Good news, construction crews are back on site and hard at work.

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That's quite a large excavation. I keep forgetting this isn't a small development - 189 units + a grocery store is fairly significant, especially for the area. If we ever can find a way to reduce the volumes and speeds on 16th to make it even slightly more pleasant to be on while walking, we'd actually have a great strip going here with developments like this.
 
CBBarnett said:
That's quite a large excavation. I keep forgetting this isn't a small development - 189 units + a grocery store is fairly significant, especially for the area. If we ever can find a way to reduce the volumes and speeds on 16th to make it even slightly more pleasant to be on while walking, we'd actually have a great strip going here with developments like this.
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Isn’t it 50kh/r there already?? Not exactly the Indy 500
 
While I welcome pretty much any new development and aesthetic improvements along it, like McLeod Trail, I just don't see 16th Ave ever being a particularly pleasant place to walk down. No matter what lines the street, at the end of the day it will always be a loud and busy arterial road. The best we can really hope for is a boulevard that doesn't look quite as ghetto from our car...because right now it's not even a pleasant place to drive down.
 
Golfing guy said:
Isn’t it 50kh/r there already?? Not exactly the Indy 500
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It is, but walking right next to cars travelling at 50km/h is not pleasant and a lot of the sidewalk is narrow and shitty. Along the co-op is probably the widest and most walkable part. Closer to sait east of 10th street is not great for walking. I’m generally driving so not something I regularly notice. While I was in school at sait though I saw it from the other side and get it more now when people complain about it on roads that aren’t even fast.
 
With the role of 16th Avenue, and the lack of a proper E-W expressway in north Calgary, traffic flow will always be important on that road. But that doesn't mean that the pedestrian experience couldn't improve considerably. As mentioned above, the narrow and low quality sidewalks at certain areas is the bigger issue. Having wide sidewalks consistently along the corridor will help tremendously. I think some of us have also suggested that parking on the curb lanes lanes outside of rush hour could help calm traffic a bit.
 
DiscoStu said:
While I welcome pretty much any new development and aesthetic improvements along it, like McLeod Trail, I just don't see 16th Ave ever being a particularly pleasant place to walk down. No matter what lines the street, at the end of the day it will always be a loud and busy arterial road. The best we can really hope for is a boulevard that doesn't look quite as ghetto from our car...because right now it's not even a pleasant place to drive down.
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What I want is for 16th to gradually transition to something like Broadway in Vancouver, also a 6 lane loud road but light-years further advanced towards a walkable urban version of that kind of place. Part of this is just development (and walkable, pedestrian-oriented development design) but a big part is the operations and design of the road itself.

This being Calgary, one thing we should avoid is backsliding 16th to something closer to MacLeod Trail, which is always a risk. Shitty loud roads typically remain shitty and loud if they aren't intentionally rethought and allowed to transition to something more urban.
 
Joborule said:
With the role of 16th Avenue, and the lack of a proper E-W expressway in north Calgary, traffic flow will always be important on that road. But that doesn't mean that the pedestrian experience couldn't improve considerably. As mentioned above, the narrow and low quality sidewalks at certain areas is the bigger issue. Having wide sidewalks consistently along the corridor will help tremendously. I think some of us have also suggested that parking on the curb lanes lanes outside of rush hour could help calm traffic a bit.
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CBBarnett said:
What I want is for 16th to gradually transition to something like Broadway in Vancouver, also a 6 lane loud road but light-years further advanced towards a walkable urban version of that kind of place. Part of this is just development (and walkable, pedestrian-oriented development design) but a big part is the operations and design of the road itself.

This being Calgary, one thing we should avoid is backsliding 16th to something closer to MacLeod Trail, which is always a risk. Shitty loud roads typically remain shitty and loud if they aren't intentionally rethought and allowed to transition to something more urban.
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I'd like to see that too, but I can't see 16th ever being a Broadway. The problem with 16th is that it's a route that traverses the city, which isn't the case for Broadway. It's the difference between 16th ave N and 17th ave S. Unless that can be fixed, 16th will always be an unpleasant roadway. That's not to say it can't be improved. Giving better priority to N-S traffic that crosses 16th might help slow traffic down E-W traffic on 16th, but might also case it it be constant bumper to bumper traffic.
If I had a magic wand, I'd build a tunnel from Deerfoot to just west of the hospital to shunt all of 16th ave's through traffic. A more realistic option might be to break the through connection on 16th forcing out of town traffic to take the ring road, but I can't see the political willpower for that to happen. It would be nice though.
 
Cowtown said:
I'd like to see that too, but I can't see 16th ever being a Broadway. The problem with 16th is that it's a route that traverses the city, which isn't the case for Broadway. It's the difference between 16th ave N and 17th ave S. Unless that can be fixed, 16th will always be an unpleasant roadway. That's not to say it can't be improved. Giving better priority to N-S traffic that crosses 16th might help slow traffic down E-W traffic on 16th, but might also case it it be constant bumper to bumper traffic.
If I had a magic wand, I'd build a tunnel from Deerfoot to just west of the hospital to shunt all of 16th ave's through traffic. A more realistic option might be to break the through connection on 16th forcing out of town traffic to take the ring road, but I can't see the political willpower for that to happen. It would be nice though.
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I believe that 22X/901 east of the city limits in the south is intended to be a realigned HWY 1 bypass route; making use of the ring road in the city to reconnect with TCH in the west. So the government has the idea in place. Whether they ever bother to execute it remains to be seen. But that would definitely help take off some traffic on 16th if that was ever to come in to fruition.
 
Joborule said:
I believe that 22X/901 east of the city limits in the south is intended to be a realigned HWY 1 bypass route; making use of the ring road in the city to reconnect with TCH in the west. So the government has the idea in place. Whether they ever bother to execute it remains to be seen. But that would definitely help take off some traffic on 16th if that was ever to come in to fruition.
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I get that logical plan - but this is highway building we are talking about. They said the same thing when the ring road was proposed. Never in Calgary have we built a road that resulted in the "downgrading" of another one.

If we just build one more road project, it'll take pressure off the existing system and finally allow these roads to convert to something more contextually appropriate. Then we build the thing, and the conversion - even incredibly modest ones, like allowing street parking on 16th Ave - never happens.

There's an outside chance that if enough developments like Munro will start popping up along 16th it will add a counterbalance here where local needs are a thing that should be listened to, not just the numbers of a regional transportation model. And 16th doesn't have to be car-free by any means, just wider sidewalks and pedestrian priority, on-street parking, and more equal N-S signal priority over E-W - keep it 6 lanes even.
 
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