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  #21  
Old Posted Sep 23, 2007, 6:57 PM
liferanger liferanger is offline
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^ Agreed......everything shakes out fair in the wind....And that's all Mandel is blowing...hot wind....

This city needs such a change on council...everyone from the Mayor down
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  #22  
Old Posted Sep 23, 2007, 7:28 PM
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the whole region needs to be added into 1 big boundary, remove the current city government, reform it, divide the new big Edmonton into 4-5 "boroughs" and don't allow anything urban/city like to be built on its borders for as long as possible.

Unicity baby. All the way.
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  #23  
Old Posted Sep 23, 2007, 8:37 PM
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^ I agree with one unified city. Is there really a need for 22 sets of mayors, alderman, support staff, transit systems, maintenance, etc? The current way has way too much duplication in many positions and would save a lot of money in saved wages alone. 22 mayors at $80,000 (just a guess) is $1.76 million, not too mention all the other overlaps....One word, annexation.....

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  #24  
Old Posted Sep 24, 2007, 7:30 AM
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^ I agree with one unified city. Is there really a need for 22 sets of mayors, alderman, support staff, transit systems, maintenance, etc? The current way has way too much duplication in many positions and would save a lot of money in saved wages alone. 22 mayors at $80,000 (just a guess) is $1.76 million, not too mention all the other overlaps....One word, annexation.....

Regards
^ once again , agreed whole heartedly with these sentiments....It's time for amalgamation....And I live in St Albert for the record...
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  #25  
Old Posted Sep 24, 2007, 2:14 PM
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Agreed we need to be almalgamated but since that's not going to happen anytime soon we did get screwed on the infrastructure money.
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  #26  
Old Posted Sep 25, 2007, 4:03 PM
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I like the fact Mandel is bitching about the way the money was divided. He is standing up for his city and wants to the best for it. Nothing wrong with that.

AHD North-Good to hear it has a timeline already in place. Better than hearing how it is still in planning stages and will be done soon.
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  #27  
Old Posted Sep 25, 2007, 4:09 PM
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This ring road will do wonders for goods and truck traffic around the city.
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  #28  
Old Posted Sep 25, 2007, 4:14 PM
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This ring road will do wonders for goods and truck traffic around the city.
I just wish they would hurry up and go ahead with the remaining 10% or whatever will be left - from #16 on the East side up to Manning Drive. That is the most useful portion of the road for me, and will be the last part to be built.

Maybe they are waiting on this until they decide how to twin the highway to Ft Mac?? (ie which route to take out of Edmonton).
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  #29  
Old Posted Sep 25, 2007, 5:01 PM
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I just wish they would hurry up and go ahead with the remaining 10% or whatever will be left - from #16 on the East side up to Manning Drive. That is the most useful portion of the road for me, and will be the last part to be built.

Maybe they are waiting on this until they decide how to twin the highway to Ft Mac?? (ie which route to take out of Edmonton).
I think you'll find that in the last year or two that they are wrapping up construction on the north section... we will get an annoucement for the last 10%.
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  #30  
Old Posted Sep 26, 2007, 9:49 PM
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I dont know if anyone travels Henday on a regular basis but try driving on N/B Henday from Whitemud - Stony PLain Rd at 0730hrs....strickly a parking lot for ovr 20+ blocks due to the lights...FUCK....planning of this road was really screwed up in the West End...
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  #31  
Old Posted Sep 27, 2007, 3:36 AM
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^ yeah, kind of embarrassing with all the lights
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  #32  
Old Posted Sep 27, 2007, 3:45 AM
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Hopefully they remove those sooner then later
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  #33  
Old Posted Sep 27, 2007, 2:07 PM
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...only with the appropriate $$$
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  #34  
Old Posted Sep 27, 2007, 5:33 PM
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Hopefully they remove those sooner then later
Don't hold your breath. It seems to me that once a project is 'finished' and they have moved on to the next then it takes forever to come back and do something else. It looks better to the voters when you are building something 'new' rather than jsut adding to something that already exists. There is only so much cash for the government to spend, and they have committed to:

1. SE AHD - nearing completion
2. NW AHD - just announced so at least 2-3 years from completion
3. NW Stoney Trail (Calgary) - still under construction
4. NE Stoney Trail - just started.

After that they will likely finish the last portion of AHD in Edmonton, do the SE Stoney Trail in Calgary and possibly the SW portion as well if they can ever resolve the land issue with the Tsu Tina Reserve.

Once those are all finished you MIGHT see them come back and finish the fuckups on SW AHD and NW Stoney Trail (same issues with lights instead of interchanges). I would say we are 7-10 years minimum to this point.
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  #35  
Old Posted Sep 27, 2007, 5:40 PM
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Actually, they'll be removing 2 of those lights when they do the NW section, from my understanding, they will remove the lights at yellowhead west and AHD, and stony plain road/ahd.... and those 2 are the worst/longest delay
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  #36  
Old Posted Sep 30, 2007, 3:26 AM
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There's a real magic to this new ring road

Paula Simons
The Edmonton Journal

Saturday, September 29, 2007

How can I explain my fascination with the Anthony Henday ring road?

After all, I'm officially opposed to urban sprawl, to paving over wildlands and farmlands, officially opposed to increasing green house gas emissions. So why do I get so excited about a new freeway system that facilitates sprawl and encourages people to drive their cars long distances?

Perhaps it has something to do with the romance of witnessing history unfold at the edge of a new frontier.

Imagine how cool it would be to go back in time to the moment the High Level Bridge opened. Or the day the first steam train puffed in to Strathcona.

Yet in a boom town as young as ours, we don't need time travel to see an urban space transformed and redefined. We can watch it out our car windows.

This week, construction on the southeast leg of the Henday came to its official conclusion. This newest part won't open to public traffic until late October; the official date has yet to be confirmed. But all the major construction is complete.

Crews are now just adding the finishing touches: painting the white and yellow lines, sandblasting the metal guard rails, landscaping the medians and verges.

But the bridges are built, the fly-ways are finished, the shiny black asphalt, still smelling of oil and ever-so-slightly soft underfoot, is poured and waiting.

When this 11-kilometre stretch of freeway opens, it will connect Calgary Trail and the Queen Elizabeth II with Highways 14 and 16 east, completing a ring linking the Yellowhead to the Yellowhead. With this part done, the province has two "legs" left to complete. First, the northwest corner, linking Highway 16 to St. Albert and the Manning Freeway, a project the province has out to tender right now. After that will come the final tricky bit, bridging the river at Clover Bar.

To me, there's a real magic to this burgeoning ring road. Sure, it will make it easier for heavy truck traffic to skirt the city, moving goods and industrial equipment more efficiently. Of course, it will make it easier for suburban commuters to scoot from Sherwood Park to West Edmonton Mall, from Beaumont to St. Albert or from Fort Saskatchewan to Nisku. It may reduce congestion on Calgary Trail and Whitemud Drive. And yes, it will make it faster to get to the airport or Jasper or Elk Island Park.

But beyond that, the Henday symbolizes the energy and power of a city evolving under our very noses. It promises a paradigm shift, a change in the way the people and communities of metro Edmonton relate to one another. Just as the Canadian Pacific Railway forged Canada into a nation, joined coast to coast, the Henday has the potential to bind this region into one cohesive economic and social unit.

Stephen King and Ron Kubsch, the PCL engineers who served as construction managers for the Henday's southeast leg, positively beam with pride as they tour me up and down "their" road.

We start at Calgary Trail, where a complex triple-decker bypass, the first of its kind in Edmonton, will soon shunt traffic east and west, north and south. But navigating three layers of bridge work might take a little getting used to.

"This is a free flow, fully integrated interchange, with no lights. It looks complicated, but it will work well," King says. "It has an incredible number of overhead guide signs. I don't think the driver is going to have a lot of trouble."

"It's probably going to take the public a day or two to figure it out," Kubsch says. "But I think people are going to be quite surprised when they see how fast they get to Highway 14 or 216."

The project was designed, built and financed by a seven company consortium called Access Roads Edmonton.

PCL oversaw the construction and built the bridges and overpasses. Sureway Construction was responsible for earthworks and drainage, while LaFarge was responsible for paving, signage and lights. At the peak of construction, there were at least 360 works on site.

"Workforce was tough to find," Kubsch says. "We had a skilled worker shortage, for sure."

That meant training lots of fresh apprentices on the job -- and importing more than two dozen skilled tradesmen from Germany.

Building down the middle of an established utility corridor wasn't easy, either. It meant excavating with extreme care near high-pressure pipelines, and relocating high-voltage, power lines and towers. It also meant building a special "high load" corridor -- a detour loop to allow trucks headed to Fort McMurray with super-tall cargo to avoid getting stuck under overpasses or taking down power lines.

To meet the need for tonnes of asphalt in the middle of nowhere, LaFarge actually built its own mini asphalt plant, on-site. On top of that, Access Roads was required to reclaim wetlands disrupted by construction near Mill Creek.

"We've created wetlands that we really hope are attractive to wildlife and waterfowl," says Kubsch, as we pass a pond filled with Canada geese, preparing to make their own commute south.

The fresh blacktop looks temptingly smooth, as it snakes behind the IKEA and the new Wal-Mart mega-store, around Mill Woods, past the new neighbourhood of Ellerslie Heights and through Strathcona County. But where commuters and trucks might see a high-speed short-cut, others see a legacy.

"There is a real, human side to this. A lot of people worked long, hard hours on this project," Ron Kubsch says. "For Stephen and me, it's been one of our most rewarding experiences. It was a challenge. You get into it and there's a certain fear factor. But in the end, there's the success of it. We did what we said we were going to do.

"You're part of something that will be there for a long, long time," he adds "These bridges have a design life of 75 years. This will outlast all of us -- and maybe our kids, too."

psimons@thejournal.canwest.com

BY THE NUMBERS

11 kilometres -- the length of the new southeast leg

1 metre -- how high the south east leg sits above grade

20 metres -- the height of the highest Calgary Trail overpasses

20 -- the number of bridges, overpasses and flyways

290,000 tonnes -- the weight of asphalt used on the project's southeast leg

1.6 million -- number of man-hours of labour that went into the project

360 -- number of people working on the construction at its peak

$493 million -- how much Access Roads Edmonton was paid by the province, in constant dollars, to build the road, and to operate and maintain the southeast and southwest legs for the next 30 years

$800 million -- what the province has spent on the total ring-road project so far

100 kilometres per hour -- the speed limit for the southeast leg

0 -- number of traffic lights along the southeast leg


video: http://video.canada.com/VideoContent.aspx?&fl=&popup=1

pics: http://www.canada.com/edmontonjourna.../ringroad.html
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  #37  
Old Posted Sep 30, 2007, 6:09 PM
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^while not exactly akin to the relations above, it is truly a new frontier for Edmonton.
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  #38  
Old Posted Sep 30, 2007, 10:31 PM
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The SW portion of AHD is already pretty busy. Perhaps they will tackle the overpasses in the SW portion now with this increase in traffic? Please?
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  #39  
Old Posted Sep 30, 2007, 10:33 PM
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The SW portion of AHD is already pretty busy. Perhaps they will tackle the overpasses in the SW portion now with this increase in traffic? Please?
they better...SW is going to be the busiest section of the roadway IMO simply due to it being HWY2-HWY16 and WEM.
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  #40  
Old Posted Oct 1, 2007, 5:39 AM
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Originally Posted by liferanger View Post
^ Agreed......everything shakes out fair in the wind....And that's all Mandel is blowing...hot wind....

This city needs such a change on council...everyone from the Mayor down
I totally disagree, our current Council is good. Is there room for improvement, of course.

I'd have to say that Krushell is probably thee best councilor at this time. I expect her to really shine during the next term. She's developed alot of respect for herself, particularly after her stance on the 23 Avenue interchange.
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