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50 Street Widening & CP Rail Grade Separation

HappyJazzz said:
Agree with much of this, but what I'd really like to see is an overall improvement to the Gateway corridor as part of the HSR project.

Ideally I'd like to see Gateway become free flow and converted to two way traffic, and have Calgary trail converted to two way, but oriented towards neighborhood access.

I think the lack of a simple and fast corridor to the city center has been one of the things holding back increased development downtown.

Now, do I think the city has the planning chops to pull something like that off? Lololol... No, absolutely not :(
Click to expand...
Wait like… free flow all the way to downtown?
 
Noticed that there is a sidewalk (shared pathway/bike path?) to the right/east, and 4 lanes for vehicle traffic.

Why are there 4, I could see 3 for future growth, just lost on 4...
 
Habibfazil said:
Noticed that there is a sidewalk (shared pathway/bike path?) to the right/east, and 4 lanes for vehicle traffic.

Why are there 4, I could see 3 for future growth, just lost on 4...
Click to expand...
It’s temporary until the southbound overpass opens. Then it’ll be three lanes per direction (they’ll probably be wider and have shoulders).
 
I wonder if a second track may be built under the 50th Street bridge in the future.. The CPR bridge over Sherwood Park Freeway has room for a second track.
 
Barnaby said:
No thanks to any urban freeways.
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Hang on a second. Every major city in the world, and throughout history started as a one way village, cow trail. Then it expanded to 1,2,3,4,5,6,,7 streets. Was that not sprawl ? We need infrastructure. We need it to increase a the population increases. Simple as that. If in, another 100 years another 'Henday' is needed, so be it. Don't get bent all our of shape, it just needs to be done.
If we ever discover a way to beam ourselves and good around the place. good ! Until that point, we need infrastructure.
Calling a spade a spade, do we need to de-poplutate the planet ?
 
snowman123 said:
Hang on a second. Every major city in the world, and throughout history started as a one way village, cow trail. Then it expanded to 1,2,3,4,5,6,,7 streets. Was that not sprawl ? We need infrastructure. We need it to increase a the population increases. Simple as that. If in, another 100 years another 'Henday' is needed, so be it. Don't get bent all our of shape, it just needs to be done.
If we ever discover a way to beam ourselves and good around the place. good ! Until that point, we need infrastructure.
Calling a spade a spade, do we need to de-poplutate the planet ?
Click to expand...
Ok… we still will never *need* an urban freeway into downtown. That debate was largely settled by the 80s in Edmonton.
 
The_Cat said:
I wonder if a second track may be built under the 50th Street bridge in the future.. The CPR bridge over Sherwood Park Freeway has room for a second track.
Click to expand...
Now that the traffic is above the rails, I would say certainly, would make sense as it would eliminate a bottleneck. Then the rest of the line until it hits strathcona...
 
HappyJazzz said:
Agree with much of this, but what I'd really like to see is an overall improvement to the Gateway corridor as part of the HSR project.

Ideally I'd like to see Gateway become free flow and converted to two way traffic, and have Calgary trail converted to two way, but oriented towards neighborhood access.

I think the lack of a simple and fast corridor to the city center has been one of the things holding back increased development downtown.

Now, do I think the city has the planning chops to pull something like that off? Lololol... No, absolutely not :(
Click to expand...

I'd love to see a more centrally located north-south freeway corridor. That being said, putting it on Gateway Boulevard is delusional. There are so many businesses fronting Gateway Boulevard, including a lot of new developments (EverSquare, the new strip malls north of 34th Ave), all of which would be obliterated by turning Gateway Boulevard into a freeway. And all the light industrial areas north of 51st Ave would be gone too. As unsightly as they look, those I don't think anyone wants something that extreme, especially not when we're struggling to add more heavy industries to our tax base. Plus, what are you going to do when it reaches the Whyte Ave area? Build expensive tunnels down to the river valley? Demolish huge swaths of one of the most vibrant and walkable neighbourhoods in Edmonton?

Think, @HappyJazzz, think! 91st Street is literally right there. Huge right-of-way, almost no businesses fronting it, space for large interchanges. It's perfect for a freeway up to Argyll road, and there's space at the Henday to link it up with the QE2 once it's converted to a collector-express. Now, don't ask me how it's gonna get further north towards Downtown (Mill Creek Ravine is there, but hell no!). Maybe connecting to and following 75th Street (somehow... without destroying half the businesses and homes there, idek this'll be a quagmire)? You come up with something here.

Okay, but regardless, we have a fast high-capacity north-south corridor to Downtown - the Capital Line LRT. The money would be much better spent getting the trains cleaned up, and then building a proper interchange at Heritage Valley Trail to link as many people with cars to the park'n'ride.

That being said, I don't mind improving the aesthetics of Gateway Boulevard. I think south of the Whitemud, a lot of those ingresses/egresses to the shopping center in the middle need to be eliminated and replaced with more sparsely-placed two-way access roads. That way, we'll get a lot more continuous tracts available for some nice landscaping and big trees. Also, get rid of the gas station where Gateway and Calgary Trail split and replace it with some nice welcome feature. I'd also remove the two old motels by the intermodal yard and expand the strip mall north. At least up to Whitemud Drive or even 51st Ave, we could give it a nice refresh. Then, north of Argyll Road, the best way to improve the aesthetics would be to eliminate the rail yard (aside from the bare minimum for the HSR alignment) and phase out the heavy industrial uses, gradually linking up Ritchie and Queen Alexandra with mixed-used development and fresh landscaping. A large district park would be nice here too.
 
yeggator said:
I'd love to see a more centrally located north-south freeway corridor. That being said, putting it on Gateway Boulevard is delusional. There are so many businesses fronting Gateway Boulevard, including a lot of new developments (EverSquare, the new strip malls north of 34th Ave), all of which would be obliterated by turning Gateway Boulevard into a freeway. And all the light industrial areas north of 51st Ave would be gone too. As unsightly as they look, those I don't think anyone wants something that extreme, especially not when we're struggling to add more heavy industries to our tax base. Plus, what are you going to do when it reaches the Whyte Ave area? Build expensive tunnels down to the river valley? Demolish huge swaths of one of the most vibrant and walkable neighbourhoods in Edmonton?

Think, @HappyJazzz, think! 91st Street is literally right there. Huge right-of-way, almost no businesses fronting it, space for large interchanges. It's perfect for a freeway up to Argyll road, and there's space at the Henday to link it up with the QE2 once it's converted to a collector-express. Now, don't ask me how it's gonna get further north towards Downtown (Mill Creek Ravine is there, but hell no!). Maybe connecting to and following 75th Street (somehow... without destroying half the businesses and homes there, idek this'll be a quagmire)? You come up with something here.

Okay, but regardless, we have a fast high-capacity north-south corridor to Downtown - the Capital Line LRT. The money would be much better spent getting the trains cleaned up, and then building a proper interchange at Heritage Valley Trail to link as many people with cars to the park'n'ride.

That being said, I don't mind improving the aesthetics of Gateway Boulevard. I think south of the Whitemud, a lot of those ingresses/egresses to the shopping center in the middle need to be eliminated and replaced with more sparsely-placed two-way access roads. That way, we'll get a lot more continuous tracts available for some nice landscaping and big trees. Also, get rid of the gas station where Gateway and Calgary Trail split and replace it with some nice welcome feature. I'd also remove the two old motels by the intermodal yard and expand the strip mall north. At least up to Whitemud Drive or even 51st Ave, we could give it a nice refresh. Then, north of Argyll Road, the best way to improve the aesthetics would be to eliminate the rail yard (aside from the bare minimum for the HSR alignment) and phase out the heavy industrial uses, gradually linking up Ritchie and Queen Alexandra with mixed-used development and fresh landscaping. A large district park would be nice here too.
Click to expand...

Hahaha, sounds like someone has been partying with Kermit! ;)

I'm sure you know the history of how 91 st was to be the N/S freeway at one point, and you correctly identified why it didn't end up that way. Edmonton's failing at that point was not immediately working on an alternate plan.

But even now, there's very little of real value between Gateway and the rail ROW, and IMO the costs of acquiring and demolishing the new strip mall north of 34av should come out of the salary and pensions of the CoE people responsible for the recent sale of the vacant land!

Least disruptive way of dealing with the whyte crossing would be cut and covering a stacked 3 lane tunnel through to the river valley, taking all of that non-neighbourhood traffic off the roads of said 'vibrant' community, and making it a quieter and safer place.

Expensive? Oh hell yeah... Really not doable under current economic models, which is why I refer to it as an ideal or daydream.

Anyways, enough thinking for now, spent too much time at the beach today and I need a sushi feast to recuperate :cool:
 
Barnaby said:
No thanks to any urban freeways.
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Well other than the short section near Whyte, I'd hardly call the Gateway corridor urban...

And if I was a resident in the Whyte adjacent communities I'd happily support changes that would get traffic that was just passing through out of the neighborhood.

Maybe it would just be easier to relocate all of DT to Leduc? Just think of how many dog parks could be built where those ghastly skyscrapers are ruining the neighborhood 🙃
 
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