Planned Roundabout at the 4-way Stop Cancelled

During the last half of 2019, AT's general contractor, EllisDon, worked with members of the former Planning Committee and the City of Calgary on their plan to construct a new roundabout in place of the four-way stop at Valley Ridge Drive and Valley Ridge Boulevard NW.

In the April 2020 Valley Breeze, the Planning Committee ran an article announcing AT's plans for the new roundabout, consistent with discussions and meetings held over the preceding several months. Figure 1 is a modified schematic taken from AT's project website showing the new alignment of Valley Ridge Blvd and the new interchange post-construction. We have added labels and the stop sign symbol.

AT's project update for June 15, 2020 stated that EllisDon has "determined that construction can be contained within the Transportation Utility Corridor (TUC), making it unnecessary to convert the intersection into a roundabout". This late change eliminated the need for EllisDon to replace the four-way stop with a new roundabout, thus cancelling its' construction. While the four-way stop is located within City of Calgary lands just north and outside of AT's TUC boundary (pink line on Figure 1), our understanding was that costs for construction of the new roundabout would have been entirely at EllisDon's expense.

To the south, during construction, the existing roundabout north of the highway will be removed and re-built, in a position closer to the fire station and playing fields. In the interim, EllisDon intended to utilize the new (now-cancelled) roundabout at the four-way stop for diversion of construction traffic and re-routing of all westbound traffic exiting the Trans Canada Highway headed to the south of the highway (e.g., Crestmont, Climbing Centre etc.).