Project Update - West Calgary Ring Road

December 22, 2023

Stoney Trail Open South of Bow Trail

The final stretch of the West Calgary Ring Road opened to traffic on Tuesday, December 19, 2023. Drivers can now travel on Stoney Trail south of Bow Trail S.W. and use all movements on the Highway 8 interchange.

While it will take some months for traffic patterns to adjust to the new infrastructure, drivers will see improved access to hospitals, schools, workplaces and recreation and reduced congestion within the city. The completed Calgary Ring Road provides more than 100 kilometres (km) of free-flow travel around the city.

*Looking south at the Bow Trail S.W. / Stoney Trail interchange*

*Looking north at the now open Highway 8 interchange*

What’s Next?

The West Calgary Ring Road project has been a significant, complex, multiyear undertaking and has included the efforts of many contractors, industry experts, and specialists. As with all projects of this scale and complexity, final inspections and reviews are required before the contractor hands operations and maintenance responsibilities over to the infrastructure’s owner.

These final inspections and finishing works will be taking place next spring/summer, so while the road is open to traffic, you may see a few workers on site as we work through these final inspections.

Thank You!

Thank you for following along over the years as we worked to complete this exciting project. Safe travels and Happy Holidays!

2023 in Review

This year, the new southbound Stoney Trail bridge over the Bow River opened to traffic and the existing Stoney Trail bridge – now exclusively for northbound traffic – was rehabilitated after being in service since 1997.

*Looking north at rehabilitation on the northbound Stoney Trail bridge*

2023 by the numbers:

Over 460 cubic metres of concrete placed, totaling approximately 22,500 cubic metres on the project
Over 143,000 kilograms of reinforcing steel (rebar) placed, totaling over 3.44M kilograms on the project

2023 in Review

On October 1, 2023, Stoney Trail opened to traffic north of Bow Trail as did all movements on the new Trans-Canada Highway / Stoney Trail interchange. Landscaping and site remediation were completed, including seeding and tree replacements.

*Looking north at the Trans-Canada Highway / Stoney Trail interchange*
*Photo credit: Peak Aerials*

2023 by the numbers:

613,345 square metres of landscaping, totaling over 1,890,000 square metres of landscaping placed on the project
2,197,304 manhours worked to date
10,500 metres of perimeter fencing installed, totaling 16,000 metres on the project

Unparalleled Fossils Found on Paskapoo Slopes

Alberta’s historical resources primarily consist of:

Archaeological sites (buried artifacts and other evidence that tell us about human life in the past)
Palaeontological sites (fossilized remains of plants and animals)
Historical buildings and other structures
Aboriginal traditional use sites

Transportation projects in Alberta are required to comply with the Historical Resources Act to preserve historical resources, which may include completing an Historical Resources Impact Assessment (HRIA). As the Bow River Valley is an area known to contain historical resources, an archaeological / palaeontological site assessment was completed as part of an HRIA for the West Calgary Ring Road and hundreds of fossils were discovered as a result. The fossils were sent to the Royal Tyrrell Museum of Palaeontology for study.

The rock deposits on the Paskapoo Slopes are from two geologic periods:

The Quaternary Ice Age (ending about 11,000 years ago)
The Palaeocene Epoch (between 56 million and 66 million years ago, soon after the dinosaur extinction)

The deposits from the Quaternary (Ice Age) period were carried from the Rocky Mountains by Cordilleran glaciers about 20,000 years ago. This type of land formed from material left behind by a moving glacier is called a moraine. (The Big Rock in Okotoks and the boulders on Nose Hill are also glacial moraines.)

The deeper bedrock found on the Slopes was formed in the Palaeocene Epoch and is part of the Porcupine Hills Formation.

In Calgary, comparatively few historical resources from the Palaeocene Epoch have been found, making the fossil specimens exposed and collected from the ring road excavation incredibly important for learning about mammalian evolution following the dinosaur extinction. Some of the specimens represent species that have never been found anywhere else.

*Image from* *AER/AGS Open File Report 2019-05*

*A geological hammer (approximately 40 cm in length) is placed against the rocks for scale*

*An impression of a vegetative structure resembling those living in ferns from the Porcupine Hills Formation deposits (around 62 million years old)*

A lower jaw fragment with at least two teeth preserved from a small mammal (cf. Promioclaenus sp.) and a well-preserved gastropod (snail) shell; both from the Porcupine Hills Formation deposits (around 62 million years old)

A *multituberculate* *tooth from the Porcupine Hills Formation deposits (around 62 million years old)*

2023 in Review

This was a year of exciting milestones for the South project:

Installing girders on the Highway 8 flyover in February
Opening the Bow Trail S.W. bridge and Stoney Trail to the north in October
Opening the Highway 8 flyover to traffic in November
Opening the final stretch of the West Calgary Ring Road (Stoney Trail south of Bow Trail and the Highway 8 interchange) in December

*Looking northwest at the Highway 8 interchange*

2023 by the numbers:

8,500,000 cubic metres of material moved
1,900,000 kilograms of rebar placed
14,000 cubic metres of concrete poured
90 lane-kilometres of roadway constructed
25 kilometres of electrical cable installed
7 kilometres of drainage pipe installed