What do you think of this project?

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The only time I'm annoyed by Edmonton traffic is driving south from DT to Summerside during extreme cold when it's very icy or during snow storms. I think the longest it's taken me is 2.5 hrs. but 1 to 1.5 is not unusual during the winter. A good drive during the summer is about 45 mins. Takes me about 30 mins. going the other way under perfect conditions but I leave at about 6 am.

I've driven to and in Toronto, LA, Vegas, Chicago, Minneapolis/St. Paul, Salt Lake, and many places in between those. LA was the most stressful because of the sheer size of the freeways, amount of cars, speed with sudden unexpected stops, and the fact I was relying on a GPS that could not accurately detect which layer of the freeway I was on and kept trying to get me to exit where there were no exits. Toronto was brutal on a couple of trips because it involved driving a minibus while pulling a trailer during rush hour downtown. Anyway, I have several pretty crazy stories of driving in all these places but I won't get into it here. The point is, Edmonton is definitely not bad. It helps that I know my way around like the back of my hand.
 
scyeg said:
The only time I'm annoyed by Edmonton traffic is driving south from DT to Summerside during extreme cold when it's very icy or during snow storms. I think the longest it's taken me is 2.5 hrs. but 1 to 1.5 is not unusual during the winter. A good drive during the summer is about 45 mins. Takes me about 30 mins. going the other way under perfect conditions but I leave at about 6 am.

I've driven to and in Toronto, LA, Vegas, Chicago, Minneapolis/St. Paul, Salt Lake, and many places in between those. LA was the most stressful because of the sheer size of the freeways, amount of cars, speed with sudden unexpected stops, and the fact I was relying on a GPS that could not accurately detect which layer of the freeway I was on and kept trying to get me to exit where there were no exits. Toronto was brutal on a couple of trips because it involved driving a minibus while pulling a trailer during rush hour downtown. Anyway, I have several pretty crazy stories of driving in all these places but I won't get into it here. The point is, Edmonton is definitely not bad. It helps that I know my way around like the back of my hand.
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It also helps that Edmonton is one of the most logically laid out cities in North America. Aside from having to weave around the river valley for crossings, everything is very straight forward. The arterials are mostly a grid, the numbering system takes very little effort to understand and from there you can know where a street is without ever having been there or looking it up. The addressing system is similar. The only other city I can think of that even approaches this level of utilitarian ease is Salt Lake City.
 
dunno said:
It also helps that Edmonton is one of the most logically laid out cities in North America. Aside from having to weave around the river valley for crossings, everything is very straight forward. The arterials are mostly a grid, the numbering system takes very little effort to understand and from there you can know where a street is without ever having been there or looking it up. The addressing system is similar. The only other city I can think of that even approaches this level of utilitarian ease is Salt Lake City.
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It's actually scary how well our roads are laid out. As I have been recording more and more dash cam drives for my vlog channel I'm further reminded how nice and straight most of our roads are.
 
having spent the last couple of pandemic years staycaying in Alberta, I noticed that almost all small towns have 51st St as the main street, and the main cross avenue is 50 (or 51). Seems some person, in some gov dept, at some time, made the decision that Alberta towns originate on the centre of a grid 100 x 100. What did they think would happen if the town grew past 50 blocks east or south?
 
buildings said:
having spent the last couple of pandemic years staycaying in Alberta, I noticed that almost all small towns have 51st St as the main street, and the main cross avenue is 50 (or 51). Seems some person, in some gov dept, at some time, made the decision that Alberta towns originate on the centre of a grid 100 x 100. What did they think would happen if the town grew past 50 blocks east or south?
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They didn't. And it worked for the most part as most places didn't outgrow the grid numbers. And then you get Edmonton, which did run out of numbers, and now we have this weird not-a-quadrant system.

This style of numbering is also not common in Southern Alberta. Didsbury is about as south as you tend to see a version of this, whether the core numbers are centred on 100 & 100, 50 & 50, or 20 & 20. Once you get more south than Dids, you either see only named streets, quadrants/east-west designation, or having the centre starting at 1st and 1st like most other places on the continent. The only place farther south I can think of that does this is Fort MacLeod, and they only do it with streets, not avenues. There may be others but it is uncommon as compared to Central/Northern Alberta, wherein it is ubiquitous.

I'm guessing this numbering system we are used to radiated outward from Edmonton, so it makes sense places in Calgary's orbit didn't do this so much.
 
I don't know if it started in Edmonton, or just became the preferred way of numbering streets around the time Edmonton was developed, which is also when much of central and northern Alberta started to develop too.

However, 50 Street and Avenues seems adequate for most small towns, so it works well. Obviously they either under-estimated Edmonton's growth potential or maybe it wasn't considered or thought about that far back.

Although, its not a huge problem and was fairly easily solved by adding the NW and other directional indicators to the address.
 
scyeg said:
The only time I'm annoyed by Edmonton traffic is driving south from DT to Summerside during extreme cold when it's very icy or during snow storms. I think the longest it's taken me is 2.5 hrs. but 1 to 1.5 is not unusual during the winter. A good drive during the summer is about 45 mins. Takes me about 30 mins. going the other way under perfect conditions but I leave at about 6 am.
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Man, where in Summerside are you going? The longest it has ever taken me, and that was rush hour last week, was about 1hr 20m, right after a relatively big snowfall. It usually takes me about 25-35 min, depending on where in Summerside I'm going (if it's further east, it obviously takes longer).
I've been doing this every day for the past month or so, and frequently before, since August, and leaving at 7am it takes me roughly 35min from my place (66st SW and 25ave SW, roughly) to Norquest, regardless of the route I choose.
 
ChazYEG said:
Man, where in Summerside are you going? The longest it has ever taken me, and that was rush hour last week, was about 1hr 20m, right after a relatively big snowfall. It usually takes me about 25-35 min, depending on where in Summerside I'm going (if it's further east, it obviously takes longer).
I've been doing this every day for the past month or so, and frequently before, since August, and leaving at 7am it takes me roughly 35min from my place (66st SW and 25ave SW, roughly) to Norquest, regardless of the route I choose.
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The question is how fast were you driving?
 
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