If traffic and parking are no longer factors - at least half the Crescent Heights roadway is available for eventual conversion to promenade. The block near Crescent Heights Park could likely be closed entirely if we take this to an ultimate solution.
This has gotten me thinking of the other COVID closures and what we could do with them if they become permanent. My top three candidates are below:
- Memorial Drive N: the pathway here is woefully undersized for summer traffic in normal years, let alone a year when every person was outside. Completely happy to see those two lanes go and be converted permanental. Practically it's a bit tricky due to the Memorial rebuild leaning so heavily into the Calgary "boulevard style" where we keep the row of trees in the middle because the important thing is to have it be nice to drive on. If that nice median wasn't there shove the whole road to the north by 10m, reduce it from 5 lanes + median (2 in each direction + parking) to 3 lanes (1 each way + parking or 2 and 1)
- Elbow Drive SW: similar to Memorial, its badly needed at peak afternoon times for some more space, especially the missing path connection just north of the Elbow River bridge and the single pathway section north of 30 Avenue. Also a fancy area - instead of an endless playground zone to stop us normals from speeding by rich people, I wish the money/influence of the community used a couple decades ago to lower speed limits was used instead to road diet the hell our of Elbow. North of Sifton Blvd SW, traffic rarely requires 4 lanes in both directions (2 lanes + turning bays would be more than sufficient). A few "boulevard" sections can go as well as the on-street parking - amazing given the area is effectively the burbs with off-street garages and no density so there is no need for street parking other than give another freebee for rich residents. With that we can shove the road over to give the pathway at least 2x the amount of space it normally has pre-COVID.
- 8 Street SW: a really janky approach (not for lack of effort by the city, but just random cones were constantly moved by delivery drivers and run over by buses) underscored just how insufficient 8th Street SW is for pedestrians. The corridor is the most developed backbone of Calgary's truly urban high-density population (and their services such as grocery stores, hotels, pharmacies, restaurants, transit). Always busy and always inferior with terrible inaccessibly sloped/broken sidewalks littered with street debris (sandwich boards, permanent signs). I don't know what the delay is in implementing the master plan but this road should have 1/3 to 1/2 of it's current car space allocated to people. COVID closure gave a brief taste of what this would be like and it was amazing, despite the challenges of cones all over.