Beddington bus trap

[supe]

Disclosure I live North of the beddington bus trap.

I really don't see why the beddington bus trap exists especially given the 96th ave connection is now open to deerfoot.

Centre street is a main corridor from down town all the way to Beddington. If you look at the google map of the area, its very inneficient to have traffic routed all way around. The amount of wasted fuel and time makes me cringe.

I did contact the councillor and this is their response:

The idea of re-opening this bus trap has been visited many times over the past years. Residents north of the area want it open and residents south of this area want it to remain closed. While Councillor Stevenson is very much in favour of having it re-opened, requests by our office to re-open it have been repeatedly declined by Transit.

Although I understand the want for decreased traffic through your neighborhood, for me I would offset that with better access to more routes and businesses.

Any thoughts?

[codetrap]

It's closed because the residents along center street there didn't want 40000 cars a day going by in front of their houses. And they were successful in that.

Also, it would require a complete re-engineering of the intersection with Beddington trail. Can you imagine the lineup's that would exist in that neighborhood trying to access Beddington and the north? A proper interchange would have to be built, which would impact the entire neighborhood, otherwise you might as well write off the BRTs.

I think when you add up the hundreds of millions of dollars it would take to put a real interchange in there, the cost of the gas to go the extra 1.8km is pretty insane.

[OU812]

Originally posted by codetrap
It's closed because the residents along center street there didn't want 40000 cars a day going by in front of their houses. And they were successful in that.

Yet all the people that live on centre betweeb Beddinton Blvd and downtown have to deal with them anyway.

The # of people this would effect <500

[Q-TIP]

Doesn't stop me from crossing it. You need a wider vehicle.

[Xtrema]

All thanks to improper city design in the 80s.

Who would turn 4 lane Center St into 2 lane residential area?

[revelations]

Originally posted by Q-TIP
Doesn't stop me from crossing it. You need a wider vehicle.

or two wheels

[OU812]

or a dump truck of gravel

[Kijho]

haha yeah 2 wheels

[codetrap]

Yeah, I usually go through it on my bike too. I suspect it's slightly more than 500 people that would be affected. All the houses directly along that street would be affected, as well as anyone living on the adjacent streets that have only single access to their loops. I think as congestion hit, you'd also see way higher loads going through the the sidestreets back to the Beddington Blvd/Berkshire area.

That's all with just existing traffic amounts. As soon as it becomes known that Center street is a more direct route downtown as a viable alternative to the other routes, we'd see a redistribution of traffic that would increase the load at least threefold.. probably more. That would require additional traffic controls just north of the 4way stop, traffic controls at the little mall... it would drastically change the area, as well as negatively affecting all the communities all the way down to McKnight and beyond.

I think the costs totally outweigh the benefits... right now, using center street is usually quick if you're willing to do the 1.8km detour and endure the McKnight dip... as soon as it changed, center street would be clone of deerfoot and you would lose all benefit to using it that you enjoy now.

[speedog]

Originally posted by supe
Disclosure I live North of the beddington bus trap.

I really don't see why the beddington bus trap exists especially given the 96th ave connection is now open to deerfoot.

Centre street is a main corridor from down town all the way to Beddington. If you look at the google map of the area, its very inneficient to have traffic routed all way around. The amount of wasted fuel and time makes me cringe.

I did contact the councillor and this is their response:



Although I understand the want for decreased traffic through your neighborhood, for me I would offset that with better access to more routes and businesses.

Any thoughts?

So which set of houses would you rather have the city buy - the 21 on the east side or the 19 on the west side?
Could even be all 40.

At let's say $350.000 apiece (maybe conservative?), the CoC would be looking at $6.6-7.5 million just for twenty or so properties alone and another 5-15 million for new infrastructure - get's to be an expensive project.

So that extra 1.8km remains very attractive for the CoC considering that extra 1.8km is all traveled on existing infrastructure that can easily handle those traffic loads.

[ExtraSlow]

Much more e4xpensive than buying those homes would be the improvements to the interchange required to handle the new traffic volume and flow. This would be a very popular route for people going north.
It would also put a lot more traffic on centre street from downtown to beddington, and that road is pretty maxed out already during rush hour.

Big negative effect on transit times too.

I don't see it happening.

[codetrap]

^I hope I don't see it happening... it would suck all the way downtown..

Can you imagine even a 3rd of the traffic from Beddington Trail in the morning diverting down through Center St? It would totally destroy the BRT routes.

[supe]

Ok pretty convincing arguments.

I guess my flaw is I never did get that bike

Its true though, centre street is pretty much maxed out as it is, any additional traffic would would really clog it up.

[speedog]

Some numbers to digest - these are 2011 traffic volumes...

[ExtraSlow]

that's some pretty amazing data. is that in vehicles per day or?

[jwslam]

^ McKnight needs a lot of rework because it's the only way around Nose Hill Park off Deerfoot until you go around the North End.

Ridiculous amount of congestion @ Center & McKnight as well. I fail to see how the bus lane is supposed to help when you have 3 or 4 busses trying to merge back in within a span of half a block.

[speedog]

Originally posted by ExtraSlow
that's some pretty amazing data. is that in vehicles per day or?

Per day.

[Cansogo]

Ha Ha
I remember when they built that......For the first few months there were a few tards who thought their ride would fit......Dummies

[spikerS]

personally, I say open it up, just because center street or ave in ANY city or town should be a major thoroughfare.

With any luck, it might take some congestion off the ramp from beddington onto deerfoot. That on ramp between beddington and 64th headed south SUCKS in the morning rush. it is so poorly designed!

[supe]

Originally posted by speedog


At let's say $350.000 apiece (maybe conservative?), the CoC would be looking at $6.6-7.5 million just for twenty or so properties alone and another 5-15 million for new infrastructure - get's to be an expensive project.

So that extra 1.8km remains very attractive for the CoC considering that extra 1.8km is all traveled on existing infrastructure that can easily handle those traffic loads.

No longer advocating but just for the sake of some numbers since you did.

Assuming 10L/100k average of 25k cars, 1.8km and gas price of $1.1, I'm getting just shy of 5k in fuel expenses per day which works out to 1.8M per year. That expensive project will pay itself off pretty quickly. (just using your numbers, I think the interchange would cost much more)

Its not directly on the CoC to save these expenditures but thats a lot of wasted resources.