Council rejects MacLeod Trail proposal
Posted May 21, 2015 7:08 am.
Last Updated May 21, 2015 7:18 am.
This article is more than 5 years old.
For a lot of Calgarians, MacLeod Tr. can be a necessary evil; one of the city’s main roads, it is notorious at times for being a slow commute for motorists coming in and out of downtown and south Calgary.
Most drivers would be in favour of doing anything that would help speed up the drive, but there are other concerns as well.
At a committee meeting Wednesday, councillors rejected a costly proposal to spend $20.6-million on land between Chinook Centre and Cemetery Hill to add wide pathways for walking and make it a more bike friendly road.
The proposal was rejected 4-2, but it will still go to full council for feedback in June.
Councillor Sean Chu argues the road has become a major corridor and getting cars from point A to point B needs to be the priority.
“If we want to move people efficiently we should have more lanes including synchronized lights,” Chu said.
Councillor Brian Pincott says the road is a relic to how cities were built in the 1950s.
“We look at it with empty car dealerships and masses of parking lots and big box stores and we know that’s not how you design urban corridors anymore,” Pincott said.
One of the challenges of developing the north section of the road is that the city doesn’t own the right of way, which would mean it would have to shell out a lot of money to acquire it.
South of Glenmore Trail, the city has tons of land and councillors have approved of a plan to install pathways for walking and cycling downtown to Anderson Road, but there’s no set timeline on that project.
