Calgary Area Highways

mersar · #1 Posted **May 13, 2010, 5:30 AM**

Just figured I'll start a separate thread as theres numerous outside of Calgary highway projects coming up that may be of interest to some people.

Current Projects:
1. QE2 / Yankee Valley Blvd (Airdrie) interchange expansion - U/C
2. QE2 @ Cross Iron Drive interchange construction - U/C
3. Highway 22 @ River Heights Drive (Cochrane) intersection relocation - Tender

Future Projects:
1. Highway 22 @ Highway 1A intersection improvements
2. Highway 1A twinning (Cochrane to existing twinned portion west of Lochend Road)
3. Transcanada Highway @ Range Road 33 (Springbank) interchange improvements
4. QE2 widening (Airdrie - Carstairs) to 6 lanes

Feel free to mention others and I'll add them to the list.

mersar · #2 Posted **May 13, 2010, 5:30 AM**

The Town of Cochrane just released a tender for the relocation of the River Heights Drive intersection on Highway 22, moving it roughly 1km further south of its current location (which was about 1km south of its original location). Fairly good sized tender based on the quantities of things involved, such as 10000+ tonnes of asphalt, 1km of sidewalk, 3km of curb and 18 acres of topsoil and hydroseeding.

You Need A Thneed · #3 Posted **May 13, 2010, 5:51 AM**

You could include HWY 2 / Cross iron drive interchange.

freeweed · #4 Posted **May 13, 2010, 2:45 PM**

Wow, I was wondering when the heck 1A was going to be twinned all the way to Cochrane. Good to see it on the radar.

craner · #5 Posted **May 13, 2010, 6:48 PM**

^^^ yeah me too.
Great to see all the projects listed here.

lubicon · #6 Posted **May 13, 2010, 6:48 PM**

Adding a 3rd lane to the QE2 from north of Airdrie to (I believe) Carstairs.

craner · #7 Posted **May 13, 2010, 6:50 PM**

^^^ Yes - I heard that too.

Any idea how far off the Strathmore bypass on the TCH is ?

mersar · #8 Posted **May 13, 2010, 7:00 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by craner

Any idea how far off the Strathmore bypass on the TCH is ?

10-20 years

freeweed · #9 Posted **May 13, 2010, 7:19 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by mersar

10-20 years

Sad, too. There is a long thread about the Trans Canada in the Canada section... Ah, here it is.

It covers a lot more (the whole country) but it's an interesting read with a fair bit of chatter about Strathmore, Medicine Hat, and all the other annoying parts of Hwy 1 through Alberta.

mersar · #10 Posted **May 13, 2010, 7:28 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by freeweed

Wow, I was wondering when the heck 1A was going to be twinned all the way to Cochrane. Good to see it on the radar.

Its on the 2010-2013 construction plan so hopefully it happens. Of course everything on that plan is subject to money being in the budget, but the Mayor of Cochrane was pushing AB Transportation to fix up some other issues (mainly the only-getting-worse bottleneck of Hwy 22 @ 1A) when they all of a sudden remembered that project (initially it was to have been built in the late 90's right after the last twinning occurred, but from what I've been told a couple landowners held out on selling the right of way and rather then force the issue the province shelved the project)

Doug · #11 Posted **May 13, 2010, 10:31 PM**

Is the twinning to Cochrane going to include the hill? Last time I was out that way (2007), there were two lanes going up the hill and one going down. That hill is long enough it might make sense to have three lanes up and two down.

mersar · #12 Posted **May 14, 2010, 5:52 AM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by Doug

Is the twinning to Cochrane going to include the hill? Last time I was out that way (2007), there were two lanes going up the hill and one going down. That hill is long enough it might make sense to have three lanes up and two down.

My understanding is its just to the Gleneagles intersection. Going down the hill just adding one lane would be complicated as there are likely huge complications related to the fact you'd have to build some pretty massive retaining walls or reshape huge amounts of area. That said, the west underpass for Gleneagles Drive was built to support at least 4 lanes over top of it.

thager · #13 Posted **May 14, 2010, 4:25 PM**

are they done strghtening out highway 9 to bieseker, me and my dad used to drive out o acme to golf and those curves were really sharp for a highway .
http://maps.google.ca/maps?f=d&sourc...27158&t=h&z=11

freeweed · #14 Posted **May 15, 2010, 5:18 AM**

Minor complaint, but this province has dropped the ball on something: we seriously need more of the signs warning about "slow to 60 for stopped emergency vehicles".

Driving from Calgary to Edmonton (and back) today, I saw exactly one. And I believe it was damn near Red Deer. Saw at least 5 pulled over tow trucks/cops on the way out, and - it was insane today - over 20 on the way back.

Half the time people stopped, half the time it was 120 all the way. When people stopped, they went to 80, 70, 60, 50, and even 40. Out of province plates had no fucking clue what to do (I believe this law is unique to Alberta, certainly the first I've seen like it).

It's a complete gong show. I 100% agree with the idea, so don't get me wrong here. I just think we should have signs every 20km or so mentioning it. Drivers need to know what to do, and sorry AB, it's not obvious. Maybe in 50 years everyone will know but not today.

mersar · #15 Posted **May 15, 2010, 5:22 AM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by freeweed

Minor complaint, but this province has dropped the ball on something: we seriously need more of the signs warning about "slow to 60 for stopped emergency vehicles".

BC has a similar rule I believe. But AB's has the twist that its only slow to 60 in the lane adjacent to the lane the emergency vehicle is in. So if its a 3 lane highway and the RCMP cruiser is on the shoulder, the 2 furthest lanes are still 120.

shogged · #16 Posted **May 16, 2010, 12:35 AM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by freeweed

Minor complaint, but this province has dropped the ball on something: we seriously need more of the signs warning about "slow to 60 for stopped emergency vehicles".

Driving from Calgary to Edmonton (and back) today, I saw exactly one. And I believe it was damn near Red Deer. Saw at least 5 pulled over tow trucks/cops on the way out, and - it was insane today - over 20 on the way back.

Half the time people stopped, half the time it was 120 all the way. When people stopped, they went to 80, 70, 60, 50, and even 40. Out of province plates had no fucking clue what to do (I believe this law is unique to Alberta, certainly the first I've seen like it).

It's a complete gong show. I 100% agree with the idea, so don't get me wrong here. I just think we should have signs every 20km or so mentioning it. Drivers need to know what to do, and sorry AB, it's not obvious. Maybe in 50 years everyone will know but not today.

ontario and quebec have a similar law, ontario had signs every 50kish, quebec had 1 sign at the ontario border.

Mazrim · #17 Posted **May 17, 2010, 4:16 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by freeweed

Minor complaint, but this province has dropped the ball on something: we seriously need more of the signs warning about "slow to 60 for stopped emergency vehicles".

There are a bunch of them on the Trans Canada. Pretty sure I've seen at least 3 going one way between Calgary and Medicine Hat, for example.

lubicon · #18 Posted **May 17, 2010, 6:11 PM**

Many provinces have similar laws. The problem is they are all slightly different in what you have to do. There is no consistency so it is very confusing for people.

Oliver Klozov · #19 Posted **May 17, 2010, 6:39 PM**

Also on the 2010-2013 plans is widening (adding shoulders / straightening curves) the 1A through the Stoney reserve, another long overdue project. It is not the whole thing yet, however. Looks like they're going to start at the west end and go east from the 1X (Seebe) to just past Old Fort Creek which is just east of Nakoda Lodge. Old Fort Creek bridge was replaced a few years ago.

The hold up on this project has been due to the need to negotiate with the reserve on a land exchange. That took years but I've heard they finally settled. Maybe not, though. The 15 km stretch that is included in the proposed project is about half on the reserve. Maybe they will just widen the portion outside the reserve and only overlay the portion on the reserve.

freeweed · #20 Posted **May 17, 2010, 7:38 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by lubicon

Many provinces have similar laws. The problem is they are all slightly different in what you have to do. There is no consistency so it is very confusing for people.

Plus, they're all fairly new laws, unless I'm mistaken. I certainly didn't learn this in driver's ed, and I'm not that old. And I don't believe US drivers have a clue about any of this.

Now personally I slow down for a lot of pulled over vehicles, not just emergency vehicles - you get in the habit of doing this when you grow up on 2 lane animal-infested highways - so *I* am not having an issue with this (but thanks to everyone for trying to imply that I'm completely ignorant of Canada's highway rules

).

I'm much more worried about the fact that half the drivers on the road don't slow down, which ends up in the worst possible case on a highway - 50km/h traffic mixing with 100-130 km/h traffic. Remember kids, speed doesn't kill, speed differential does.