Snow is melting, spring is taking hold in the Bow Valley and that means municipal engineers are looking to get into the ground and begin 2017 capital projects they have approved to improve Canmore’s road and utility network.
Already looking like a busy year for downtown Canmore, 2017 will also include a significant project for the community’s Main Street at the entrance of Spring Creek Mountain Village that will result in a road closure to vehicle traffic from Railway Avenue.
Manager of engineering Andy Esarte has made several presentations to council about complete street design and the fact that work on Spring Creek Drive at Eighth Street would result in big changes to how roadways in Canmore are organized.
“There will be significant impacts during construction and fundamental changes to the roads and community after the work is complete,” Esarte said. “Spring Creek Drive was designed as the first in a serious of planned complete streets. It was designed with all transportation modes in mind. When that is done right, it maximizes non-vehicle use and frees up street space and parking.”
The integrated transportation master plan accepted by council last year sets out that mode shift in street design is a goal for municipal planners and that complete streets are the design standard for municipal staff. What that means is less focus on space for vehicles and more for pedestrians, cyclists and public transit.
Spring Creek Drive and Main Street has been redesigned to use the space that vehicles now enjoy for walkways, bike paths and pedestrian crossings. The left-turn lane into SCMV from Main Street would be removed, added Esarte.
“That means delays will be longer than the present condition, however, delays were already growing as Spring Creek developed and Main Street continues to have increased traffic,” he said.
The length of road being dug up and worked on is 500 metres from Main Street into Spring Creek Drive. It includes significant deep utility work and the replacement of a 250 millimetre water main, lifecycle replacement of the sanitary sewer and ties into the work SCMV developer Frank Kernick is undertaking in his subdivision to develop the Malcolm Hotel.
Both Town-owned utilities and SCMV utilities are in need of replacement and doing the work at the same time has benefits for each party, according to municipal staff. Design work for the project cost $320,000 and McElhanney and Alta were hired to complete the work. As for construction, the budget is approved at $3.4 million for the road reconstruction and $900,000 for the utility work, which includes the municipal and developer’s portions of the overall project.
“The deep utility work will require complete closure of that intersection for some time,” Esarte said. “That work will be done in advance of the Canada Day long weekend.”
While the work that requires Main Street to be closed is expected to be complete by Canada Day, the remainder of the work required would be ongoing until October, including restricted access to Spring Creek Drive.
Of course, said Esarte, it all depends on groundwater levels, which are notoriously difficult in the valley bottom for any work that needs to go into the ground.
“Groundwater is a significant risk and an early rise in groundwater would complicate construction and cause delays,” he said.
Other road construction projects on the books for the engineering department this year include upgrades to the intersection at Benchlands Trail and Cougar Creek Drive adjacent to Summit Café, as well as work on Bow Valley Trail’s pedestrian and trail network near the hospital and improvements to the pedestrian CP Rail crossing connection.
There are also plans for 2018 to undertake a major road construction project on Railway Avenue. This year, Esarte said, work would begin on the redesign of the major roadway through the town centre.
That work would also mesh with the complete street design concept to change how the road is organized to have a better emphasis on pedestrian movement, cyclist separation from vehicle traffic and transit stops.
For 2017, the engineering department has $150,000 for complete street design work and in 2018 there is $4 million for the first year of work on Railway Avenue, followed by $4 million in 2019 and $2 million in 2020.
