Ring Road To Nowhere

[Slava]

Originally Posted by undercoverbrother

I can't seem to remember how the home purchasing went down when Glenmore was made bigger. Didn't the city buy some homes on the northside of Glenmore, between Elbow and 14 st?

Yes, definitely. It also happened for the West LRT and I think for 16 ave.

[Jimmy Stang]

Originally Posted by You Need a Thneed

The route has to get around the corner at Glenmore/37th. That means the road would have to veer East of 37th, straight through the heart of Lakeview, arc around the corner, take out a bunch of Glamorgan. To make the corner with a 100km speed limit would require significant chunks of Lakeview and Glamorgan. If that route was ever actually done, they would probably save a few houses, by lowering the design speed to 60 or 80 kmh around that corner.

Are you saying that a freeway can't turn 90 degrees at 100 kph?

There were some drawings/estimates posted somewhere on here ages ago that showed how much of Lakeview would have to be flattened to maintain a safe curve at freeway speed. I'm too lazy to look for them, but I was surprised at how wide the turn would have to be.

The fact is, the city built themselves into a corner decades ago, and the only viable route is through the reserve. It won't be cheap, but it easily beats the alternatives. If they city/province had a reasonable plan B, they would have started building it already.

[Southside]

It's a lot of money. Both the cash component and the land, so, I really don't know but have to ask. Could portions of the southwest leg go underground? Surely that much dough could go a long ways toward underground passage.

[browna]

Originally Posted by You Need a Thneed

The route has to get around the corner at Glenmore/37th. That means the road would have to veer East of 37th, straight through the heart of Lakeview, arc around the corner, take out a bunch of Glamorgan. To make the corner with a 100km speed limit would require significant chunks of Lakeview and Glamorgan. If that route was ever actually done, they would probably save a few houses, by lowering the design speed to 60 or 80 kmh around that corner.

Also, building a narrow ROW road requires more structure to be built than the standard, wide ROW highway. If you don't have ditches, you have to build something else to handle storm water. More retaining a walks would be needed.

There's also the fact that the 37st road won't be as wide/thus fast/thus capacity won't be as great. Plus the bridge over the Weaslhead will be more$ than the crossing of the river (IIRC) further west where the road will actually be if it goes to the reserve.

Plans are in place and land is appropriated to have a wider Glenmore west of Crowchild (you can see the retaining walls on the northside of Glenmore, bordering Garrison Green), and the berm on the south side will be eliminated, with a higher wall, to allow 3 lanes west of Crowchild...however, that
was meant to handle the capacity for a Ring Road west of 37th, not a 37th St ring road.

As has been mentioned, if that was as feasible a plan, even if it meant 60-80 Lakeview homes, it would've been pursued....however, as mentioned, there are lots of compromises that would have to be made as far as size, scope, capacity, inconvience (construction and the rerouting and replanning of West Lakeview) and for a total cost that won't be much more economical than the ideal first option.

That said, hopefully the City and Province has made it clear that this is the final offer, and if rejected, soon brings in the earthmovers (ideally parked at 37th and Glenmore, making casino access as inconvenient as possible) and moves ahead with that project, and the TN loses out on their hundreds of millions of dollars in cash, and severely stunts the development of the plans they have for the casino/upcoming hotel and likely many more commercial projects on that land.

[J epworth]

Originally Posted by Southside

It's a lot of money. Both the cash component and the land, so, I really don't know but have to ask. Could portions of the southwest leg go underground? Surely that much dough could go a long ways toward underground passage.

They have proposed that in the 2011 report on the SW ring road, the issue with tunnelling is you can't transport dangerous goods in tunnels in Alberta, so many of the trucks that would potentially use the ring road would be left out.

[Acey]

Tunnel estimates are about $1B per 1 km for a freeway of this size. Not worth it.

[TorqueDog]

But tunnels are so awesome.

Originally Posted by J epworth kendal

They have proposed that in the 2011 report on the SW ring road, the issue with tunnelling is you can't transport dangerous goods in tunnels in Alberta, so many of the trucks that would potentially use the ring road would be left out.

Sounds like a great law to get rid of.

[getbak]

Originally Posted by J epworth kendal

They have proposed that in the 2011 report on the SW ring road, the issue with tunnelling is you can't transport dangerous goods in tunnels in Alberta, so many of the trucks that would potentially use the ring road would be left out.

I assume dangerous goods would also be a problem if they built a bridge over the Weaselhead. The restrictions would need to be at least as strict as they are for Glenmore Trail passing over the Reservoir.

[Acey]

Severe restrictions on crossing the extremely sensitive Fish Creek as well, that'd be the reason Macleod is basically the only way to go.

[5seconds]

There are 109 homes along 37th street itself plus 2 apartment buildings with 66 apartments, and that is just directly in line with the road.

This is a diagram I did up a while ago to show what a 110km/600m turning radius would look like in Lakeview. You can also get a sense of the impacts to Glamorgan, though moving the intersection further north or south would shift the impact between the two communities. (I will stress that this is not based on any official plans, just a visualization of what a 600m radius turn looks like in that area.)

In 2002 the City themselves estimated just over 500 residences (houses, duplexes, condos, apartments, seniors residences etc) would be needed even for a lower speed 37th street ring road and Glenmore interchange which would have a much smaller footprint than this diagram.

[Acey]

I invite anyone interested to go read 5seconds' extensive blog on everything Stoney Trail, after which you will have no further questions on the matter.

http://calgaryringroad.wordpress.com/tag/stoney-trail/

[Cuz]

Originally Posted by Acey

I invite anyone interested to go read 5seconds' extensive blog on everything Stoney Trail, after which you will have no further questions on the matter.

http://calgaryringroad.wordpress.com/tag/stoney-trail/

Very good read, seems to be a fair assessment of the issues surrounding the road. It does lead me to wonder, if the main contention of the nation was the wording of the agreement, why did it take so long to reach another agreement in principle?

[BlackArcher101]

What about elevating it?

[ken0042]

Originally Posted by Cuz

Very good read, seems to be a fair assessment of the issues surrounding the road. It does lead me to wonder, if the main contention of the nation was the wording of the agreement, why did it take so long to reach another agreement in principle?

I think a lot of the land being promised to TTN was land that the province did not yet have control over. So it had leases and land sales in progress. So because of that there was a lot of conditional wording in the last agreement.

A lot of the land that was promised is now within control of the province, so instead of having to say:

"as long as the current leashold (who's contract is up in 2012) doesn't issue any of the following challenges:
(5 pages of possible issues)"
It now says:

"We will give you X parcel of land in exchange for Y parcel of land, as well as Z number of dollars."

I can't say I can blame the First Nations for not trusting us for contracts we trying to push through on them. We do have a track record of not always working in their best interests over the last 400 years.

[Acey]

Originally Posted by Cuz

Very good read, seems to be a fair assessment of the issues surrounding the road. It does lead me to wonder, if the main contention of the nation was the wording of the agreement, why did it take so long to reach another agreement in principle?

As he mentioned, it may be due to politics; the province's need to puff out their chest as it were, and make it seem like they were the ones in control. So they walked away for a while, an unnecessarily long while. Seems they and the city also spent money to confirm that any of the ring road options through the city are both prohibitively expensive, and do not properly serve the purpose of a ring road.

Originally Posted by BlackArcher101

What about elevating it?

Extremely expensive, and very inaesthetic (ugly). The province makes the contractors adhere to surprisingly stringent standards in regards to aesthetics, that's why you see the mountain pattern and wild rose emblems on the retaining walls, which look quite nice.

Here's a bit of what they required of the SE leg currently under construction, and probably far more beyond what's in this document:

Spoiler!

The Contractor is advised that the Department supports and encourages the inclusion of cost effective features to improve the overall roadway and bridge structure aesthetics. The Contractor shall develop and incorporate in its design an aesthetic theme throughout the New Infrastructure that shall complement the surrounding environment and generally be compatible with similar features and structures located in the general vicinity... Aesthetics shall be considered in the layout and design of all roadway elements.

...the aesthetics of the New Infrastructure shall be generally compatible with the northwest and northeast legs of Stoney Trail (the “Other Legs”). The following specific aesthetic features shall be incorporated into the New Infrastructure:

• the “wild rose” emblem on abutment wingwalls facing traffic;
• the aesthetic treatment of pier shapes for roadway grade separation bridges;
• the aesthetic treatment of concrete slope protection surfaces; and
• the use of pigmented sealers (three colours) on exposed concrete surfaces.
  In addition, artistic renderings that cover a minimum of 25% of the exposed surface area shall be provided on all retaining walls except for retaining walls at railway overpasses.

[Tron_fdc]

No lights on EB/WB 22x at 52 st. Smooth sailing this morning through there, which was awesome.

Can't wait for for Oct 1st!

[Knut]

Driving on Glenmore East over Stoney most of the on/off ramps are complete with only minor Aesthetic work left to do. It is pretty much ready there.

[You Need a Thneed]

52nd St is also open all the way south to Seton Blvd.

EB 22x traffic now goes under the basketweave ramps, WB-SB and NB-EB.

[ken0042]

Do you know if the traffic lights are working at 52nd and Auburn Bay Blvd? Or is it still just a 4 way stop?

[You Need a Thneed]

Originally Posted by ken0042

Do you know if the traffic lights are working at 52nd and Auburn Bay Blvd? Or is it still just a 4 way stop?

Auburn Bay Drive? That was still a 4 way stop when I drove through.