Calgary Roads

[suburbia]

Originally Posted by Koolfire

Why are they not adding dual turn lanes to John Laurie? The Westbound to Southbound can build up quite a long queue.

It is all relative. The backup on Shagannapi can be 2km up the hill on days, past the lights on the crest. The backup you're talking about is no where close. Irrespective, increasing flows in one direction can also improve flow in the other, if the result of the change allows for light timing adjustments.

[mersar]

Originally Posted by suburbia

It is all relative. The backup on Shagannapi can be 2km up the hill on days, past the lights on the crest. The backup you're talking about is no where close. Irrespective, increasing flows in one direction can also improve flow in the other, if the result of the change allows for light timing adjustments.

And there should be a decent improvement to light timings, if only because they will be able to have concurrent left turns and concurrent thru traffic on Shaganappi after this work is done, which will allow more traffic through more efficiently and decrease the amount of time needed for each direction's movement.

[suburbia]

Originally Posted by mersar

And there should be a decent improvement to light timings, if only because they will be able to have concurrent left turns and concurrent thru traffic on Shaganappi after this work is done, which will allow more traffic through more efficiently and decrease the amount of time needed for each direction's movement.

Fantastic! That should help a tonne.

[5seconds]

The city is looking for input on the MacLeod Trail corridor

http://www.calgarycitynews.com/2012/...eod-trail.html

[DizzyEdge]

I'd like to see a 16th ave treatment from Chinook to downtown, leave the rest car-orientated.

[MMMBeer]

Originally Posted by DizzyEdge

I'd like to see a 16th ave treatment from Chinook to downtown, leave the rest car-orientated.

Agreed. They should start making things a little more free-flow - a good start is getting rid of that idiotic traffic light south of Anderson (the one for the road that conects to Lake Fraser Dr). Plus get rid of the the lights at 162 Ave/Sun valley. I realize the latter would be a major interchange but the Lake Fraser Dr connector one shouldn't be that big a deal.

[Innersoul1]

Is anyone else frustrated/annoyed with the city's new sandwich board signs for street cleaning. Living in a relatively new comminity I find that they are too small and blend it with the other sandwich board/realtor signs in the community. Beyond that, there is a portion of the sign that reads "blue, black and green bins should be moved off the street on to your sidewalk or lawn." Fairly important sign that is barely noticeable if you drive by. ANyway, I think that the signs need to be bigger. Our street sweeping day well on a garbage day and the streets were a mess after because of all of the blue and black bins being in the street.

[lubicon]

Originally Posted by MMMBeer

Agreed. They should start making things a little more free-flow - a good start is getting rid of that idiotic traffic light south of Anderson (the one for the road that conects to Lake Fraser Dr). Plus get rid of the the lights at 162 Ave/Sun valley. I realize the latter would be a major interchange but the Lake Fraser Dr connector one shouldn't be that big a deal.

Super easy fix. Change it to a 'Right in, right out' turning movement and get rid of the lights. A complete no brainer.

[lubicon]

Originally Posted by Innersoul1

Is anyone else frustrated/annoyed with the city's new sandwich board signs for street cleaning. Living in a relatively new comminity I find that they are too small and blend it with the other sandwich board/realtor signs in the community. Beyond that, there is a portion of the sign that reads "blue, black and green bins should be moved off the street on to your sidewalk or lawn." Fairly important sign that is barely noticeable if you drive by. ANyway, I think that the signs need to be bigger. Our street sweeping day well on a garbage day and the streets were a mess after because of all of the blue and black bins being in the street.

They did the same in our neighborhood. Swept the streets on garbage day and now there's nice little gravel patches every 40 feet where the garbage bins were. Nice planning.

Also might have been nice if they actually swepth the roads on the day they indicated on the signs. Most people moved their cars off the street on the designated day (which they didn't sweep on), then moved back onto the street that night so when they swept the next day there were a bunch of cars on the road.

between the cars and the garbage/recycle bins, they may as well not have swept at all.

[fusili]

Originally Posted by lubicon

Super easy fix. Change it to a 'Right in, right out' turning movement and get rid of the lights. A complete no brainer.

Macleod sucks as both a traffic corridor and as a pedestrian environment. I agree that most intersections should be right-in/right-out only. What should be done is to make two lanes almost completely free flow in both directions (no left turns either) and have access roads separated by a median on either side for access and to accommodate turns and cross traffic. I can't explain it well without a diagram, but Avenida Diagonal in Barcelona is what I am getting at. Traffic in the centre is mostly free flow, and turns are mostly handled by the parallel access roads.

[DizzyEdge]

nevermind

[Innersoul1]

Originally Posted by lubicon

They did the same in our neighborhood. Swept the streets on garbage day and now there's nice little gravel patches every 40 feet where the garbage bins were. Nice planning.

Also might have been nice if they actually swepth the roads on the day they indicated on the signs. Most people moved their cars off the street on the designated day (which they didn't sweep on), then moved back onto the street that night so when they swept the next day there were a bunch of cars on the road.

between the cars and the garbage/recycle bins, they may as well not have swept at all.

I also find that with most new to newish communities the curbs aren't very steep so a good chunk of the gravel ends up swept on to the sidewalks. I don't get why they can't have someone walk along with the sweepers and sweep the excess gravel on to the roads.

Any thoughts on if proper advanced notice was given for sweeping dates that people should be towed?

[mersar]

Originally Posted by DizzyEdge

Speaking of small signs, has there ever been any moves to require larger LUA and DP signs in Calgary? The tiny signs with almost no useful info for the public are terrible.

Its been brought up but never really gained traction. I love the size of signs that I saw when I was in Vancouver, and others I've seen on SSP of Toronto were also pretty good. Way better then the tiny 8.5x11 or 11x17 we use here.

[Cage]

Regarding signage for street cleaning. Things would have been better if not for the Provincial election. Too many signs and the real important ones got lost in the clutter.

[Cage]

Regarding Lake Fraser Gate and Macleod lights. THe issue is that Lake Fraser Drive dead ends at the north end with no chance for alteration due to Honda dealership. There is no east bound connections to Bonaventure, leaving only one exit onto Canyon Meadows Drive. In order to remove the lights at Lake Fraser Gate the citry would have to build connections onto Lake Bonavista community at 129th Ave, Lake Willow Rd, Lake Aspen Rd. All the new connector roads have really poor road capacity as theyare residential side streets and inadequate capacity for the apartment condos at the North End of Lake Fraser Drive.

[DizzyEdge]

my pic

I like the fact that in Inglewood city parking is free on snow days

[DizzyEdge]

my pic

So in every other city I've been in where pedestrian walk buttons have lights as part of the button, once you press it the light stays on so you know if it's been pushed already. In Calgary it just flashes for a fraction of a second, so the fact it's been pushed is just a secret between you and it. Anyone know why they're configured that way?

[Ramsayfarian]

Originally Posted by DizzyEdge

my pic

So in every other city I've been in where pedestrian walk buttons have lights as part of the button, once you press it the light stays on so you know if it's been pushed already. In Calgary it just flashes for a fraction of a second, so the fact it's been pushed is just a secret between you and it. Anyone know why they're configured that way?

Because studies have shown that even in systems where the light stays on, people will continue to press the button until the traffic lights change. With Calgary's system, the light going on and off gives the pedestrian the feeling that the pedestrian's repeated button pushing is accomplishing something. This feeling of accomplishment empowers the pedestrian and causes dopamine to be released into the pleasure centres of the brain which over time causes the pedestrian to become "addicted" to walking.

It's literally Calgary's Psy-Opps campaign in it's "war" on cars.

[YYCguys]

Originally Posted by fusili

Macleod sucks as both a traffic corridor and as a pedestrian environment. I agree that most intersections should be right-in/right-out only. What should be done is to make two lanes almost completely free flow in both directions (no left turns either) and have access roads separated by a median on either side for access and to accommodate turns and cross traffic. I can't explain it well without a diagram, but Avenida Diagonal in Barcelona is what I am getting at. Traffic in the centre is mostly free flow, and turns are mostly handled by the parallel access roads.

I've already filled out the survey on the City's website with the exact same suggestion (although worded as a layman and not as an "in the biz" professional).

[Bigtime]

Wouldn't having parallel access roads just make MacLeod even more of an asphalt hellscape?

I think sprucing it up like 16th avenue and Memorial would go a long way to making it much nicer to start with, then proceed with some major improvements to make it much more transit friendly. I believe the last steps should involve potential improvements for cyclists and pedestrians. I just don't see the benefit to improving those two areas this early in the game on MacLeod.