail opened. People were like "why would I go around the City when I go straight through on 16th Avenue?". Sure, it was 20km more to travel on Stoney, but there would be no gridlock, no traffic lights, and you'd go 100km/h the whole way. I'll take that any day over driving through 16th Avenue.

[Slava]

Originally Posted by The Yen Man

Are there actually people who would rather spend more time on the road to save a few kilometres? I've never thought of it that way before. For me, whichever route gets me to a place the fastest is the way I go.

I would think that, but I'm sure that from the deep SW its faster to go down 22x and take deerfoot to the airport right now as opposed to Macleod, Anderson deerfoot. I figure that because there are less lights....but everytime I have to go north I go the "long way"....

The other point is that taking a taxi to the airport and adding on the additional km's means you pay more money.

[Cscutch]

Originally Posted by Slava

The other point is that taking a taxi to the airport and adding on the additional km's means you pay more money.

Taxi is time + Km to get a total cost....

So traffic = BAD

Chris