2017 Season - E10 - Anthony Henday Drive - Edmonton

Anthony Henday Drive is complete. It's time to check out the complete ring road in Edmonton.

[@kato64]

We live on the north end of Edmonton. Just after the Henday opened my wife decided to try it out. She came back after completing the full loop, about 45 minutes later. She excitedly told me, “It’s awesome! It only takes 20 minutes to get to the south side now!” Just one problem; at the speed limit, it takes about half an hour. Two weeks later a “surprise” arrived in the mail. My wife had the dubious honour of receiving one of the first photo radar tickets on the Anthony Henday! 😖

[@JayBruceWorld]

One of the most favourite parts of my life was when I moved from the west coast to spruce grove. I spent a large portion of my time in Edmonton. I remember driving through the mountains across the provincial border and all of a sudden all you see is sky. I drove through a massive thunderstorm. During this time I partied a lot, fell in love, had my heart broken, received my first managerial promotion in a job and lived in complete independence for the first time in my life. It wasn't perfect but it was a formative time in my life. Sometimes I miss those days.

[@FreewayBrent]

The video was just long enough for me to be able to watch in its entirety, while sitting on the toilet to keep me entertained, LOL. Nice video. Alberta seems to do a good job with buying up enough ROW to leave for plenty of future expansions with their newer freeways.

[@TransCanadaPhil]

FreewayBrent Who knew that my videos could provide such bathroom entertainment! ✌️ That's the secret to a captive audience, time your videos to the average length of a bowel movement. 🤗

[@thomasm1281]

Beautiful new ring around the city. Drove on this road number of times when visiting from the netherlands to my relatives in North Edmonton and St.Albert. Drives pretty fast now to where ever. A great job done!

[@BrandonClaridge]

Last I checked, it seems like construction on widening the southwest Anthony Henday Drive started last fall. The plan is to widen to 6 lanes (and finish in 2022), but it would be nice to have more lanes, perhaps HOV lanes or something. It is strange that the less-crowded (residentially) east side of Edmonton has AHD at 6 lanes, but the busier southwest side has only 4 lanes. That said, the big industry in east Edmonton and the truckers that brings do appreciate the wider freeway there; although it seems there is also plenty of truck traffic on that southwest segment going from Highway 2 south of Edmonton to Highways 16 and 43 headed west/northwest of Edmonton (and vice-versa). It is unfortunate that this project does not include a full freeway-to-freeway interchange between Anthony Henday and Whitemud on the west side of Edmonton (this is near the West Edmonton Mall), nor does it fix some of the problems with single lane offramps (before the offramp splits into two different directions) at the 216/16 interchange on the northwest side. In my hometown of Fort Worth, TX we are having similar problems with traffic congestion on single lane offramps at I-35W and I-820 on the north side of the city. The portion of Anthony Henday Drive west of Sherwood Park also reminds me of the La Porte Freeway (TX-225) southeast of Houston, with all the refineries and oil tanks.

[@schwenda3727]

Hopefully the serine exurban scene isn't taken away anytime​ soon! But It's beyond great to know that the new beltway has ALL the room in the world and then some for the eventual 8 thru lanes, 1-3 accel/decel/exit only & even HOV, HOT and/or mass transit if such a thing is EVER warranted! Heck, it looks like they're about to be FORCED to make capacity improvements in the more foreseeable future based on what I've seen in this! Awesome job filming the Canadian version of I-485, guys!

[@TransCanadaPhil]

The thing I like about Driving on Anthony Henday Drive, (and Stoney Trail in Calgary), is just the huge wide open nature of the freeway. The Ramps and interchange loops are so long and wide, you can take them at like 120km/h without slowing down or moderating your speed at all. You have such great visibility and the curves and ramps are so gentle. The slip-ramps start a good 300-500 metres before the actual overpass so you can really drive gently and nothing "creeps up on you".

[@schwenda3727]

Plenty of American beltways, like the I-270 half in St. Louis & (I believe) Atlanta's I-285 were once wide open & whatnot. Lol But that was at least 50 years ago! They're going to have to get creative if/when the volumes start SEVERELY straining capacity again...

[@highwaysbyways4281]

Yup, the southwest portion of the road gets very congested. Traffic volumes greatly exceeded projections. From wikipedia: The busiest section of Anthony Henday Drive is in west Edmonton between 87 Avenue and Stony Plain Road where it carries over 105,000 vehicles per day, second only to Whitemud Drive among Edmonton roadways.[27] The 4-lane section of the southwest quadrant between Calgary Trail and Whitemud Drive is significantly over capacity and sees major delays during peak periods.[28] A contributing factor is the close proximity of interchanges between the North Saskatchewan River and Yellowhead Trail, which creates a problem known as weaving in which high volumes of traffic are trying to simultaneously enter and exit the roadway at the same time. Traffic levels on Henday have risen much more quickly than anticipated. Alberta Transportation concedes that in 2001 the southwest section was projected to reach 40,000 vehicles per day by 2020 but reached that mark in 2009; as of 2015 it carries approximately 80,000 vehicles per day in the vicinity of 111 Street.

[@schwenda3727]

Am I reading this correctly??? 100,000 AADT down only two thru lanes each way... OUTSIDE OF PENNSYLVANIA???

[@highwaysbyways4281]

It's actually 3 lanes each direction at it's busiest part, but basically the whole stretch from Yellowhead Trail to Calgary Trail in the west/southwest gets pretty bad at times. The northwest part has some choke points as well, but it's a bit better. The newest part, which just opened last fall, in the east and northeast is built nicely, and hopefully won't need upgrades too soon. Like Phil mentioned the new interchange at Yellowhead Trail in the east is a nice 3-level cloverstack, and there's one section with 4 thru lanes clockwise and 3 lanes counterclockwise. There's a couple of RIROs, one of which the province was going to shut down last fall, but the city begged them to leave it open. Entering traffic has a hard time getting up to speed, and often causes traffic in the right lane to hit the brakes, and then the ripple effect causes back-ups. But, for all my complaining, it's actually a pretty nice road, and it's made getting to the other side of town much easier than before. We don't have a lot of freeways going through the city, so the Henday helps a lot.

[@brettthomas5605]

I bet you wish the Perimeter Highway was built to the same standard of the Anthony Henday and the Stoney Trail in Calgary.

[@TransCanadaPhil]

Brett Thomas you bet! The south perimeter is scheduled to get 4 new interchanges soon.

[@brettthomas5605]

Trans Canada Phil I wouldn't hold my breath on that one. Governments of all political stripes have been promising since the sixties to make major improvements. Now Edmonton, Calgary and even Regina will have freeway ring roads. Winnipeg??

[@jgroenveld1268]

I quite like the fact that from what I have seen of Canadian motorways/freeways, there is a preference to have a large central reservation where ever possible in between the carriageways for easier widening vs having the space on the side. It is a real mess widening motorways in my neck of the woods where on and off ramps have to be be reigned, light poles moved, etc. to add a lane or two.

[@TransCanadaPhil]

yes in comparison that's what I notice is the big difference when I see US/Interstate highways. I notice how the centre medians often are narrow and sometimes only use a Jersey barrier. For example, huge stretches of the Trans-Canada Highway #1 go on for hours with these massive grassy medians like this, with a good 15 metres separating the two carriageways: www.google.ca/maps/@49.9751796,-98.5107503,3a,75y,246.14h,84.02t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1ssTbB5bgNrOla6wX8HFv17Q!2e0!6s%2F%2Fgeo0.ggpht.com%2Fcbk%3Fpanoid%3DsTbB5bgNrOla6wX8HFv17Q%26output%3Dthumbnail%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26thumb%3D2%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D355.91122%26pitch%3D0%26thumbfov%3D100!7i13312!8i6656

[@jgroenveld1268]

Just hindsight I guess. My local on ramp has been realigned twice (currently going thru a third one) in the last 15 years due to additional lanes being added. The overpass that my local onramp connects to had space for future widening of the motorway below it but instead of doing what the folks did with your freeways - they shoved Jersey Barriers in the centre and left the space on the sides. Annoying and indeed a waste of money when it comes to widening the motorway. I would imagine many of your Canadian freeways with these rather wide reservations could be used for a train/bus way system rather for extra lanes in the future.

[@tyfrank3427]

Well it depends where you go. The age of the highways makes a difference. In the 1950s when divided highways were in their infancy, the medians were narrow. Problem is the narrow medians allowed for head on collisions if someone lost control going the opposite direction. Highway #1 was all 2 lane at that time. However, older sections of highway in Canada such as Ontario's 401 in Southern Ontario (carnage alley), and Alberta's Highway 2 between Red Deer and Airdrie which were built in the 1950s have a narrow median and there has been many accidents because of that. Barriers have been added on older highways like that to prevent head on collisions. When they twin Highway #1 in the mountains, they use a barrier because of lack of room.

[@yegventures]

I'd love to obtain some of those work files for the road signs if you're willing to share. They're excellent!

[@westerncanadaroads9795]

Absolutely amazing! The Edmonton region is beautiful with all the vegetation compared to where I live in southern Alberta. Calgary gets it's share of terrain as it sits on the transposition between the foothills of the Canadian Rockies and Prairies. Will be interesting when Stoney Trail is complete! recent aerial images show tree clearing for the right of way already and ENMAX and other utilities are relocating their services so construction can begin. There's been rumors of the new length of 201 to be named after the neighboring First Nations Tribe, but that would be extremely confusing to have two different names for 201. Once again, great video! absolutely enjoyed it and you and Chris should give yourselves a huge pat on the back! Greetings from Lethbridge!

[@TransCanadaPhil]

Thanks! Yeah I've seen some of the computer animations/fly-over concept videos for the Stoney Trail extension, and it looks pretty impressive. Although I remember reading a lot of the "non-freeway' fans had some concerns over the huge-scale of the ramps/etc but it looked very safe.

[@highwaysbyways4281]

Yeah, Alberta Transportation seems to have been learning from the past. Part of the southwest section of Stoney Trail has a huge central reservation, they're planning for a collector/distributor set-up in the future. A similar plan exists for Hwy 2 south of Edmonton, along with plans to extend the future Terwillegar Drive freeway south to connect near the airport. There's even plans for an outer ring-road, decades in the future, which is a controversial plan, but will probably eventually be needed. Interesting news about the Valley Line LRT in the last week. A study by the city has been released for elevating the track near Bonnie Doon mall, which would tack on an estimated 125-220 million to the 1.8 billion project, but which would avoid at-grade crossings. I know what I'd like to see done, after the MetroLine fiasco, but there's going to be a lot of resistance to it. I'll be watching closely to see what my Councillor and the Mayor say, and how they vote on this. Municipal election coming up this fall! edmontonjournal.com/news/local-news/elevating-the-valley-line-lrt-through-boonie-doon-could-cost-220-million-report

[@highwaysbyways4281]

Ugh, council voted it down. That area's gonna be a traffic nightmare. Disappointing. edmontonjournal.com/news/local-news/live-edmonton-debates-220-million-plan-to-raise-valley-line-lrt-in-bonnie-doon

[@TransCanadaPhil]

That's too bad. I remember reading about all the traffic issues they had with that new north-central line near that hospital, with the at grade LRT crossing. You would think they wouldn't repeat the same mistake.

[@highwaysbyways4281]

Well, the problems with the Metro Line involve more than just the at-grade crossings. There were issues with trying to mesh the old fixed block signalling on the Capital Line with the new CBTC system they were trying to implement on the Metro Line. They were basically just running on line of sight rules, which kept the trains running really slow. The trains were cleared to run at design speed a month or so ago, but they haven't updated the schedule yet, so trains are basically just waiting at stations longer than they used to, so the ride isn't taking any shorter. And they're looking at grade separating solutions in the NAIT/Kingsway area, but that won't solve the problems at Kingsway/111 near the Royal Alex Hospital. Really, it all could have been avoided with better route planning, and some grade separation, but Edmonton is just as resistant to spending a bit more money on these things as Winnipeg is. LOL.

[@rudysimmonds3252]

The Henday wasn't near done when i was there 3 years ago....but it's nice to see the drive around the city.

[@whiskeytomcat]

'Bout time lol. For us living NE of Edm taking AH takes about 20 mins off travel time to Cgy or YEG. Now if only Edmontonians learned to "KEEP RIGHT EXCEPT TO PASS"

[@righthandstep5]

You're telling me. I pass normally in the left and locals here raise an eyebrow. If I slow down in the right lane, they honk or speed 40 over time get around me and 4 drivers cut me off on average when I turn off past construction zones. Frickin lunatics (tinners as I heard edmontonians are called).

[@KCWanderlust]

This video gave me a great idea, Phil. We really need a beltway here. They've been talking about building one since the 1970s, but nothing ever happens, especially year after year of city council races with candidates who always promise to "look at the feasibility" of such a project. They always seem to forget their campagn promises. I just might have to send the mayor, the current city council (AND every candidate who want to become council members) the link to this video and show 'em what could be accomplished as opposed to what we have had forever... Massive gridlock. I might even follow it up with a video of my own showing what we have now... More massive gridlock! Dear Mayor; Limited access radial surface street improvement isn't gonna do the trick, we need a beltway! :-)

[@TransCanadaPhil]

Something I've observed, that almost all the major cities out on the Canadian Prairies have finally completed, or are just about to complete their beltways. The new 3-level stack at Lagimodiere & The Perimeter that's about 70% done will "finish" the ring road in Winnipeg. In Regina, the new South-Regina bypass will complete a ring road. Saskatoon completed Circle Drive just 3 years ago. Edmonton finished Anthony Henday Drive, and Calgary is starting work on the last segment to complete Stoney Trail. Calgary & Saskatoon are really the only cities that have urban freeways near the core/inner city. The other cities do not. Ring Roads tend to be really important here, especially for through traffic (trucks) since otherwise they'd have to take surface streets all the way through a city if they don't plan on stopping in it. The whole notion of having "downtown" urban freeways right through the CBD is just a really foreign concept here. Only Montreal and Toronto are like that. Not even Vancouver has such a thing. So I think that perhaps in the US, cities/towns might not feel that Ring Roads are as needed because so many Interstates allow people to pass right through without having stop as it is. There are however plans to convert "Yellowhead trail", the major east-west thoroughfare in Edmonton to a Freeway: www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/edmonton-to-borrow-510m-to-turn-yellowhead-into-freeway-1.3993025

[@schwenda3727]

Trans Canada Phil here in the States, we have perfectly good beltways in MULTIPLE major cities. But despite that, there's an overwhelming likelihood that plenty of semis will opt to take the inner city interstate network directly through the CBD even if they aren't dropping off/picking up ANYTHING within the city's metro area. Not too big a deal, but if the inner city/downtown freeway network is SEVERELY substandard, as well as CHRONICALLY congested (sometimes solely due to the horrible mid century highway engineering & VERY low capacity exit designs), but most likely the blame for semis going directly through the city here probably has to be pointed towards either regulations and/or taxes that most every truck driver has to deal with...

[@schwenda3727]

Kaydrah Communications Wanderlust but I think I need to get confirmation from someone who is/was a truck driver... Hey... didn't you mention in the group(s) that you used to be a truck driver at some point in time or another???

[@KCWanderlust]

I did it for 20 years. 87 - 07. Ran screaming from it!

[@KCWanderlust]

The only times that I would use inner city surface streets were when I had a pick up/delevery along them. Otherwise, I'd avoid them like the plague. Especially back east. they just weren't designed for big rigs.

[@FreewayFranks]

That was awesome Phil !

[@TransCanadaPhil]

Thank You Francis!

[@darrellinyvr]

Watched your toll road to Birmingham ALL CLOUDS as the per normal in the UK and here in Edmonton NOT A CLOUD in the sky! no wonder I moved back from Glasgow!

[@TransCanadaPhil]

it did surprise me that in 2 weeks of being over there, there wasn't a single cloudless day.

[@darrellbateman1047]

The downside of as we here call it "The Henday" is the original portions in the SW and West End of the city are always congested with tailbacks common almost every day of the week. already need to expand to at least 8 lanes (4 each way) from QE2 to the Trans-Canada 16 around the SW portion of the city.

[@tyfrank3427]

Darrell Bateman, The SW leg of the Anthony Henday was inadequate when they built it. The road grade is built for 6 or 8 lanes already, they just need to pave it and add 2 lanes in each direction to the bridge.

[@darrellinyvr]

The bridges across the North Saskatchewan north of Terwilleger Drive will also have to be doubled in size as that would be a SERIOUS bottleneck (even more so than now)

[@Taha83]

Nice Video Phil

[@onunkwodumebi1211]

Nice collabo between u and cv7 .... also also some of the roads need to be repaved it looks damaged

[@TransCanadaPhil]

Yes, this footage was recorded by CV7. I just got back from BC/Alberta today, so some of the stuff I'll be doing in the future is a road video for Kootenay National Park, and a bunch of other BC/Alberta highways.

[@sethiforu]

The road before starting of main video please point out to that one.

[@VGNtheunwise]

the first one is the bridge connecting Memorial to 4th South in Downtown Calgary, second is along the TCH #1 in the Rockies

[@glenmoretrailseandswentert3042]

Blackfoot Trail Is you can take care you will have it for Anthony henday Drive just Like Southland Drive

[@rdsieben]

Canada's first true ring road. Sorry the Perimeter Highway in Winnipeg doesn't count. The Stony/T'suu T'ina Trail under construction will almost rival Moscow's MKAD.

[@mannenaga]

Hi. I request you to google Hyderabad Outer Ring Road, India

[@monkeysawu]

This is making me home sick

[@lostwizard]

"whom recorded"....Should be "who" - it's not serving as a grammatical object there (it may look like it, but it really isn't). I'll resume hiding in my cave now.