Starting Monday, commuters taking Memorial Drive in northwest Calgary should anticipate major traffic jams, longer drive times or find detours, as the roadway will once again be constricted to single-lane traffic for the coming months. Read More
Starting Monday, commuters taking Memorial Drive in northwest Calgary should anticipate major traffic jams, longer drive times or find detours, as the roadway will once again be constricted to single-lane traffic for the coming months. The restrictions will accommodate construction on the Sunnyside Flood Barriers project, which started last July and is scheduled to end
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Starting Monday, commuters taking Memorial Drive in northwest Calgary should anticipate major traffic jams, longer drive times or find detours, as the roadway will once again be constricted to single-lane traffic for the coming months.
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The restrictions will accommodate construction on the Sunnyside Flood Barriers project, which started last July and is scheduled to end Oct. 31 of this year.
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According to the city, eastbound lanes will be detoured to one westbound lane, and a single westbound and eastbound lane will be kept open depending on direction between Centre Street and 10 Street N.W.
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Several pathway closures will be in effect as well, between the Peace Bridge and the Prince’s Island Park Pedestrian Bridge. Pedestrian traffic will be detoured to the sidewalk on the north side of Memorial Drive N.W.
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The wheeling pathway on the north side of the river between 14 Street N.W. and Poppy Plaza is also expected to close in July, until October, with traffic to be detoured to the south (downtown) Bow River pathway.
“I think most Calgarians will be able to tell you upfront that on Monday morning, this is going to take them longer to get in and out,” said Coun. Terry Wong. “But it’s one of those realities we have to deal with because you can’t do the flood mitigation work in the pathway without shutting down lanes for construction activity.”
Commuters who come onto the roadway from the east may have to opt for the 4th Ave. flyover, or turn on Edmonton Trail, to avoid turning onto Centre St. “And it’s going to be congested with a lot of traffic coming from the other direction,” Wong added, saying that those from the west may need to divert onto 14th St. or 10th St.
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The greatest concerns, he said, are the increased traffic in the Sunnyside community on the north side of Bow River “especially with parks and schools in that area.”
However, the project’s fiercest advocates come from the community, whose residents were among the most affected by the deluge of 2013.
“I’m sure that there are many community members that would have liked to see something sooner,” Kate Stenson, executive director of the Hillhurst Sunnyside Community Association, told the Calgary Herald in 2024.
“I think the perspective that we’ve taken as the community association is that it took a longer amount of time to know what was needed and then to get it right.”
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The project, once completed, will see a barrier along Memorial Drive that will protect Sunnyside residents from a one-in-100-year flood event, more than 10 years after the floor that devastated the city and cost billions of dollars in damages.
The barrier — which will be comprised of a mix of permanent flood walls, sheet piles and temporary installations, such as sandbags, water-filled tubes and demountable flood walls — will run approximately 2.4 kilometres along Memorial Drive. The project will take two years to complete.