CALGARY SENIORS’ HOUSING FORUM s w e i v d n a s Current new E 25 G A P N O S U D N I NTHLY YOUR BI-MO
Calgary Your essential daily news
GUIDE TO
F
EXCLUSIVE EXCERPT
FOUR DAYS OF BROKEN PROMISE
MONDAY, JULY 27, 2015
metroLIFE
High 16°C/Low 9°C Mainly cloudy
Big trucks avoiding Deerfoot TRAFFIC
Stoney Trail siphoning off heavy vehicles, data indicates Robson Fletcher
Metro | Calgary
MAKING A SPLASH
Aaron Grant’s dog, Wilson, was a high-flying crowd pleaser at Pet-A-Palooza Sunday. More on the weekend extravaganza of domesticated animals inside metroNEWS. JEREMY SIMES/FOR METRO
Calgary’s Deerfoot Trail may have as many vehicles on it now as it did before the opening of the southeast ring road, but the peripheral highway appears to be siphoning off much of the heavy-truck traffic. That’s according to the latest data gathered by Alberta Transportation, which shows a major spike in the number of tractor trailers using Stoney Trail on the east side of the city, after the southeast portion of the route opened in September 2013. “This provides a strong indication that many large trucks shifted from Deerfoot Trail to Stoney Trail,” an Alberta Transportation spokesperson told Metro, after gathering data on vehicle-type counts on the east side of Stoney Trail at 16 Avenue North.
The estimated daily volume of tractor trailers at that intersection in 2013, prior to the opening of southeast Stoney Trail, was 2,200. By 2014, that number had doubled to 4,400 trucks per day. Coun. Shane Keating, whose constituents in Ward 12 rely on Deerfoot Trail to get to and from most of the rest of Calgary, said any shift of heavy trucks to Stoney Trail would be welcome. “One big transport is the size of three or four cars,” Keating said. “So if we’re getting away from some of that traffic that is slower in nature and takes up greater space on the road, then it may alleviate spaces for cars.” As Metro reported earlier in July, total traffic volumes on Deerfoot dipped by about five per cent in 2014 but have since rebounded to the same level as before the southeast ring road — which itself now sees about 40,000 vehicles per day — opened to traffic. Alberta Transportation has yet to do a specific count of heavy trucks on Deerfoot Trail since the opening of the southeast ring road but plans to carry one out this summer. Those numbers should be available in the fall, according to the provincial government.