Quote:
Originally Posted by Boris2k7
...why we need an E-W expressway in the north in the first place, and why this would be a good thing necessarily. You're not going to get away with the flimsy, "well, it'll be good for the economy" argument.
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(Risking trying to raise the civility of the thread...)
Here's my kick at the can.
When you look at north Calgary outside the inner city, the majority a major employment centres are located in the NE (especially between 36 St NE and Deerfoot Trail) while the NW is mostly residential. Consequently, there is a lot of west to east traffic movement in the AM while a lot of east to west traffic movement in the PM on a very limitited number of roads. Most of these employment centres are light industrial and commercial, and are not as transit friendly as the downtown core (especially the light industrial). While there is transit service, the existing set up cannot warrent an E-W LRT line.
While you can argue that the city should have made some of these developments more transit friendly, a number of the industrial-based employment centres like manufactoring and shipping require exstensive space and are not suited for high density development.
While it may not be officially recognized as such, the north Calgary E-W expressway is McKnight Blvd and John Laurie Blvd, and the city is looking to make
improvements to McKnight between JLB and 19 St NE. The problem is that this corridor, especially in the NW, goes through residential communities and does not connect with Stoney Trail or with good connections to TCH 1, meaning it would not make an ideal route for the Trans Canada Highway.
In an ideal world (i.e. what should have happened 25+ years ago), (1) there should have been more commerical development in the suberban NW, (2) John Laurie Blvd should have connected directly with Crowchild Trail and TCH 1 west, making TCH 1 follow JLB and McKnight before communties like Brentwood or Dalhousie were constructed, and (3) there should be more E-W connectors in Calgary, like 32 Ave N going all the way to Crowchild, especially after it was determined that the 24th St/TCH Freeway was dead. But none of this did happen or will happen (with the possible exception of #1) so there needs to be a willingness to accomidate this movement.
So to summerize, improve McKnight & John Laurie for Calgary based E-W movement and reroute the TCH to Glenmore Trail.
