Dean's Blog

so, this week whilst driving home from work I have come to realize that every route that I can reasonably take to travel home is either currently under construction, slated for construction, or heavily affected by nearby construction.

Guys? Hello? You’d think someone down at the dark arts planning department would have noticed that every east-west high volume corridor from Glenmore trail to McKnight Boulevard is racked up with construction. I mean, seriously, 16th avenue is just a big war zone. It doesn’t look like they’ve done anything there other than place concrete barriers all over the place Encana’s project is going to seriously mess with downtown, Memorial has that ridiculous lane reversal going on, which is completely useless and totally in the wrong section of roadway. Every other road is a traffic light-fest, with traffic lights seemingly programmed to cause accidents and wear on your brakes. The lights that are green for less than ten seconds are a part of the mass insanity coalition I am certain. And then there are the ‘interchanges’ designed by toddlers with shorts full of crap, such as the mess of any combination of Memorial - Crowchild - Bow Trail, and 16th - Shaganappi. The ban on new river crossings is also worth mentioning. It sucks!

So, I propose that they build some Los-Angeles style elevated freeways right over top of everything else, with no on or off ramps except at the ends. If you want to go downtown you take Memorial. If you want to get to Crowchild from Deerfoot, you take the elevated freeway, thusly avoiding all the traffic that is simply going downtown, without adding to the volume those that are going to, say Crowchild from Deerfoot, through downtown. The solution is indeed building upwards not outwards. For you Sim City fans, the +15 downtown is considered a proto-arcology, (Information on the Arcology here) so a full on system is the most obvious next step.

And as for the Transit Strike/Lockout situation.. How come the ridership never goes on strike due to poor service, conditions and crowding? Bah