Ring Road To Nowhere

[Sainters7]

Originally Posted by CroFlames

How many goddam years does it take to make a simple goddam bridge over the goddam Bow River on the south portion of Stoney goddam Trail.

That started when I was still living in Chaparral Valley about a month before I moved downtown, so glad I got out of there when I did. My sis is in Sundance so I'm still in the area sometimes, blows my mind over 2 years later that it still looks like it's in the early stages.

[DoubleK]

Originally Posted by timun

Pretty much every one of these contracts is a lump-sum, so there's absolutely no incentive for the contractor not to get it done as quickly as humanly possible.

Pretty sure the south project isn't fixed price. Lump sum, yes, but they are allowed change orders AFAIK.

[btimbit]

Originally Posted by CroFlames

How many goddam years does it take to make a simple goddam bridge over the goddam Bow River on the south portion of Stoney goddam Trail.

Originally Posted by Sainters7

That started when I was still living in Chaparral Valley about a month before I moved downtown, so glad I got out of there when I did. My sis is in Sundance so I'm still in the area sometimes, blows my mind over 2 years later that it still looks like it's in the early stages.

Iirc they had some steel issues that really slowed the project to a crawl for a bit. Still a 2023 finish date though, or so they claim

[calf]

Originally Posted by Lubicon

It's annoying, hopefully people adapt to the changes. The way the lines are painted make me think it may not be permanent, however you can also see that the inner exit lane is designed mainly for the WB>SB exit with a split off the the NB lanes. Also keep in mind (according to the drawing on their website) that the two WB>NB and the two EB>NB lanes need to reduce to two NB lanes (total) as they come together. The plan shows 3 NB lanes coming down the hill and 5 lanes after everything merges so they have to lose two lanes somewhere. I wonder what the traffic models were like for WB>NB were, it sure seems like there is more traffic (at rush hour) than perhaps anticipated.

I think part of the problem is that the lane closes too early, and it closes in the middle of a curve - people seem to really struggle with that. If it was up even 75m, some of the issues would be sorted out. There's also a ton of room on the left hand shoulder as well, so I don't get it.

It does look like there's been a lot of paving around/starting on the bridge over the Bow, and the SB bridge to flyover above 16th Ave is paved as well. I really hope they can open some of the completed roads this year - getting more people onto NB Stoney earlier instead of taking Sarcee >16th > NB Stoney should help.

[#-3]

Originally Posted by woob

This could go in the WRGMG thread, but they've made the change to the WB 16th exit on to NB stoney and it sucks to say the least. What used to be a really well flowing exit is not anymore, as it goes from 2 lanes down to 1 far earlier. Feels like they could have designed this much better, to allow the volume of traffic to flow through on to NB stoney, without forcing everyone down to one lane so early.

If you go to 52 seconds the the rendering video posted here, you can see what the final stage is, they basically jumped ahead to that with the ramp, but the main road isn't there yet. I think it will flow just fine once the bridge over the river is done, it's not crushing down to 2 lanes, and the constructions speed limits aren't creating such wild variation in speeds.

I also think with the west leg is open you'll see a big drop in the number of people cutting over from Sarcee to Stoney using that turn.

[Lubicon]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

WB>NB may drop sometime after the south leg opens, as right now, the bypass is to the North. But with the south open, a lot of traffic going further east on the TCH will head south instead of North if they ever do the 22x>Gleichen bypass. Was that ever approved, or still just an idea? Seems an easy win.

Originally Posted by you&me

Is there a lot of NB traffic from Sarcee that ends up WB 16th > NB Stoney? Perhaps there's modelling showing that traffic will get onto Stoney NB further south once the west RR is complete, so the anticipated volumes for WB>NB will drop once everything's completed and tied in

Originally Posted by #-3

If you go to 52 seconds the the rendering video posted here, you can see what the final stage is, they basically jumped ahead to that with the ramp, but the main road isn't there yet. I think it will flow just fine once the bridge over the river is done, it's not crushing down to 2 lanes, and the constructions speed limits aren't creating such wild variation in speeds.

I also think with the west leg is open you'll see a big drop in the number of people cutting over from Sarcee to Stoney using that turn.

Had not considered that but agree, it makes sense. I'd be one of those people.

[Acey]

Every Stoney/Henday leg has had an October 1st opening date so it's a fairly safe bet it will be that as well for everything 2024.

Originally Posted by calgarygeologist

The one part that disappoints me about the new TCH/Stoney interchange is that westbound TCH just before Valley Ridge bottlenecks down to two lanes from three. I'm not really sure why they designed it that way but it seems really stupid.

I'm pretty sure this is a limitation in the Highway Design Guide preventing 3 lane + 3 lane merges... AB Trans really doesn't like to go 6 lanes wide if they can help it. When we see 3 down to 2 as Calgarians were forgiven for immediately thinking of the Deerfoot abominations at Glenmore and Bow Bottom but based on volumes I don't really see this being a catastrophic bottleneck, traffic is only about 13,000 vehicles per day and westbound traffic going through the interchange this will go down with the west leg open as the NB-WB flyover takes over some of the load.

For comparison, at Glenmore, Deerfoot carries about 40,000 each way as it crunches from 3 to 2.

Originally Posted by Lubicon

Not as long as it's taking to do the one on the West Stoney project.

To be fair, that one is very complicated and has run into some issues, not the least of which are dumb environmental stuff... restrictions they didn't have to deal with building the identical one next to it.

As for the one down on 22X - no idea what's taking so long... but there's no real incentive for the project to be dragged out as long as humanly possible. Of that I'm sure.

[Lubicon]

The new lane markings on the WB>NB ramp from the TCH to Stoney North were removed and redone over the weekend. The weird right hand lane ending (in the middle of the curve) was changed and the two lanes now merge further along the ramp. Not sure if traffic volumes were lighter than normal yesterday or whether the adjustment made a difference but traffic was flowing much better yesterday in the afternoon commute than it has for the past few weeks since the initial changes were made and messed everything up.

[timun]

Originally Posted by DoubleK

Pretty sure the south project isn't fixed price. Lump sum, yes, but they are allowed change orders AFAIK.

There isn't a lump sum contract in the world that doesn't "allow" for change orders. Changes have to be justifiable; the contractor can't just arbitrarily ask for more money. Examples of justifiable reasons to change things include site conditions being different than expected, materials shortages requiring an alternate product be provided, or a design change initiated by the owner/client.

[Acey]

They're paving the big new bridge over the river now, looks to me like it's ready soon.

I drove through there today for the first time in months, everything looks good to me. I see some places where they've learned from their mistakes on the ring road legs. We'll have to see annoying that EB-SB single-lane ramp is but I don't see it being significantly worse than the single-lane SB-WB ramp at Stoney NE/Deerfoot even though that one is downhill.

[lazypucker]

Originally Posted by Acey

They're paving the big new bridge over the river now, looks to me like it's ready soon.

I drove through there today for the first time in months, everything looks good to me. I see some places where they've learned from their mistakes on the ring road legs. We'll have to see annoying that EB-SB single-lane ramp is but I don't see it being significantly worse than the single-lane SB-WB ramp at Stoney NE/Deerfoot even though that one is downhill.

So when will the new Bow River bridge and the 16 Ave to Old Banff section open?

[Lubicon]

Originally Posted by Acey

They're paving the big new bridge over the river now, looks to me like it's ready soon.

I drove through there today for the first time in months, everything looks good to me. I see some places where they've learned from their mistakes on the ring road legs. We'll have to see annoying that EB-SB single-lane ramp is but I don't see it being significantly worse than the single-lane SB-WB ramp at Stoney NE/Deerfoot even though that one is downhill.

Also installing railings and are doing concrete cutting on the old bridge in the evenings/night. Cutting up the median barrier into sections I'm assuming so they can remove them when the time comes.

Not sure if it rained hard there last night (we live up the hill in Tuscany and my wife said it did not) but a couple of weeks ago they filled all the cracks in the NB lanes. Last night they had all lifted and were littering the road like a bunch of snakes.

[Acey]

No idea on the timeline for anything opening, I'm not working on this one like I was briefly for the southwest and don't really know anyone involved. To me it would be wild if that bridge didn't open this October. From 16 Ave down to Glenmore looks like Oct 1, 2024.

[Jimmy Stang]

Originally Posted by Acey

They're paving the big new bridge over the river now, looks to me like it's ready soon.

I drove through there today for the first time in months, everything looks good to me. I see some places where they've learned from their mistakes on the ring road legs. We'll have to see annoying that EB-SB single-lane ramp is but I don't see it being significantly worse than the single-lane SB-WB ramp at Stoney NE/Deerfoot even though that one is downhill.

According to the latest WCRR project update email (June 26), once the bridge opens, the other one will be closed for rehab. Not sure for how long though.

Waterproofing tile has been placed on the entire length of the bridge deck as the precursor to paving. Once paving and other finishing works are complete, traffic will be shifted to the new bridge and rehabilitation work on the existing bridge will begin.

http://secure.campaigner.com/csb/Pub...3z308-c09ranz0

[Hemi-Cuda]

Man they really need to twin that overpass on Hwy 2 just north of Crossiron. Left turn traffic on that bridge backs up both directions onto the actual highway, and it takes forever to cross it with normal traffic. Add in a few big trucks and it makes it so much worse

[you&me]

Originally Posted by Acey

No idea on the timeline for anything opening, I'm not working on this one like I was briefly for the southwest and don't really know anyone involved. To me it would be wild if that bridge didn't open this October. From 16 Ave down to Glenmore looks like Oct 1, 2024.

Looking at it through my layman's lens as a drive by, that seems like an absurdly long time.

[Acey]

Originally Posted by you&me

Looking at it through my layman's lens as a drive by, that seems like an absurdly long time.

I'd agree, that's just the latest timeline I heard. Every ring road leg here and Edmonton has had a Oct 1 opening so that's why I assume that, but again I have no info on this project. I'd be glad if it was earlier.

[iggy_oi]

Originally Posted by you&me

Looking at it through my layman's lens as a drive by, that seems like an absurdly long time.

Wasn’t it supposed to be done this October but COVID gave them an out to delay it or something like that?

[Lubicon]

Originally Posted by Hemi-Cuda

Man they really need to twin that overpass on Hwy 2 just north of Crossiron. Left turn traffic on that bridge backs up both directions onto the actual highway, and it takes forever to cross it with normal traffic. Add in a few big trucks and it makes it so much worse

Not really a Ring Road topic but in response to your comment - they are.

And in typical fashion it will be a 5 year project and will be getting into full swing about the same time the new interchange a few miles north in Airdrie opens. So the construction zone will just shift down the highway a few mils.

https://calgaryherald.com/news/local...businesses-say

[Jimmy Stang]

WCRR Ring Road email newsletter today says that they are shifting SB traffic onto the new Bow River bridge this week, mostly overnight to avoid disruption. Expect reduced speed limits of 60 throughout, delays, etc.

Then "in the coming weeks", NB will also shift to the new bridge so the old one can get some TLC.

Far from finished, but I'd say that's a nice little milestone.