Ongoing Calgarians complaining about pedestrian bridges thread

[calgarygeologist]

Originally Posted by I-Hate-Hulse

They' d better put a few machine gun nests in that bridge to deal with the sketchies that will inhabit that bridge semi-permanently.

With land to expand limited, I wonder if Chinook will try and eventually acquire the Home Depot / Staples lands and expand the mall over Macleod.

If they were to try and expand I would assume it might be easier to acquire the land between 59 and 61 Ave and MacLeod and 1a street. That land is essentially vacant now. The few businesses that are in there should be easy to get rid of. They could probably easily link the existing parkade under MacLeod to the other side.

[corporatejay]

For real though. Why is the north side of the river such a dump pile? Is there plans to make it nicer?

[FireGilbert]

This is an A+ thread, there is some gold in here.

I used to live at 8th St and 1st Ave in Sunnyside and got really excited when I found out about the new bridge which would cut my commute by 10 minutes and save me from the crazy bicycles on the super narrow bridge under the train. Unfortunately not having the bridge continue over Memorial was a huge mistake which they are now doubling down on. The bridge on the north side of Prince's Island was the perfect design, why couldn't they have copied that?

[Bigtime]

I would have loved an even longer Peace bridge with it going over Memorial. I wonder if the space was too tight with the housing on the north side of Memorial?

Speaking of the Prince's Island bridge, it is still incredibly busy (and may even be the busiest pedestrian bridge in the city) and really could use a widening if that is at all possible.

[Mazrim]

I keep confusing this thread title with the "ongoing calgarians hit by trains thread", which forms this hilarious "ongoing calgarians hit by pedestrian bridges thread" title in my mind. In this case, I'll have to thank my brain for that one.

[Jimmy Stang]

Originally Posted by Mazrim

I keep confusing this thread title with the "ongoing calgarians hit by trains thread", which forms this hilarious "ongoing calgarians hit by pedestrian bridges thread" title in my mind. In this case, I'll have to thank my brain for that one.

You're not the only one. My initial fuzzy-eyed morning reaction is "What? Again? Sheesh!" and then I realize that it is the bridge thread.

[Wormius]

Is there something that is causing people to end up having to jaywalk there? What I mean is, not everybody who is jaywalking is leaving their house on 8th St and have to jaywalk there. Anybody leaving shops or the ctrain would be logically coming down 10th and can cross there. Couldn't people just adjust their departure points and head down a street that has a pedestrian crossing over Memorial Drive and then walk a little bit west or east to the Peace Bridge?

[Fuzz]

When you are walking "a little bit" is a lot farther than you ever want to go. If you are standing at Memorial at 9th, and look around it's a long way to the crossing, then you have to go back again. It's a lot easier to just cross Memorial. Why do people end up their? Look at the angle of the streets, they all go in that direction. So if you are going to, say somewhere on the east end of downtown, going towards 10th doesn't make much sense. Plus the bridge under the LRT sucks.

[Fuzz]

Not a bridge, but I drove past this yesterday and want to nominate it the most useless sidewalk in Calgary:
https://goo.gl/maps/hnRox1aDeyJ2

Why bother making this? Why so long? Just long enough to trick people into thinking it goes somewhere?

[llwhiteoutll]

Originally Posted by I-Hate-Hulse

They' d better put a few machine gun nests in that bridge to deal with the sketchies that will inhabit that bridge semi-permanently.

With land to expand limited, I wonder if Chinook will try and eventually acquire the Home Depot / Staples lands and expand the mall over Macleod.

I think Cadillac Fairview already owns the parcel of land that HD and Staples sit on.

Either way, I don't see them expanding across, they already have a hugely successful anchor store there and the expanison would be insanely expensive.

[Swift]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

Not a bridge, but I drove past this yesterday and want to nominate it the most useless sidewalk in Calgary:
https://goo.gl/maps/hnRox1aDeyJ2

Why bother making this? Why so long? Just long enough to trick people into thinking it goes somewhere?

Pedestrians are treated woefully in this city.

[TheScorpion]

I think a 4- or 5-year-deal for Gaudreau would be a really pedestrian bridge, and I would complain about it endlessly.

[MrMastodonFarm]

Originally Posted by TheScorpion

I think a 4- or 5-year-deal for Gaudreau would be a really pedestrian bridge, and I would complain about it endlessly.

If you're going to post unfunny nonsense at least do us all a favour and stay in FOI okay?

[getbak]

Originally Posted by Wormius

Is there something that is causing people to end up having to jaywalk there? What I mean is, not everybody who is jaywalking is leaving their house on 8th St and have to jaywalk there. Anybody leaving shops or the ctrain would be logically coming down 10th and can cross there. Couldn't people just adjust their departure points and head down a street that has a pedestrian crossing over Memorial Drive and then walk a little bit west or east to the Peace Bridge?

I just used the Google Maps "Measure Distance" tool to "walk" from the north side of the Peace Bridge to the Sunnyside C-Train station...

• Going down the pathway to 10th Street, crossing Memorial at 10th, and walking up 10th Street to the C-Train station is just over 1km.
  
• Using the pedestrian overpass at 9A St and going north on 9A to the C-Train station reduced the distance slightly, to about 900m.
  
• Jaywalking across Memorial to 8th St, walking up 8th St to 3rd Ave and over to the C-Train station is about 550m.
  
• Taking the pathway to the new crossing at 9th St and walking up 9th St to the C-Train station is about 460m.

Because of the way the streets in Sunnyside are angled, if your destination is northwest of your current location, you inevitably have to do some backtracking. The current legal pedestrian crossings nearly double the distance you have to walk compared to jaywalking at 8th or 9th Streets.


I honestly didn't think the difference would be that significant. The fact that it is really explains why a lot of people choose to jaywalk there.

[I-Hate-Hulse]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

Not a bridge, but I drove past this yesterday and want to nominate it the most useless sidewalk in Calgary:
https://goo.gl/maps/hnRox1aDeyJ2

Why bother making this? Why so long? Just long enough to trick people into thinking it goes somewhere?

LOL, I lived in that area for decades and didn't even realize that stumpy section was there.

I suspect I know the answer though - Hawkwood was built in the boom years of 1979 / 80. For the kids here - take the boom of 2005-7, multiple it by 3 and you get a sense of how truly crazy it was here.

Hawkwood phase 1 - the area west of Hawkwood drive and south of Hawkwood Rd was a product of 79/81. You can see it today - houses have wood siding, closed floor plans from the East, and larger sized yards. The stumpy sidewalk we're laughing about was a part of this initial development, left unfinished until the plans for the rest of Hawkwood were drawn up for Phase 2 and beyond. Everything east of Hawkwood Dr still looks like Nose Hill in 1981. The Church you see today was smaller, as they built an extension in the 90's.

1982 hits and IMHO, is twice is bad as the current recession. The housing market is in freefall, and no one's buying (15- 18% interest rates!). The developer of phase 1 (Costain?) either sells the development or goes bankrupt. Hawkwood as a development doesn't grow for 6-8 years.

Somewhere in the late 80's / 90's development resumes on Hawkwood, this time by a different developer (Melcor I think). Oddly, they start on the Eastern side of Hawkwood and move westward to the Phase 1 section. There is no "master" plan to speak of to integrate the two phases and make them harmonious....they just kind of meet up. The sidewalk to nowhere, never gets incorporated by Melcor into their development plans.

TLDR - That useless appendix of a sidewalk is probably representative of the shabby, car based master planning at the time and of the fact a 2nd developer awkwardly took over the development.

[SebC]

It's pretty simple: with a crossing at 8th and 9th, all pedestrian routes are fairly efficient. Just 8th, or even a crossing that's mid-block but lines up with the bridge would also be good. The key is 8th though.

[Bigtime]

The fluorescent lights are out, LED's are going in at the Peace bridge:

https://www.metronews.ca/news/calgar...form=hootsuite

I remember the initial renderings showing the lighting inset along the diagrid pattern. I wonder if that is what we'll get with this upgrade?

[Fuzz]

Didn't the original plan just have a single line of lights straight up the middle?

Also, this sounds expensive. $700 000 for a few hundred metres of lights? That sounds like it costs more than a city bus. Where do I apply for one of these city contracts?

[Bigtime]

Yeah, maybe they LED strips were along the top, trying to track down those original renderings. I always found the fluorescent lights and their casings to detract from the look of the bridge interior.

[Locke]

I'd almost forgotten all about pedestrian bridges. And yet here we are.