Here is a letter from Mac Logan, The City of Calgary to the Calgary Herald Editorial Board about Council’s decision not to proceed at this time with a tunnel under the new airport runway. This was published today.On Monday City Council decided not to build a roadway tunnel together with the Calgary Airport Authority’s new runway. This was a thoughtful decision based on numerous realties.
The Airport has long planned an additional runway and The City has always intended for a transportation link under the runway. Within the year, The Airport will close the section of Barlow Trail on Airport lands, so that construction can begin and the runway open in 2014. On Monday, I advised Council that our opportunity to prebuild a tunnel was about to expire. A thorough debate ensued.
The reality is, The City does not have the available funds to add this project within that timeframe. And neither the Authority nor other levels of government are able/willing to provide new funding to immediately assist. A tunnel today made sense as shared project but doesn't make financial sense for The City alone.
Air travellers currently use several major roadways to reach the terminal. The Authority’s new runway will cut off only one of those access roads.
Will the closure of a portion of Barlow Trail be an inconvenience? Yes, to some. Will it add time getting to and from the airport? Yes, a bit however; Barlow Trail only carries about 1,000 vehicles to and from the terminal during afternoon rush-hour. Will it gridlock northeast Calgary? Absolutely not. There is a significant infrastructure program in place.
For example, this year, The City will improve the condition of 36 St. NE along the east side of the airport and add traffic signals at 36 St. and Country Hills Blvd. The Authority will connect 48 Ave. to 36 St. NE to improve access to businesses and Rotary Challenger Park.
Next year, Metis Trail North will be completed so commuters can connect to Country Hills Blvd. to easily access the airport. Over the next several years, Country Hills Blvd from Barlow Tr. to the ring road will be upgraded from a 2 lane rural road to a 6 lane arterial roadway. We will also add a link to Stoney Tr. at 96 Ave. NE.
In 2012, The City will extend Airport Trail west of Deerfoot Trail, adding a direct connection for northern communities like Harvest Hills and Beddington to the airport terminal area.
And in 2013, the Province will complete the southeast portion of the ring road so commuters from the deep south can easily reach the north end of Calgary without once venturing onto Deerfoot Trail.
Diverting money from other approved road construction projects has financial and business consequences that City Council must consider. Those projects, like a new interchange on the Trans Canada Highway at Canada Olympic Park, are part of The City’s long range transportation plan and are critical to support development that is underway or recently approved by Council.
The bottom line is that while it would be ideal to build a tunnel now, it requires money the taxpayers simply do not have today. Council exhaustively debated the issue and rightfully decided not to go it alone and prebuild something where the benefit lies many years into the future. Instead, The City will continue to find additional ways to provide affordable, accessible transportation options for all Calgarians.
Mac Logan, P. Eng. MBA
General Manager
The City of Calgary’s Transportation Department
Posts
Dear Mr. Logan:
ReplyDeleteYour letter about less convenient road alternatives does not address the horrid transit service to the airport. Unlike drivers who can take alternate routes, transit users, including many of the 18,000 airport employees, have no alternative.
Currently, there is only an infrequent and meandering shuttle bus route from Whitehorn station. The City's decision to forgo a tunnel to the airport effectively kills the hope of BRT or LRT connection from the NE LRT in the near future.
The City might want to leave this issue to Calgary Transit who in turn cite the lack of interest from the Airport authority. As GM of Transportation, I urge you to follow your peers in Montreal, Vancouver and Toronto and plan for mass transit to our airport.
I agree with the previous posted message. I honestly can't believe the city transportation manager and his employees think that 1) every person living in Calgary has a car and 2) they want to drive it to the airport on these new interchanges. It's time to make transit the top priority in this city. The existing system is very inadequate and dysfunctional. I want to see regular, direct access to the airport instead of more roads. Let's get on it!
ReplyDeleteThis affects Calgary Transit infrastructure more-so than roadworks in my opinion.
ReplyDeleteGuess I will keep driving everywhere for years to come!
And $50,000,000. for two pedestrian bridges across the Bow sought by no one, but Ald. Duh Farrell? Oh, please!!
ReplyDeleteDoes the GM of transportation look at the success of other cities? Look at our population and we do not have any direct transportation to the airport other then car or bus. The GM looks "For NOW" answers and not "FOREVER." It is time to clean house and replace it with people who are lloking into our future even if it means spending more now.
ReplyDeleteHow does the airport tunnel compare against other transportation projects on an annual time saved (volume times time savings) per capital spent? Surely City of Calgary engineers should have this information available for prioritization of projects. I am sure the money could be found if it was a high enough priority in terms of capital efficiency. This could then be compared against various other city projects in the city. Without comparing this transportation capital efficiency metric, the City of Calgary looks like it may or may not doing things in the best interest of all Calgarians.
ReplyDeleteLess than the traffic that uses Barlow Trail north of McKnight Blvd is using it to access the Airport. Many other people use it as an alternative to Deerfoot which has major congestion during rush hours.
ReplyDeleteThis closure is going to amplify that congestion on Deerfoot, and bottleneck McKnight in that area.
I agree with many of these people commenting that there needs to be much better access to the airport via public transit as it's significantly lacking at the moment. An LRT link is a brilliant idea.
I don't know much, but I do know that when I take southbound Deerfoot from Country Hills, it's a parking lot. Instead, I take Country Hills east to Barlow and follow it to my office, which is located near Barlow/Memorial. This saves me considerable time and stress. With the recently annexed lands north of the city, and the ever-increasing number of commuters coming from Airdrie and other northern towns, I suspect Deerfoot is going to become busier and more of a parking lot over the next few years. Closing Barlow south of the airport is a mistake, and it's going to be a nightmare for commuters in the North. I suggest Council members follow southbound Deerfoot for a month at around 7:30 in the morning. Perhaps then they'll change their tune about the necessity of alternate routes.
ReplyDeleteThe transit out to the airport is laughable, and can take hours! Back in the 80's a company wanted to build a monorail to the airport, imagine that.
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