Maybe I stand alone here, but this bad. Very bad! Why do we care about road connectivity here? I don't think carrying this road through the university will give it an urban feel. If would just be another, slower, way off accessing Crowchild through the university. Even if it does make it feel like that, it doesn't sound very appealing to me. The best part about campuses is their walkable, bike-able and void of vehicle traffic. I'd love to see downtown adopt much more of campus feel.

I don't necessarily care about having the corridor for the sake of moving cars through, but more for the sake of having a main artery through the Uinversity that can be used as a multi-mode corridor. Mainly for pedestrians, cycling and transit...maybe even a mini streetcar or shuttle bus system that cruises up and down the artery from University district to the south end of the University. Cars might be a part of that equation, but with a few tweaks, it can be designed such that cars will not use it as solely as a cut through. The artery could have even have retail frontage.

IMO, the University isn't actually very walk-able or bike-able right now despite having a million pathways, it's more of a hodge podge of pathways that get cut off or don't meet up with other pathways.
I think the master plan just calls for a primary pathway, not a roadway access. There's no roads planned to cut through campus.

I agree about U of C's campus design - the the walkable, vehicle-free traffic oasis is a key positive feature. It's truly one of the only locations in the city that makes such an attempt prioritizes pedestrian access within it's lands (at the centre of them at least).

With that said, the bigger issue is that campus is inward-looking and largely cut off on all sides by wide arterial roads - so the walkable part is immediately dropped as soon as you hit the edge of campus. The university exacerbates this condition with enormous, large surface parking lots on all major entrances and exits, ringing the good walkable part in the centre.

To resolve these issues, firstly we would need to extend the high-quality walkable area over these barriers into new development/redevelopment. University District is the most obvious adjacent candidate neighbourhood with plans to largely make this happen by filling in the gaps and adding normal streets to connect too. But even once UD it's complete, we still haven't solved the real problem: wide arterial roads on all sides separating the university from the rest of the city.

The second, related problem is even harder - land uses. University isn't just designed as an island - it's an island on a far larger, car-oriented continent. Adding a few sidewalks isn't enough, there's kilometres of nothing nearby which is all scaled for driving. Apart from University District, all redevelopment is separated from university by giant distances, and/or giant barriers. Some of these barriers are getting thicker too (see Crowchild long-term plans for an example).

A rough map below to illustrate how split up and separated all the major hubs in the area are. They are so close - but so far apart at the same time!
  • Solid red - brutal, anti-pedestrian corridors
  • Dotted red - less brutal, but pedestrian unfriendly overly wide arterials
  • Yellow - zero population and no immediate plans to add anything
  • Green - only intensification we have seen with reasonable densities
1648219497353.png


Despite having two hospitals, several malls, lots of redevelopment pockets and the ever-growing giant university at the centre the area is still remarkably empty. We could easily add tens of thousands of units and way more uses in here if we were a bit more efficient in our land uses and institution planning.

In summary what I would do:
  • Make it easier for more people to access stuff from farther away - Create strong, highest quality pedestrian and cycle routes across the solid red lines. Like real, direct, fast and wide pedestrian and bicycle infrastructure; not narrow, circuitous and disconnected stuff. Add a few of those high-quality pedestrian/cycling connections through University Heights to make transportation through the area efficient.
  • Add more people - Aggressively promote redevelopment all neighbourhoods at +3x the current density (University Heights and Banff Trail being the key candidates
  • Add more stuff - Have better institutional planning to redevelop all areas in yellow (most/all of the yellow areas are essentially land banks or under-utilized parks/facilities).
 
To be fair, some of the yellow areas in your image are planned to have redevelopment soon, or at least masterplans in place. Also, the narrow, diaganol one in Montgomery is Montalban Park and the slope of it essentially prevents any sort of development from occurring (nevermind the park designation).

But, to the south of the Children's Hospital is part of the University District masterplan:
1648231212776.png


Also, the City did just recently put out their plans for the updated Foothills Athletic Park / McMahon Stadium redevelopment:

So, it is not all bad. That said, the major issues you have highlighted about the surrounding barriers is true. Just trying to show some optimism.
 
To be fair, some of the yellow areas in your image are planned to have redevelopment soon, or at least masterplans in place. Also, the narrow, diaganol one in Montgomery is Montalban Park and the slope of it essentially prevents any sort of development from occurring (nevermind the park designation).

But, to the south of the Children's Hospital is part of the University District masterplan:
View attachment 387808

Also, the City did just recently put out their plans for the updated Foothills Athletic Park / McMahon Stadium redevelopment:

So, it is not all bad. That said, the major issues you have highlighted about the surrounding barriers is true. Just trying to show some optimism.
Totally agree, didn't mean to come across as all hope being lost. Lots of long-term pieces slowly moving into place. Just lots of work to do - especially on the arterial and redevelopment barriers :)
 
The second, related problem is even harder - land uses. University isn't just designed as an island - it's an island on a far larger, car-oriented continent.
Somewhere at City Hall the last part of this statement is carved into the pillars that hold that building up: "An island on a far larger, car-oriented continent". Welcome to the City of Calgary, hope you have a car.

Many other areas are victims to same extent of the poor city planning that happened at a very critical time for this city.
 
To be fair, some of the yellow areas in your image are planned to have redevelopment soon, or at least masterplans in place. Also, the narrow, diaganol one in Montgomery is Montalban Park and the slope of it essentially prevents any sort of development from occurring (nevermind the park designation).

But, to the south of the Children's Hospital is part of the University District masterplan:
View attachment 387808

Also, the City did just recently put out their plans for the updated Foothills Athletic Park / McMahon Stadium redevelopment:

So, it is not all bad. That said, the major issues you have highlighted about the surrounding barriers is true. Just trying to show some optimism.
This doesn't belong here but I don't see a thread for it. Next steps in the Foothills Athletic Park / McMahon Stadium redevelopment: "The project team is now conducting a Social Return on Investment Analysis, anticipated for completion by Q2 2022. The Social Return on Investment Analysis will identify the social value that would be created based on the capital dollars needed to implement the Foothills+McMahon concept plan."

Interesting... They break the project up into elements, not phases (I think they're still phases). I assume the ROI on this will be favorable (at least for Multi-Sport Fieldhouse) meaning we wait to see if this gets the funding come budget in the fall.

I also noticed, there is zero vehicle access to the property that isn't off of University Drive. If you're using the fieldhouse you're walking from the NW and SW corners (which I assume will become a parking lot) over to the east side of the property. For the record, I don't mind this, it just caught my eye that they're putting all the parking on the west side of the property and getting people out of there cars and on their feet to get to any of the facilities (Multi-Sport Fieldhouse, Entertainment District, Stadium Front Door, and Transit Interface).
FH+M.JPG
 
Totally agree, didn't mean to come across as all hope being lost. Lots of long-term pieces slowly moving into place. Just lots of work to do - especially on the arterial and redevelopment barriers :)
The real challenge will be figuring out a way to actually integrate all of these redevelopment projects, which (as you point out) are currently disconnected by major arterial roads. Hopefully the City will one day have the guts to do something about the massively overbuilt 24 Ave. You could literally just convert the entire south side of the street into greenspace with a bike land through the middle. All the slip lanes should be eliminated as well. Why there has to be an expressway-style merge lane from University to 24 ave is completely beyond me. Thankfully the University did recently eliminate the slip lane at Campus Gate and Campus Drive as part of the Business School expansion construction. A small step in the right direction. Of course Campus Drive still has no sidewalks, let alone bike lanes. Given the trampled grass running alongside it, this is not for lack of pedestrian/cycling demand.

In terms of better integrating the campus with its surroundings, the road plans for the University District are somewhat encouraging. I am happy that they are straightening out University Ave at Collegiate Blvd because it will make walking a little faster and more intuitive than the current weird zigzag you have to do at that intersection. The main thing is that someone was actually thinking about how the two sides get integrated rather than just planning the University District in total isolation. Speaking of which...

What I didn't like is running University Ave into a T-intersection with Collegiate, forcing drivers to make a left turn into the University from Collegiate. It would make University Ave more of a main road for drivers using Shaganappi instead of them going north to 32nd. Right now Collegiate feeds into the University from 32nd off of Shaganappi and Crowchild. My fear was turning university district into a cut through because if you're accessing the University from the SW and NW via Shaganappi it could push you to use University Ave over Collegiate via 32nd. I know I try to not think car car car but in this case by making that change you could change how the University is accessed thus making the potentially multi-modal University Ave car dominant ruining University Ave.
I don't see how this changes anything from a driver's perspective. The only thing that's changing is University Ave and Collegiate Blvd will go from being a 4way stop to a lighted T intersection. Drivers can already get to campus from Shaganappi using University Ave. But since University Ave has a dead end just the east of Collegiate, there's not really a reason to drive there unless you happen to be parking in one of the lots in that corner of campus.
 
The real challenge will be figuring out a way to actually integrate all of these redevelopment projects, which (as you point out) are currently disconnected by major arterial roads. Hopefully the City will one day have the guts to do something about the massively overbuilt 24 Ave. You could literally just convert the entire south side of the street into greenspace with a bike land through the middle. All the slip lanes should be eliminated as well. Why there has to be an expressway-style merge lane from University to 24 ave is completely beyond me. Thankfully the University did recently eliminate the slip lane at Campus Gate and Campus Drive as part of the Business School expansion construction. A small step in the right direction. Of course Campus Drive still has no sidewalks, let alone bike lanes. Given the trampled grass running alongside it, this is not for lack of pedestrian/cycling demand.

In terms of better integrating the campus with its surroundings, the road plans for the University District are somewhat encouraging. I am happy that they are straightening out University Ave at Collegiate Blvd because it will make walking a little faster and more intuitive than the current weird zigzag you have to do at that intersection. The main thing is that someone was actually thinking about how the two sides get integrated rather than just planning the University District in total isolation. Speaking of which...


I don't see how this changes anything from a driver's perspective. The only thing that's changing is University Ave and Collegiate Blvd will go from being a 4way stop to a lighted T intersection. Drivers can already get to campus from Shaganappi using University Ave. But since University Ave has a dead end just the east of Collegiate, there's not really a reason to drive there unless you happen to be parking in one of the lots in that corner of campus.
Well, when you put it that way, I see what you and others are saying: It's not much of a benefit to use University Ave as a cut through. I don't drive there much if at all, so I appreciate being pointed in the right direction.
 

Back
Top