Calgary Roads Discussion Thread

[Slava]

Neither one of those seems unfounded though. I lived near the Somerset C-train before it was there, and the change was incredibly notable. That did get a lot of use (the BRT appears completely unused), but there’s no question that it brought a certain element to suburbia that wasn’t there before.

[bizaro86]

Originally Posted by Slava

Neither one of those seems unfounded though. I lived near the Somerset C-train before it was there, and the change was incredibly notable. That did get a lot of use (the BRT appears completely unused), but there’s no question that it brought a certain element to suburbia that wasn’t there before.

I wasn't saying it was unfounded, just that it was a concern people had. For that area one C-Train station they'd probably be familiar with would be Chinook station. I don't go there often, but the last few times there were a number of people treating their diabetes in the immediate area.

[Hack&Lube]

Originally Posted by timun

There's that too. Public transit = poor people = crime was definitely at play in the minds of some.

One of my team members is late to work every now and then and he's always armed with pictures of the shenanigans at Westbrook LRT with meth heads starting fights, sleeping on the train, acting crazy, etc. Last week some guy crawled onto the train and kept resting his head on people's feet. When the riders moved their feet, the guy followed.

That being the closest Walmart to an LRT seems to have caused issues.

[btimbit]

More road closures for HBO this weekend. 1st St SW between 12th and 13th ave.

[Bill Bumface]

Originally Posted by Hack&Lube

What's so hard to accept about Induced Demand being a real factor in things?

When downtown was bustling, people would always be trying to find shortcuts and other methods to get in and out. Some who didn't want to deal with the commute time and gridlock would take transit instead.

Now, add a downtown penetrator, parkades, & other car infrastructure and you induce demand for people who now decide that driving to downtown is easy and they quickly swamp the freeway as more people find out about it. You have induced a higher demand for driving by giving people a more compelling reason to drive.

The opposite happens with reduced demand, where if you remove a major artery, the cost and difficulty of transport by personal car increases, and therefore you reduce the demand for car traffic as people will choose alternative means like transit or cycling. In fact, with the closures of Memorial, Centre Street Bridge, and the 5th avenue flyover in the past year from covid, filming, construction, I have chosen to cycle a lot more because of those.

A bigger aspect of induced demand is home construction. If a commute gets shorter, an area becomes more desirable, and more homes will be built there. In the case of a roadway, the more users, the slower it gets.

So you essentially have a period of incentivizing far flung development until your road is congested again.

[Ducay]

So kind of the city to let the 'Last of Us' filming close off a few arterial roads this morning for filming. 9th Ave heading into downtown was at a standstill as they have roads closed at 4th/6th Streets and 8 Ave. Never seen a wall of traffic that bad on 9th.

[btimbit]

Definitely frustrating, but 'Let' is being generous. HBO pays big money to the city for the privilege

[Lubicon]

Looks like the Bow Trail U Turn project project is starting construction. Noticed pylons, signs etc. and an electronic sign about the project when I drove home yesterday.

https://www.calgary.ca/citycouncil/w...n-project.html

[Weitz]

Why not just fix the timing of the lights?

I know this city is piss poor at traffic design, but a slight adjustment on timing would probably solve the issue that this u turn is trying to solve.

I see it’s for the increased traffic of when the ring road is completed so I guess that makes sense. But the city still can’t think outside of the box (see 69th at the ring road) and seems like a poor fix.

[Nancy]

Originally Posted by Weitz

Why not just fix the timing of the lights?

I know this city is piss poor at traffic design, but a slight adjustment on timing would probably solve the issue that this u turn is trying to solve.

I see it’s for the increased traffic of when the ring road is completed so I guess that makes sense. But the city still can’t think outside of the box (see 69th at the ring road) and seems like a poor fix.

Yes! The current timing is about 10 years out of date. This is not going to be a popular suggestion for some, but the downtown commute traffic needs to be deprioritized and more time given to Sarcee through traffic and turning traffic lanes. The image below is traffic at this very moment, but it is typical of PM rush traffic. Just insane backlogs for Sarcee and for turning left from EB Bow to NB Sarcee.

I almost feel like they should suspend issuing new building permits (in West Springs and Aspen) until the ring road is open but, of course, I don't actually expect they'd entertain that.

[Fighting Banana Slug]

Pretty sure Acey summarized the problem at Sarcee/Bow. It’s broken. Changing the timing won’t work. The uturn lane is just a bandaid

[Acey]

Yeah there's a bit of optimization that could be done at Sarcee/Bow but it is so far beyond failure in every direction at peak hours that the difference would be negligible. You can give Sarcee through movements a bit more of a green and it'd just turn the EB-NB left turn movement into even more of a parking lot.

It's such a state of desperation there that any dollar they can find to throw at a bandaid fix is welcomed, and then they're just praying for the west ring road to at least partially bail them out.

[calgarygeologist]

I don't get down to Crowchild/Glenmore very often but it looks like the city has finally gotten rid of the stupid 70 zone on northbound Crowchild coming off Glenmore. They covered up the 70 signs and there is no construction zone so I'm assuming it is 80 now.

[calgarygeologist]

An 11th Street SW underpass at the CP tracks could be vehicle free based on these proposals. I'm not necessarily sure this is a good idea.

https://calgary.ctvnews.ca/proposed-...-s-w-1.5953941

[Weitz]

It’s a terrible idea. Which is probably why the city will do it.

[TorqueDog]

Originally Posted by calgarygeologist

I don't get down to Crowchild/Glenmore very often but it looks like the city has finally gotten rid of the stupid 70 zone on northbound Crowchild coming off Glenmore. They covered up the 70 signs and there is no construction zone so I'm assuming it is 80 now.

About bloody time. Did you happen to see if they also got rid of the stupid drop to 70 on SB Crowchild past 50 Ave? It would be nice if they could get rid of the 70 zone NB past 33 Ave as well and bring it back to a harmonized 80.

[btimbit]

Originally Posted by Weitz

It’s a terrible idea. Which is probably why the city will do it.

Only way I see that happening is if one engineer/project manager makes it a pet project and rams it through despite protests from departments involved

[timun]

Originally Posted by TorqueDog

About bloody time. Did you happen to see if they also got rid of the stupid drop to 70 on SB Crowchild past 50 Ave? It would be nice if they could get rid of the 70 zone NB past 33 Ave as well and bring it back to a harmonized 80.

I feel silly; I drove through there Saturday and honestly can't remember if the signage was still there or not...

The 70 km/h signage was too small in the first place and, after the pedestrian bridge at 54th Ave was finished, seemingly totally unnecessary so unless I happened to see a photo radar unit I tended to ignore the speed limit anyway.

The 70 km/h zone north of 26th Ave is, as far as I know, to make it easier for people trying to merge onto Crowchild from 17th Ave, 24th Street and Bow Trail.

[calgarygeologist]

Originally Posted by TorqueDog

About bloody time. Did you happen to see if they also got rid of the stupid drop to 70 on SB Crowchild past 50 Ave? It would be nice if they could get rid of the 70 zone NB past 33 Ave as well and bring it back to a harmonized 80.

It was still 70 going south at the end of Crowchild. It should definitely be 80 between Glenmore and the 9th/12th Ave ramps.

[ken0042]

The one thing I have noticed is that on SB Crowchild there is less of a jam getting onto EB Glenmore. I know there have been studies about how reducing the speed limit on freeways can make the flow better- could that be a part of the reason there is less of a jam now?