City Decides To Reduce Memorial Drive Capacity
April 16th, 2009After spending millions of dollars adding planters on Memorial Drive, the city plans another move for the major east-west roadway that will be seen as another waste of time and money. During August of this year, the roadway capacity will be reduced by 50% as the city shuts down the two lanes adjacent to the river. The westbound lanes will be turned into 2-way traffic. Before you even ask, there are no construction projects planned for the eastbound lanes. Ald. Druh Farrell pushed for the idea to close two lanes of Memorial Drive to create a more pedestrian and cyclist friendly environment.
“It’s about getting people to come out and get active. We’re not reducing capacity. In fact, we’re anticipating more volumes of people.” Farrell added she’s not worried about impeding traffic because that stretch of Memorial Drive is “a pretty sleepy road on Sundays.”
I hate to break it to Ald. Druh Farrell, but when you close two lanes you are in fact reducing capacity. Just because cyclists and pedestrians may end up using the roadway to travel, does not mean the roadway capacity has not been reduced. Another potential issue is that construction on 16th avenue is already limiting capacity on that east-west road, this unnecessary bottleneck on Memorial Drive will further strain the road infrastructure.
Calgary has one of the best pathway systems in North America, and right along the stretch of Memorial Drive that will be closed, from 10th Street to The Calgary Curling Club, run bike and pedestrian paths that are not even close to capacity on their busiest days. In fact, there are bike and pedestrian paths on BOTH sides of the roadway.
It would make much more sense to close down 4th Street (all four lanes) between 17th Avenue and 25th Avenue (Lilac Festival) every Sunday or even Kensington Road (all four lanes) between 10th and 14th Street. These two areas would have less impact on east-west vehicle traffic and would actually encourage people to visit via walking, jogging or cycling as both of these locations are accessible by the existing pathway systems.
This ridiculous idea was hatched and then launched without the slightest debate at City Hall. I personally plan on driving down to the area as a form of protest, and I hope other drivers do as well. Perhaps all the vehicles idling in the ensuing traffic snarl will put an end to this stupid idea.
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While I don’t really use that stretch of road. I disagree with this move…it is just gonna create way more congestion on the routes that I do use.
I can’t believe this went through. What a waste of skin Druh Farrell is. Lets look at why someone would want to “come out and get active” - it’s to be happy right? You know what would probably make them more happy? Not spending an extra half hour in the car everyday.
Wow. I really cant believe the ignorance of some of the people running this city.. I can tell you that there is going to be a LOT of angry drivers.. me in particular if I ever have to take this bullshit way.
I am going to assume that I am going to be the only one saying this.
Personally, I think it’s worth a shot. I don’t thin it’s going to be too big of a deal. Let’s try it, see how well it turns out, and gauge the traffic scenario. I can’t find myself getting angry over something so temporary (at the same time, I have had a lot of practice being stuck in Woodbine for hours because someone played bumper cars on Anderson).
It would also be a cool place to have a market one day on a weekend! I have seen this work in Fredericton and in Picton. Granted they don’t have a city of over 1 million, but they closed down some big roads and had no big problems. Plus it brought a lot of local flavor and talent!
So again, Give it a try for a few weeks and see if it works. If it doesn’t work, life will continue one and you will forget about the temporary traffic headache within a few weeks.
Wow…this is just ridiculous i take that road everyday to get to mt. royal sure its not as fast as taking 16th or deerfoot but its just nice scenery on the drive to school… this is just total bs. Sure tomaz brings up a good point where there could be a possibility of having some nice markets but in the end if its a daily thing then its just a waste and will cause people to avoid the road completely causing more clutter elsewhere making it more difficult for other drivers to get around the city…
[...] Calgary Alderman’s wishes to shutdown a section of a major east-west corridor will be granted despite a last attempt to quash the plans. Those that were against the plan to have [...]
[...] It was back in April when we first wrote about Ald. Druh Farrell’s idea to completely close the eastbound lanes on a section of Memorial Drive. At the time, the plan was to have the closures occur on every sunday during the month of August. [...]