A few images fro the city's main street program in Bridgeland
The Gateway project
The Gateway project
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- Thread starter Surrealplaces
- Start date
A few images of upgrades for 1st ave and the plaza. Telephone poles gone from 1st ave!
Also a green-way project planned for Edmonton Trail through Bridgeland, and some pedestrian upgrades.
Just build it
Active Member
That's an impressive number of units coming on line. The core is alive and well.
Atticus
Active Member
Something similar to Cidex’s Seventh Avenue Hat tower would slide into there perfectly
Zoom
Active Member
Sweet!
lemongrab
Active Member
Macleod just seems like it's on such a different scale than all the others and would require so much more investment to move the needle even a tiny bit. I wonder if they are also waiting for Green Line and Deerfoot upgrades to be done before trying to tackle Macleod?
Calgcouver
Active Member
Macleod is and will never function as a 'Main Street', they have no intention to change the condition of the Stroad in any meaningful way. In my opinion the Main Streets that should've been selected in the south are Elbow Drive, Fairmount Drive for sure as the blocks are correctly oriented and possibly could work for Heritage Drive and Southland Drive. I imagine they picked Macleod to not piss off existing residents and because commercial is already located there, but this city does not do road diets and Macleod would need to be put on a enormous one to even resemble a ROW that could even pretend to be a Main Street.
They straight up say it won't resemble a Main Street in any new draft LAPs:
LAPs and more ambitious Main Street policies outside of the inner city seem like they will be documents of unending political compromise that will not change the status quo and will fold on good urban design.
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artvandelay
Active Member
Agreed that we should focus on lower hanging fruit, but there are ways of designing a street to both accommodate high volumes of traffic and also facilitate urbanity. Macleod between Chinook and downtown could be something much better than it is right now.
artvandelay
Active Member
Speaking of main streets...the completion of sidewalk construction on 17th has been delayed again until 2023. I understand giving businesses a break, but I feel like this whole project could have been executed better - it will be a six year project when all is said and done. 
MichaelS
Senior Member
Macleod Trail was looked at about a decade ago, through a corridor study, to create a better cross-section to make it more of a pedestrian street, matching the recently minted "Urban Boulevard" status from the then only 3 year old MDP/CTP. The study ran from Anderson Road to 25th Ave SE, with Council approving the design from Anderson to 58th Avenue, but sending back the design from 58th to 25th. If I recall, the reason was that to build what was envisioned north of 58th Ave, it would cost about $100 million. Council was not on board with a project of that cost, that was ultimately a "street beautification" project, which still required acquisition of properties for an expanded ROW to fit the proposed cross-section. The proposed design can be found on the project link here:
www.calgary.ca
Some examples:
50th to 58th Avenue South:
34th to 42nd Avenue South:
When you look at the presentation, everything south of 58th Avenue was approved, as it didn't really involve a lot of work to implement. No moving of the ROW boundaries and a slight adjustment to curb lines to narrow lanes. So, relatively easy to implement. As an example, here is what was proposed (and approved) for the stretch between Southland Drive and 109th Avenue South:
The City actually did some work on this stretch, around 2016 when looking at historical air photos and the Streetview Time Machine. For example, here is the west side of Macleod Trail in August 2015, looking pretty unfriendly for pedestrians, much like the existing condition in the cross-section above:
www.google.ca
And, here it is, post improvement/investment as shown in May 2021:
www.google.ca
That kind of matches the approved cross-section, right? Oh wait, there isn't a 5.0m sidewalk, or seperate cycle track, or even boulevard trees acting as a buffer..... It is better than what was there before (pretty low bar), but why bother meeting an approved plan, when you can spend a fraction of the amount and put up something inferior?
Unfortunately I feel like this is another example of proving that approved plans/policy in this city mean Jack Sh!t......Or maybe I am just being cynical this morning.
Macleod Trail Corridor Study
www.calgary.ca
Some examples:
50th to 58th Avenue South:
34th to 42nd Avenue South:
When you look at the presentation, everything south of 58th Avenue was approved, as it didn't really involve a lot of work to implement. No moving of the ROW boundaries and a slight adjustment to curb lines to narrow lanes. So, relatively easy to implement. As an example, here is what was proposed (and approved) for the stretch between Southland Drive and 109th Avenue South:
The City actually did some work on this stretch, around 2016 when looking at historical air photos and the Streetview Time Machine. For example, here is the west side of Macleod Trail in August 2015, looking pretty unfriendly for pedestrians, much like the existing condition in the cross-section above:
Google Maps
Find local businesses, view maps and get driving directions in Google Maps.
www.google.ca
And, here it is, post improvement/investment as shown in May 2021:
Google Maps
Find local businesses, view maps and get driving directions in Google Maps.
www.google.ca
That kind of matches the approved cross-section, right? Oh wait, there isn't a 5.0m sidewalk, or seperate cycle track, or even boulevard trees acting as a buffer..... It is better than what was there before (pretty low bar), but why bother meeting an approved plan, when you can spend a fraction of the amount and put up something inferior?
Unfortunately I feel like this is another example of proving that approved plans/policy in this city mean Jack Sh!t......Or maybe I am just being cynical this morning.
CBBarnett
Senior Member
The sidewalks are pretty rough shape for large portion as the temporary fills have slumped and the parts that haven't been touched yet are 6 years worse for wear with missing bricks etc. It's makes no sense to drag this out further. Pave them already!Speaking of main streets...the completion of sidewalk construction on 17th has been delayed again until 2023. I understand giving businesses a break, but I feel like this whole project could have been executed better - it will be a six year project when all is said and done.
Apologies - this triggered a rant:
In my opinion - this whole 17th Ave project is a perfect case study on urban priorities, and how Calgary gets it wrong for pedestrians, especially when making trade-offs. IIRC, the source of 17 Ave public realm woes was that the whole 17th Ave project was first dreamed up from a utility requirement to update the old pipe network, and only had the public realm and transportation elements bolted on after public awareness raised concerns to what was happening. 95% of the money, and 95% of the priority went beneath the ground. It shows.
Further, the stuff added above the ground offers marginal benefit/or is actually a detriment to pedestrians (apart from new pavement which is endlessly delayed). This is why the newer Main Streets are light-years better for public realm than this 17 Ave project - the approach is clearly from the user of the street perspective, not driven bluntly by inflexible utility needs that some how failed to talk to anyone who walks during the engagement work.
Here's the examples of all the things the 17 Ave "improvements" did on just one small, but critically important, intersection at 8 Street and 17th Ave. This intersection has one of the highest traffic pedestrian volumes in the city:
- A random new signal control box taking up sidewalk space right where it's at it's narrowest already. No idea why it's needed (see point 5).
- New pointless, decorative poles cluttering the intersection, again taking up sidewalk space in an congested sidewalk area. Curious on how this many poles impact safety and visibility of pedestrians for drivers considered how many crossings are made here daily. How did these make it into the design priority but the sidewalk width didn't?
- Weird, non-standard cut into the curb to allow for a sewer grate to create tripping hazard right at the intersection and takes up yet more space in the narrowest sidewalk section. There's no alignment rationale of the pipes on why this would exist here (we literally ripped up the road to move the pipes) + you could easily do the standard design with a flush curb if you tried.
- Unpaved dirt patch that will be resolved during completion in 2023 (hopefully!)
- Yet more signal control boxes - since this picture, a *third* giant signal control box was added in Tompkins part for that wonky 16th Ave & 8th Street signal project (which has questionable value but that is another story).
Here's the 2012 pre-upgrade version - flush curb, fewer and smaller control boxes, no random poles:
On signal control box madness - I added my own photo for a close up recently, as I can't for the life of me contemplate the thought process behind these things. Here's the close up of our curious signal box fetish at Tompkins Park - quite a view we created for those benches on an otherwise great urban corner. Camera height is about 6 feet so you can gauge the size:
My questions about signal control boxes here:
- why they are needed at all with all our modern tech of 2022
- why you need now 4 of them within 20m of each other
- why they are so big and getting bigger (see #1 and the 2012 picture)
- why must they be placed directly in the pedestrian path of the busiest intersection on 17th Avenue.
Colinfill
Active Member
I really wish someone at the City reads this forum. @CBBarnett - Your post literally captures everything wrong with 17th Ave and Tompkins Park 
lemongrab
Active Member
It would be one thing if each of those boxes/poles/curbs happened piece-meal over the years, but it's hard to fathom how something that bad is the 'final result'. Hopping through the streetview history there is bewildering and maddening.
lemongrab
Active Member
Macleod Trail was looked at about a decade ago, through a corridor study, to create a better cross-section to make it more of a pedestrian street, matching the recently minted "Urban Boulevard" status from the then only 3 year old MDP/CTP. The study ran from Anderson Road to 25th Ave SE, with Council approving the design from Anderson to 58th Avenue, but sending back the design from 58th to 25th. If I recall, the reason was that to build what was envisioned north of 58th Ave, it would cost about $100 million. Council was not on board with a project of that cost, that was ultimately a "street beautification" project, which still required acquisition of properties for an expanded ROW to fit the proposed cross-section. The proposed design can be found on the project link here:
Macleod Trail Corridor Study
And, here it is, post improvement/investment as shown in May 2021:
View attachment 387320
Google Maps
Find local businesses, view maps and get driving directions in Google Maps.
That kind of matches the approved cross-section, right? Oh wait, there isn't a 5.0m sidewalk, or seperate cycle track, or even boulevard trees acting as a buffer..... It is better than what was there before (pretty low bar), but why bother meeting an approved plan, when you can spend a fraction of the amount and put up something inferior?
Unfortunately I feel like this is another example of proving that approved plans/policy in this city mean Jack Sh!t......Or maybe I am just being cynical this morning.
Interesting background on it. I think I still prefer immediate & cheap half-assed measures like that compared to taking a long time to implement something that is still just lipstick on a pig - a loud, busy, and unpleasant pig.
I think Macleod itself is pretty much salvageable; I'd look to improve the parallel arteries (Bonaventure Drive, etc.) and some of the E-W connections. I've got a wild fantasy idea I'll post in a bit.