Updated: Mon Nov. 02 2009 11:43:22

CTVcalgary.ca

Another section of the ring road around Calgary will open to traffic Monday.

Starting at 3 p.m., motorists will be able to drive Stoney Trail from Harvest Hill Boulevard to 17 Avenue S.E.

The northeast portion of the ring road is being built by a public-private-partnership. The road will be operated by the Northeast Stoney Trail Group for 30 years. The contract includes maintenance of the road from Deerfoot Trail to 16 Avenue N.W.

Construction began in the spring of 2007 and included 12 interchanges, one flyover, and three signalized intersections.

Another three interchanges are still being worked on.

The bidding process is still underway for the southeast portion of the ring road.

Please Add Comments

John
About time.... GJ guys!

South Fish Creek Activist
This is great news for Calgary, especially North Calgary. The Edmonton South Ring Road has been open for years, the Edmonton North Ring Road opens in 2011, it is about time Calgary got a portion of the Ring Road open. With North Calgary Ring Road construction ended, why has the Province not announced funding and start of construction of the SE Calgary Ring Road? The next step, will the Province step in and build the SW Calgary Ring Road down the 37th St. ROW which was set aside for this purpose decades ago. South Calgary has suffered long enough.

Brent
Good work, everyone involved. Now, Bronco, go to the Prov and Fed gov'ts for funding to bury the Ctrain downtown.

DJ
Finally!

For some reason, the ring road looks like it was drawn on a bar-napkin with a drink stain on it. When will Calgary plan infrastructure for a city of a million plus people, not only a couple hundred thousand?

1 down, 3 to go!

Al
Very nice, but again the south east and southwest part off Calgary are not being serviced by being the last to receive anything. Goodbye "Bronco" and his tax grabbing council. You people make me sick. Very unfair. VIVA northern half of CALGARY.

Gary
when there continues to be one driver cars and people continue to move here..

well you can build all the roads you want but the gridlock will continue.

Jason NW
Hate it when everyone whines and cries for nothing. Yes the RR was a long time in coming and finally there is a route to get from one corner to another in less time. Nothing happens overnight or in just a year. To complainer pants Al, don't blame city Hall for the South section not being done at the same time. The SW fault lies with the Tsuu Tina band who continued to delay and logjam things. And since you pointed out that the North gets "everything", I should point out that the South had the LRT line extended by 4 stations to the end of town in the a 4 year period ('00 to '04) where the NW and NE have received only 1 new station each in the last 5 years. Don't forget all the re-work to make Glenmore run smoother. Then there's the expansion and extension of Deerfoot. You're right, I can see how the South should feel left out.

john
Well it is great the north east ring road opened too day . Now the fun begins on 17 Ave SE
.As all these folks find out it ends there and flood 17 Ave SE with traffic trying to get back to Deerfoot Trail .Heaven help the kids that have to cross 17 ave or cross traffic between 36 st and 52 st .

Erwin
Because of how the ring road has been constructed with the TransCanada Highway and 68 Steet NE, Marlborough Park residents now have no access from the NE when coming south on Stoney Trail NE. When going south on Stoney Trail and then west on TransCanada Highway, there is no way to access the left turn lanes to go south on 68 Street NE. One has to go all the way to 52 Street and then head all the way back. Where is the access when going south on Stoney Trail to go south on 68 Steet NE from the TransCanada Highway?

bryce
great job, i drive that area constantly for work and live nearby but i am not happy with the one set of lights left at harvest hills blvd... 3 lights to get through and almost 15 min... and it was 2pm... not even rush hour...how long to get that intersection done considering it doesnt look like they have even planned it....

Al
Look at you hero Jason. Don't blame the tsuu tina, the plan for the SW RR was in place back when Klein was Mayor. But your friends Bronco etc. blow them of.

South Fish Creek Activist
Actually the NW is getting 3 LRT extensions in 10 years, Dalhousie in 2003, Crowfoot in 2009 and Rocky Ridge/Tuscany in 2014. In terms of km of track, they extension from Brentwood to Rocky Ridge is probably longer than the South extension but for some reason they are designing a lot fewer stations on the NW LRT. Plus, when they extended the NW LRT they built 5 interchanges on Crowchild, they only built 1 interchange on Macleod Trail. The NE has two extensions, McKnight/Westwinds in 2007 and Saddle Ridge opening in 2012. There has been no south LRT upgrades or extensions since 2004. The old South LRT stations at Chinook, Heritage, Southland and Anderson look like bombed out WW@ relics, they are badly in need of an upgrade.

It's true the only big southern infrastructure project has been the Glenmore GE5 and Causeway upgrades but this doesn't really serve south Calgary, biggest benefit has been those who travel east west on Glenmore, generally people who live in West Calgary. There have been no significant infrastructure improvements south of Glenmore for 5 years. Two were supposed to start this year, 14th St. SW Widening and the South Deerfoot at Glenmore widening, both were cancelled with City/Provincial Budget cuts. In the past 5 years there has been well over 2.5 billion dollars of new transportation infrastructure, only 25 million spent south of Glenmore, that is less than 1 % of the total. Maybe it was the south's turn in the next 5 years but with all the budget cuts we probably won't see much if anything.