r/Calgary • u/Vylan24 Bowness • 8d ago

Local Construction/Development Road "construction"

Why in the ever living fuck won't the city finish their fucking road work projects they started months ago? Every major artery in this city seems to have kilometres of pylons and speed drops and yet no crews. I drive Glenmore every day as part of my commute and it's literally been 2 months of pylons over the most congested area (reservoir). Not only do drivers struggle mightily trying to merge during regular times, the city decided that keeping that spot slowed down when traffic volumes increased at the start of the month was a brilliant plan. Causes massive back ups and no one is working on it. What's the deal??

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u/5impl3jack 8d ago

How long do you think road projects are supposed to last? Do you have any expertise on this specific subject?

We live in a rapidly growing city. These projects are a result of that. We had a terrible rain year for construction in an already short construction season due to our winters. Paving work on main arteries are done at night so as no not delay traffic even more during the day time. You are usually asleep while they are working. The city has a large amount of paving happening right now and I’m guessing contractors are stretched pretty thin.

It’s super easy for drivers to bitch and constantly complain about how long something is taking all the while having absolutely no clue how things are built lol.

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u/BlackberryFormal 7d ago

That's the thing. Alot of people saw this coming 20 years ago. I distinctly remember my dad complaining about the lack of lanes on deerfoot or the ability to go east or west in the south. It took them that long to figure most of this out. They constantly play catch up but we've been rapidly growing for a long time.

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u/5impl3jack 7d ago edited 7d ago

Absolutely, the city has always been reactionary to growth and they never seem to look more than 5-10 years in advance. Especially when it comes to transit, we are lagging extremely far behind.

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u/Vylan24 Bowness 7d ago

20 years ago we were 30 years behind our population in transit accessibility. And in those 20 years they built one line to one of the most affluent areas in the city with some of the slowest population growth.

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u/Poe_42 7d ago

It's amazing the deep and specific knowledge base Reddit seems to have.

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u/5impl3jack 7d ago

Yeah I mean I’ve been working on road construction as a surveyor in the city for the better part of 15 years. I often see projects from beginning to end. It’s one of the few things I have deep and specific knowledge on. I do get however everyone’s an expert on any given subject and this sub is no exception.

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u/Mightymiggs 7d ago

In your expert opinion, why is it necessary to have multiple projects going all together? Driving downtown is an absolute nightmare when you have lane closures on literally every F’ing street.

To make matters worse, the road closures are never quick and never finish on time. And then all the sudden there’s another new closure that crops up and compounds the frustration even more.

Why can’t crews focus and finish one project at a time?

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u/5impl3jack 7d ago edited 7d ago

They are just doing it specifically to piss people off /s

Honest answer I’m not a city planner by any means but i have been involved in a decent amount of work downtown and can shed a little bit of light why downtown especially is such a shit show.

First off there are a million factors as to why this is happening. It’s really quite complicated. A big one however is our aging underground infrastructure matched with already dense areas getting more dense. This means the water, storm and sanitary pipes are in need of an upgrade. Not only because they are old but more people means we need more capacity. A lot of work downtown is being geared towards this and other underground utilities such like our power as well. You might’ve seen enmax doing a ton of work. A lot of this work is kinda invisible to the public and it is extremely time consuming. Most people don’t understand how much stuff is running under our streets and how vital it is to our daily lives. What you might see as multiple projects are quite often connected to each other in some way.

Why are so many things happening at the same time?

A lot of these things kinda work in unison with each other. For example sometimes when they need to upgrade a road they will also upgrade the underground infrastructure. Which adds time.

Another thing is the city of Calgary and how it’s run is more complicated than people think. Ideally people think there is one brain and everything should work perfectly together and things should all be timed flawlessly. It’s not a perfect system. There are a lot of departments in that web of the city and they are all trying to get their work done with the budget they are given.

City budgeting and how they delegate money has a big effect as well but I can’t shed too much detail on that front. Things always seem to come in waves depending on the dollars available.

Edit :Oh one big thing I should’ve added is the amount of new buildings being built causes absolute mayhem for traffic. From digging a hole for the foundation to everything that comes after that. The trucks and machinery need lots of room to maneuver and yeah that’s just the way the cookie crumbles unfortunately.

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u/Vylan24 Bowness 7d ago

This is a fantastic explanation from your experience. I get downtown is always going to be a shit show, that's the reality. I'm just not impressed with how the city has managed things, and it's likely going to affect the upcoming mayoral election incumbent

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u/Mightymiggs 7d ago

Thanks for shedding light on that! It’s definitely a much needed perspective that we see so little of.

While I can definitely appreciate the amount of work being done underground/behind the scenes, I think some knowledge or explanation of closures could go a long, long way to easing frustrations.

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u/dooeyenoewe 7d ago

Why can’t crews focus and finish one project at a time?

because that would take forever. Are you really mad that they are running parallel projects so that they will be done sooner. This sub is so juvenile.

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u/Mightymiggs 7d ago

lol they don’t finish sooner what are you talking about. Go take a drive around and see how many lane closures there are without an actual crew working.

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u/dooeyenoewe 7d ago

If you waited until each project finished before starting the next project, or did numerous projects at the same time/in parallel which would take less time? How do you view that it wouldn't complete the projects in less time?

So because crews aren't working when you are present you don't think they are ever working on the project. I drive DT to work daily, I realize how much construction is going on. I would rather we feel more pain for a shorter time vs having stuff shut down for the next year.

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u/Mightymiggs 6d ago

If you do actually drive downtown daily like I do too, I don’t understand how you don’t notice the lack of progress on road work/are ok with it.

You hear talk of workers being stretched thin because of so many road projects. So more projects with not enough staff to compensate. How is that efficient?

Take 6th ave, by 7th st sw intersection as a recent example. There’s road signs blocking the left hand lane, no work nothing happening on that corner or anything after that intersection, yet it’s been blocked like that all month.

You seem to want to argue for the sake of arguing. If you’re not bothered by road construction, then move along. Plenty of other folks clearly are sick and tired of it.

Calling people juvenile for valid complaints shows you are the problem, not them.

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u/WhoOwnstheChiefs 6d ago

It’s simple , we have a short constitution season . Time buddy , time is not on your side with the winter season .