CALGARY – After a summer of traffic headaches on northbound Deerfoot Trail around the Calf Robe Bridge, construction has finally ended and the expressway is scheduled to return to normal with three lanes open by this morning for rush hour.
The end of the squeeze on northbound Deerfoot to two narrow lanes to allow roadwork, which backed up traffic at rush hours, comes as the province looks to upgrade two other bottlenecks on Calgary streets.
On Wednesday, an Alberta Transportation consultant will outline a reconstruction and expansion of the Macleod Trail-Highway 22x interchange, where east-west traffic is now squeezed from two lanes to one lane in each direction, with traffic flow further hampered by signal lights.
And on Deerfoot Trail, the province says construction could begin next year to add a new bridge over Glenmore Trail that will see traffic cruising on four lanes each way.
It’s hoped these projects, along with work on the southeast portion of Stoney Trail, will eventually improve conditions for drivers in south Calgary.
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“We’re certainly hopeful of it,” Trent Bancarz, an Alberta Transportation spokesman, said.
Traffic issues have been a perennial frustration for many in southern parts of the city.
And this summer’s delays on Deerfoot Trail did not help, as three lanes were pared to two narrow ones northbound and the usual 100 km/h speed limit slashed to 50 km/h as crews put down an overlay on two bridge decks.
Traffic at the Highway 22X overpass on Macleod Trail can routinely get backed up during rush hour, snow storms and due to accidents – as much as three kilometres of vehicles stuck in backups where the road shrinks from two lanes to one in each direction, according to Alia Vanzhov, president of the Bridlewood-Somerset Community Association.
The prospect of changes to improve the overpass and interchange is good news, Vanzhov said.
“Hopefully, what we will hear is that they’re going to widen that bridge finally and remove that one traffic light,” Vanzhov said.
A public information session on potential interchange designs will be held between 5 and 8 p.m. on Wednesday at Bishop O’Byrne High School.
Bancarz said construction could begin in 2013 and finish the next year.
It will dovetail with continued work to complete the southern portion of the Stoney Trail ring road.
The ring road will open Highway 22X to three lanes of traffic in each direction and the section from the southeast fringes of Calgary to Macleod Trail is scheduled to be ready in two years.
The Deerfoot Trail-Glenmore Trail project will depend on money in the next provincial budget, but if all goes well, construction could begin next year.
In addition to doubling the number of traffic lanes, the project will also upgrade the interchanges.
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