Project Update – March 15, 2021
You Know it’s Spring When…
This construction season, all three projects under the West Calgary Ring Road umbrella – Bow River Bridge, North and South – will have activity across their sites. The entire footprint will be under construction and an estimated 800 skilled professionals will be working on the site each day. This will be the busiest year yet, bringing us that much closer to a completed ring road.
Adjacent residents and drivers should expect dust, noise and delays, which are all part of major construction. Please visit westringroad.ca > construction for information about work hours and how we mitigate construction impacts.
The construction season in Alberta is short and there is a significant amount of work to be completed. Thank you for your patience as work continues.
Trans-Canada Highway Detour West of Valley Ridge
Over the next few weeks, Trans-Canada Highway traffic will be shifted to a detour road south of the existing lanes. At times, traffic will be reduced to one lane for the final paving, line painting and barrier installation on the detour road. More information will be shared as the details become available. Please expect delays in this area.
Once traffic is shifted to the detour, work to reconstruct the highway between Old Banff Coach Road and Valley Ridge Boulevard. N.W. will begin. The plan and cross sections are available online.
Controlled Blasting to Resume Early April
Controlled blasting is expected to resume at the north end of the Paskapoo Slope in early April. More details will be provided as crews return to site and finalize their plans.
Stoney Trail / Trans-Canada Highway Interchange
The Trans-Canada Highway / Stoney Trail interchange is a systems interchange, which means all the movements are free flow from one highway to another highway. The directional ramp from northbound Stoney Trail to westbound Trans-Canada Highway goes up and over the existing ramp, resulting in three road elevations.
Looking northeast, the cranes are setting up at the centre piers and south abutment for girder installation 
A closer look at the 9-metre-tall centre piers 
Each girder is 54 metres long and 2.4 metres high 
A girder arrives for installation, cranes ready to lift the girder off the truck and place on the south span 
Two of four girders installed
Looking northeast at a crew member using a zoom boom to install overhang brackets on the edge of the bridge 
Overhang brackets are meant to temporarily support the bridge deck formwork and safety railings during construction
Valley Ridge Boulevard N.W. / Trans-Canada Highway Interchange
How it started
February 3, 2021
How it’s going
March 1, 2021 
March 2, 2021
First Concrete Poured
This was an exciting week on the South project as they reached a major milestone – the first concrete poured for the Old Banff Coach Road S.W. bridge.
Looking west, ground markings identify the area to be excavated for the bridge pier footing 
Excavation for the footing begins 
Looking south, with Old Banff Coach Road S.W. in the background, excavation for the footing continues 
Concrete pouring begins!
The Laws of Motion
Despite being equipped with advanced safety features like airbags, back-up cameras and blind-spot detectors, seat belts remain one of the most effective life-saving devices found in vehicles.
Newton’s First Law is the Law of Inertia – loosely summarized by the adage ‘an object in motion stays in motion’. When a vehicle traveling 100 km/h suddenly decelerates, inertia will propel the occupants forward. Seat belts work by countering the kinetic energy – energy created by motion – with force (restraint) and spreading that force across the body. Newton’s Second and Third Laws are involved here too, but that’s probably enough physics for one newsletter article.
Statistically, people wearing seat belts in collisions fare much better: their rate of injury was about a third compared to those not wearing a seat belt (2018 Alberta traffic collision statistics).
You can’t fight science, as they say!
