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Originally Posted by craner
So I attended the Deerfoot open house on Wed. night - a few things concerned me:
2. Deerfoot/Glenmore - Two loops on the west side of Deerfoot make for a very short weave distance which is one of the problems with the current interchange.
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I think you're interpreting the diagram incorrectly. The loops which are in black are the existing road but they're extended by a long pink merge lane (CD system) which eventually hooks back into the main road. What they're proposing is a lot better if I understand things correctly.
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One thing I did like is all the boards seemed to indicate 4 core lanes on Deerfoot.
Anyway, construction is likely so far off into the future things will change dramatically before any of this is built.
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I went to last night's open house and talked for awhile with another attendee and one of the consultants about the project. The company he works for was hired by Alberta Transportation. He told us some pretty interesting things based on the questions we asked him. The City is running this expansion/fix info gathering process but it sure sounds like it's Alberta Transportation calling the shots behind the scenes. That doesn't mean the City has no say.
Concerning having 8 lanes the entire stretch that might not be the case based on a comment the consultant made. He said some areas might have 6 lanes but will have a CD system to keep traffic separated. I found when looking at the boards and hearing people comment about them that nearly everyone wanted CD lanes to make the road as safe as possible. I was pleasantly surprised to not hear one person mention cost. Maybe it was just the people there at the time but I got the sense that people realize that this is likely to be a one time opportunity to do major fixes and expansion to this freeway.
The consultant told us that the overall cost will definitely be more than $1 billion and he mentioned what they figure one of the major interchange complexes will cost but said it's confidential so I won't mention it other than to say that it's big number but very reasonable for what they plan on doing.
The person asking questions with me asked if they've considered going the P3 route so this can get done all at once in a timely manner. The consultant said all options are on the table and that we should let them know that we'd be in favor of doing this as a P3. The consultant seemed pretty excited about going the P3 route as did the person I was with.
The plan going forward is to narrow the choices and options down by March and then I believe have more open houses. I hope the data being collected is also given to Alberta Transportation so the City doesn't rig the analysis to make it seem like a significant percentage of people want the project to include major spending on alternate modes of transportation.