[1875]

imo the most simple, significant and low cost change to improve the cbd/beltline would be get rid of all the one ways. if traffic becomes a disaster that will eventually lead to less vehicles in the area. if the green line ever gets built it would be an ideal time to make the change, the sooner the better.

 

[Surrealplaces]

Everyone is going to have different opinions about 9th ave and the other one way streets, but if I had it my way I'd convert 9th 11th and 12th back to two way. IMO 9th ave is one of the most awful aspects of DT Calgary

 

[Mountain Man]

5 lanes is a bit much, what I would like to see is take out a lane or two and make the sidewalks wider, there isn't really a crush of people there to really justify it though. Maybe the best would be to make it 2 way and have a proper connection with Inglewood. The West End is kind of what it is, and until West Village gets a proper plan, I wouldn't expect much. The thing I most want to see there is to have 11St fixed, that road connects too much to have the sidewalks and bike lanes it does currently.

 

[Disraeli]

This picture pretty well sums up what is wrong with the public realm in the core. What could be a great connecting point for pedestrians into the CBD is a four lane car sewer with 4m wide lanes and narrow cluttered sidewalks

 

[Silence&Motion]

Beautiful brick buildings. Expand the sidewalks, add trees and proper lampposts, and this becomes one of the most photogenic streetscapes in the city.

 

[Mountain Man]

3 of the 4 buildings on that street are quite nice though, and Louise Block has retail at grade. I'l love to see a more pedestrian focus there, but every attempt has failed, McLeod is a dead zone and I don't see it changing any time soon. Like I said before, I think there are a ton of other streets that we can improve the streetscape and actually be successful.

For one ways, I'm a motorist as much as I'm a cyclist and a pedestrian, I really don't have an issue with them and I prefer traffic move faster. I think 5th and 6th, 11 and 12th are fine as 1 ways, 11th and 12th already have limited success as retail / entertainment streets anyway. 4th and 9th should be 2 way, and every north - south road not named McLeod should be 2 way. Before we go converting streets we need to be sure that more people will benefit from it, there is no guarantee that more retail will open or you will get better restaurants or any of that.

 

[CCF]

3 of the 4 buildings on that street are quite nice though, and Louise Block has retail at grade. I'l love to see a more pedestrian focus there, but every attempt has failed, McLeod is a dead zone and I don't see it changing any time soon. Like I said before, I think there are a ton of other streets that we can improve the streetscape and actually be successful.

For one ways, I'm a motorist as much as I'm a cyclist and a pedestrian, I really don't have an issue with them and I prefer traffic move faster. I think 5th and 6th, 11 and 12th are fine as 1 ways, 11th and 12th already have limited success as retail / entertainment streets anyway. 4th and 9th should be 2 way, and every north - south road not named McLeod should be 2 way. Before we go converting streets we need to be sure that more people will benefit from it, there is no guarantee that more retail will open or you will get better restaurants or any of that.

It being a "deadzone" is a symptom of the root cause - a car oriented streetscape. Start to address that and the pedestrians will follow. The two are interrelated.

 

[Mountain Man]

How do you stop it from being a car oriented street? McLeod is the main artery into downtown from the South, just a big F you to all the drivers? I'm all for improving downtown, but without a better transit system all we would do is make traffic worse and piss people off. Build the green line and then we can talk about trying to reduce traffic volumes.

 

[Disraeli]

How do you stop it from being a car oriented street? McLeod is the main artery into downtown from the South, just a big F you to all the drivers? I'm all for improving downtown, but without a better transit system all we would do is make traffic worse and piss people off. Build the green line and then we can talk about trying to reduce traffic volumes.

They could start by narrowing down the width of the lanes to accommodate wider sidewalks and streetscape improvement. Narrower lanes also help to slow down traffic and traffic calming measures have a big impact on encouraging pedestrian traffic. None of these suggestions are overly burdensome on drivers.

 

[CCF]

How do you stop it from being a car oriented street? McLeod is the main artery into downtown from the South, just a big F you to all the drivers? I'm all for improving downtown, but without a better transit system all we would do is make traffic worse and piss people off. Build the green line and then we can talk about trying to reduce traffic volumes.

That's a totally different discussion - re: the merits of transitioning how the street functions.

What I was responding to was your message that McLeod is a deadzone. I'm saying that it lacks the vibrancy because of how the street functions. It's about setting the right context for the behaviours that you want to follow - if there are aspirations for McLeod or any like street to be something different, then it requires that the conditions change. If the status quo remains, then it will continue to function as is. It's the same thinking with cycling infrastructure - you don't wait until that critical mass shows up before you invest in the infrastructure - because that will never come. Instead, you invest in the infrastructure, and the critical mass will follow. Consider another way - "Its hard to justify a bridge by the # of people swimming across a river"

https://twitter.com/x/status/411715791550050304

 

[Mountain Man]

That's a totally different discussion - re: the merits of transitioning how the street functions.

What I was responding to was your message that McLeod is a deadzone. I'm saying that it lacks the vibrancy because of how the street functions. It's about setting the right context for the behaviours that you want to follow - if there are aspirations for McLeod or any like street to be something different, then it requires that the conditions change. If the status quo remains, then it will continue to function as is. It's the same thinking with cycling infrastructure - you don't wait until that critical mass shows up before you invest in the infrastructure - because that will never come. Instead, you invest in the infrastructure, and the critical mass will follow. Consider another way - "Its hard to justify a bridge by the # of people swimming across a river"

https://twitter.com/x/status/411715791550050304

I totally get what you're saying, and I completely agree that the expressway aspect of McLeod is a major reason the streets have failed as pedestrian streets. The point I'm trying to make is that any change to that will have a major negative effect on traffic with no guarantee of success.

Part of the problem with McLeod through the Beltline is it doesn't serve anything, there are a few residential towers along there, but mostly empty lots and the Stampede grounds. As projects like Curtis Block get finished it will help for sure, but we need more things in the area to generate the foot traffic if we are going to make changes to the roadway. It's sort of a Chicken and Egg scenario, do you reduce traffic flow in an attempt to attract more pedestrian traffic and business, or have the foot traffic first before changing the streetscape.

 

[Zoom]

Unfortunately that's exactly what it is. Calgary has a massive commercial core for a city of its size and infrastructure, and though the LRT has helped significantly with commuter traffic, the roads in and out are still needed. With the such a large workforce downtown it's a difficult problem to get around.

Once more people are living in around the core, and the Green Line is built it'll be time to revaluate streets like 9th ave.

Part of the problem with McLeod through the Beltline is it doesn't serve anything, there are a few residential towers along there, but mostly empty lots and the Stampede grounds. As projects like Curtis Block get finished it will help for sure, but we need more things in the area to generate the foot traffic if we are going to make changes to the roadway. It's sort of a Chicken and Egg scenario, do you reduce traffic flow in an attempt to attract more pedestrian traffic and business, or have the foot traffic first before changing the streetscape.

 

[ByeByeBaby]

I totally get what you're saying, and I completely agree that the expressway aspect of McLeod is a major reason the streets have failed as pedestrian streets. The point I'm trying to make is that any change to that will have a major negative effect on traffic with no guarantee of success.

Part of the problem with McLeod through the Beltline is it doesn't serve anything, there are a few residential towers along there, but mostly empty lots and the Stampede grounds. As projects like Curtis Block get finished it will help for sure, but we need more things in the area to generate the foot traffic if we are going to make changes to the roadway. It's sort of a Chicken and Egg scenario, do you reduce traffic flow in an attempt to attract more pedestrian traffic and business, or have the foot traffic first before changing the streetscape.

I strongly disagree that any change requires a negative effect on traffic. Here's the block Disraeli linked above as it is:

Here's an option:

Here's another one:

Here's one that doesn't require any concrete, although it would require signals changes for the cycle track:

This one doesn't even need signals; it could be done for the cost of paint, planters and parklets:

Here's a bare minimum:

Here's a link to try your own: https://streetmix.net/-/1071894

Note that the number of lanes is not affected in any of these.

 

[Mountain Man]

What's the minimum lane we can have that will accommodate buses or truck traffic? I'm OK with squeezing it a bit to make it more attractive.

 

[ByeByeBaby]

Unfortunately that's exactly what it is. Calgary has a massive commercial core for a city of its size and infrastructure, and though the LRT has helped significantly with commuter traffic, the roads in and out are still needed. With the such a large workforce downtown it's a difficult problem to get around.

Once more people are living in around the core, and the Green Line is built it'll be time to revaluate streets like 9th ave.

I couldn't agree more -- Macleod Trail is bursting at 31,000 vehicles a day inbound, and 9th Ave has 40,000 vehicles coming inbound. And the downtown and Beltline only have 25,000 residents. Once we build 28 more km of LRT and the population rises to 41,000, I'm sure the traffic volumes will drop, say to 23,000 on Macleod and 35,000 on 9th Ave and then we could start talking about reevaluating streets.



I'm sorry; I've just been told that my comment above has been sitting in a queue for 20 years; that the first traffic volumes are from 1998 and the second set from 2018, and that indeed 16,000 new downtown/Beltline residents and 28 kilometres of LRT have been built since I wrote those words above. Oh well, at least nobody is going to trot out the "let's wait" excuse now.