Ring Road To Nowhere

[calgarygeologist]

Originally Posted by Calgary14

Next up - Macleod south of 22x, around 4 relatively new sets of lights and a confusing speed pattern. Right now I think it goes from 70, to 80, then 110, then 80, then back to 110

Edit - after the ring road is completed of course

That last drop to 80 at Dunbow road is completely useless and unnecessary. No one slows down from 110km/h+ for that stretch of a few hundred meters were the limit is 80.

[FlamesKickAss]

Originally Posted by calgarygeologist

That last drop to 80 at Dunbow road is completely useless and unnecessary. No one slows down from 110km/h+ for that stretch of a few hundred meters were the limit is 80.

And coming north its 110, 80, 110, 90, 80....

[Fuzz]

Originally Posted by Reaper

This is the first "Diverging Diamond" design constructed in North America. I imagine everyone will have some degree of getting used to it.

First in Canada. US has 88 of them:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diverg...ge#Operational

And goddamn Wikipedia is fast at updating.

[GoinAllTheWay]

Man, this SW portion is going to have quite an impact on traffic in my area. I live in Braeside and with Anderson, southland & 90th ave all be directly connected, it should be quite a meaningful impact. The traffic on 14th would see a pretty significant dropoff I'd wager? Feel bad for people at where 90th currently ends. Such a quiet spot that's going to be the most affected I'd wager.

I've been looking at homes to buy in Woodbine, I wonder how much noise the new leg will produce and its impact on property prices. Combined with the new towers they are going to build on the current Oakridge coop, it's going to look very different in a few years.

[Minnie]

Oh, it's going nowhere for a while, alright. How long this will hold things up, who knows.

Link

The Alberta government has issued a stay of construction on part of the southwest Calgary ring road, after opposition from local group YYC Cares. The group is protesting the diverting of the Elbow River, and the construction of a kilometre-long earthen berm, along with a 150 metre-long bridge spanning the distance. The project would also require filling in 24 wetlands in the Weaselhead area.

Allie Tulick, YYC Cares spokesperson, says the loss of the wetlands would put nearby homeowners at risk if there’s another flood event like in 2013.

“The wetlands will absorb 1.5 billion gallons of flood waters, so they’re very critical in our defence for flood mitigation” says Tulick. “And the whole bridge design is negating flood management best practices.” Tulick says they don’t want to stop construction outright, but instead they’re proposing a different type of bridge, more like the open-span one on Stoney Trail over the Bow River in the northwest. This design would avoid the need to remove the wetlands.

In the current plan, there are a couple of storm water ponds proposed to replace the wetlands, but Tulick doesn’t think they would be sufficient. “They just collect the toxins and particles from runoff, but because they’re in the lowlands they’re going to, during a flood, potentially wash out into the Glenmore reservoir, which could contaminate our water.” Tulick says the stay was achieved through lots of effort including letters of concern, which were shot down.

[Zarley]

More NIMBY BS wasting time and taxpayer dollars. The same woman was protesting a McDonalds opening in Lakeview a couple years ago.

[CroFlames]

Sounds like she's nothing but a professional complainer.

[Knut]

McDonalds was never opened in Lakeview. So she must have been successful.

[zamler]

All this light talk

[BlackArcher101]

I'm confused, didn't the government hold many open houses for public input regarding the weaslehead crossing, then decided on the best one based on said input, which the majority of the public was then in support of? Then after all that, they just halt construction on one complaint by a new group that didn't provide input in the first place? WTF

edit: reading their press release http://www.yyccares.ca/press_release_august_11_2017 they keep referring to the fact that the ultimate design of the ring road has been scaled back, and this can now result in a more expensive bridge being built (ie, removing future expansion possibility). Where did that come from? Has in fact the design been scaled back or are they just interpreting that internal memo from June incorrectly as meaning ring roads are not a priority for the government.

[Huntingwhale]

Originally Posted by GoinAllTheWay

Man, this SW portion is going to have quite an impact on traffic in my area. I live in Braeside and with Anderson, southland & 90th ave all be directly connected, it should be quite a meaningful impact. The traffic on 14th would see a pretty significant dropoff I'd wager? Feel bad for people at where 90th currently ends. Such a quiet spot that's going to be the most affected I'd wager.

I live right by 90th for almost 10 years. It's definitely not what I'd call a quiet spot. 14th street is the only way to get there and 90th can get pretty busy (although having the triple turn lane really does help). The RR is going to be a godsend. Instead of having to go onto 14th and loop all the way around to get to the SW, it will be so damn easy and quick to just go around the back.

Combined with the fact that Anderson and Southland will all be connected, I don't think 90th will be too busy other then the people who live there. Right now, everyone in that area is forced to use 14th street. The fact that it bottlenecks right at 90th makes it even worse.

My only regret about the RR in that area is that I moved further south a couple months ago and won't get to enjoy benefits of the RR on a daily basis.

[Joborule]

Originally Posted by Minnie

Oh, it's going nowhere for a while, alright. How long this will hold things up, who knows.

Link

And it's costing 100K a day.

[llwhiteoutll]

Originally Posted by Joborule

And it's costing 100K a day.

If the appeal fails, those costs should be assessed against the people who launched the appeal. Would ensure that appeals are legitimate and fact based, not just NIMBYism

[MacDaddy77]

why is it costing $100,000/day? it's not like there isn't other construction to do! move on down the ROW and work on something else

[Joborule]

Originally Posted by MacDaddy77

why is it costing $100,000/day? it's not like there isn't other construction to do! move on down the ROW and work on something else

...

KGL Constructors, the joint venture partnership constructing the bridge — about a kilometre long earthen berm spanning the valley with the river diverted through a 150-metre gap — says the delay is costing over $100,000 a day.

“KGL advises that it is incurring damages of over a hundred thousand dollars a day in direct costs for each day that the Approval is stayed, in addition to indirect costs and schedule impacts,” said Ron Kruhlak, a lawyer representing KGL, in a letter written to the board obtained by Postmedia.

[MacDaddy77]

^^ still dont understand why it's costing money. KGL was awarded more than just this bridge

[ken0042]

I haven't looked, but does the area go through the land that the Province bought from the Tsuu Tina? If so, while building tall bridges preserves the wetlands in question, it does limit how wide the road can be made in the future. One of the ideas with building the two directions of travel so far apart is it allows for further development in between without having to renegotiate with the Tsuu Tina. Had Deerfoot been built with somebody thinking 50 years ahead, we would have no issues with expanding it to suit our needs.

[llwhiteoutll]

Originally Posted by MacDaddy77

^^ still dont understand why it's costing money. KGL was awarded more than just this bridge

People and equipment mobilized specifically for that scope, schedule delays and pushing dates out if work is tied to critical path items. Not to mention that it's not always simply to move a piece or equipment or a worker to a new workfront and you might now be able to start later scopes if earlier work isn't yet completed.

[Mazrim]

Originally Posted by MacDaddy77

^^ still dont understand why it's costing money. KGL was awarded more than just this bridge

These bridges take a while to build - they were likely on a critical schedule path and have crews waiting to jump on it as soon as they can. Sure, the crews can probably work elsewhere on the time being, but they probably don't want to abandon something shortly after starting to hit the critical pieces when they're available.

So I imagine they're looking at the man-hour cost of the crews work that should be happening right now, the cost of the equipment, fuel, supplies, subcontractors and so on, and that is their projected burn rate per day for the Weaselhead area grading and bridge work.

EDIT: Looks like whiteout said the same thing at the same time!

[Brendone]

Originally Posted by Slava

I wasn't sure which thread to put this in, and I know that somewhere in this thread we spoke about the 162/Macleod overpass. It opened this morning, and I'm not too sure about it. Obviously I've only driven it once here, so it could be changing some more, but I was a little underwhelmed.

I came from the west onto Macleod Trail and it seems like there are more lights to make that happen now? Like I say, I could be wrong, and it could work out awesome, but at this point it didn't seem that good to me. Thoughts?

I'm taking the overpass into sun park from shawnessy, until the northbound ramp into sun park opens and so far so good. There are more lights then before, but they seem to change much quicker (excluding the lights just east of the LRT which still suck) so I'm getting across Macleod faster than before. We'll see when everyone's back from summer vacation.

Lots of people struggling with what lane to be in, which I find strange given how clear the signs are. I'll chalk that up to poor reading comprehension and multitasking (seems they can read or steer, not both). Pretty straight forward as far as I'm concerned.