Alberta Highway 216 - Anthony Henday Drive - Edmonton - 2020/07/25

[@highwaysbyways4281]

Thanks for the video of my hometown! That 216-16 interchange complex is even more impressive when you take into account all of the connecting roads and the fact that there is a major freight rail line running through it. It probably accounted for almost half of the AHD NE section's budget.

[@AsphaltPlanet1]

Thanks for the comment. I like the long steel girders that they used for the northeastern 216-16 interchange. A lot of the Anthony Henday interchanges are actually pretty well designed with fast ramps, because so much of the ramps were constructed on fill instead of using bridges, they don't seem as impressive as they are. Mind you, minimizing the length of bridge structures does make sense in northern climates, so I certainly understand why most of the interchanges were designed as they were.

[@GreatAussieDrives]

Great video once again! The interchange at 1:01 is spectacular - must've been quite the sight to see in person! I love how the entire expressway has been provided with streetlights too.

[@AsphaltPlanet1]

Alberta generally does a pretty good job lighting it's freeways. Thanks for the comment.

[@TransCanadaPhil]

I love driving Anthony Henday Drive, so sparkling new and clean. The first time I saw that interchange between the Yellowhead and AHD on the north-side when it was under construction back in 2016 as I was coming in from Winnipeg, my jaw nearly hit the floor when I saw how high those flyovers are. :-D

[@AsphaltPlanet1]

The interchange between AB-216 and AB-16 in the northeast segment certainly is a standout interchange along the corridor. Thanks for the comment.

[@BrandonClaridge]

Definitely nice to see some updated (2020) footage here, with no gridlock on the southwestern leg of the Anthony Henday Drive, either! CV7 captured (almost) the entirety of the AHD (including the SE segment not shown here) a few years ago with his footage featured on Trans Canada Phil's channel, but encountered some gridlock (albeit brief) on that southwestern segment. Needless to say, that southwestern segment is long overdue for an upgrade. Traffic demand increased much faster than the Alberta Ministry of Transportation thought it would; they expected that it would take a few decades before traffic levels would warrant a widening, but I don't think it even took 10 years to reach capacity. Keep in mind that the southwestern leg between Lessard and Calgary Trail is not even two decades old (it opened in phases during 2005 and 2006, I believe).

[@TransCanadaPhil]

i was surprised to see the southwest segmented degraded like that. I hadn't been there since 2016 but I didn't really it being bad at the time.

[@AsphaltPlanet1]

One of the things that I noticed about both Calgary's and Edmonton's ring roads are the inconsistent cross-sections. Sometimes there are three lanes per direction with auxiliary lanes between interchanges, sometimes there are only two lanes per direction without auxiliary lanes. The highways seemed to be designed based on how much money the province felt like spending when they called the contract. I noticed the same thing in Vegas actually. The Beltway there has somewhat of an inconsistent cross-section as well.

[@brianxyz]

@@AsphaltPlanet1 That's definitely true for the first legs and I believe in every case it quickly came back to bite them. Now they're adding extra lanes, bridges, and even interchanges all over the place in Calgary. They appear to have learned from their mistakes on the west side of Calgary but I guess we won't know for sure until everything happens.

[@xlbolt]

Sweet footage! And perfect timing too as I am just about to clinch the route for myself tomorrow. I'm massively impressed with how much of a highway network Edmonton has for its size, especially coming from a place like Vancouver.

[@AsphaltPlanet1]

Thanks for the comment. I agree with the sentiment, on a per capita basis it seems like Edmonton has a more complete expressway network compared to Vancouver.

[@RoadsOfAsiaBen]

Great drive! Did you know Bang Na Expressway or Bang Na - Bang Phli - Bang Pakong Expressway in Thailand is the world's longest elevated expressway in the world and 7th longest bridge in the world? It is made with 1,800,000 cubic meters of concrete to build the bridge. It was opened in January 2000. The length of this elevated expressway is 55 km.

[@AsphaltPlanet1]

Thanks for the comment. I think I have heard of the Expressway, but I don't know too much about it.

[@thevultrantransituniverse1487]

Alberta also has nice highways like in Ontario.

[@minisluy]

But with less traffic

[@AsphaltPlanet1]

The ring roads around both Calgary and Edmonton are definitely nice roads.

[@CrystalClearWith8BE]

Edmonton have a complete beltway. Calgary's beltway is incomplete because of the southwest and west portions being constructed. When I check on Wikipedia, it says AB 201 will have it's SW portion open by October in this year, at least the SSW portion was opened last year and the W portion will be completed by 2024 making a complete beltway or should I say it'll become Canada's largest and longest complete beltway in 2024 beating MB 100 TCH Alt./MB 101/Perimeter Highway (Winnipeg)?

[@alexishoude4449]

In my opinion, driving during a rain storm (Btween 5:21 & 6:13) looks like awesome. What do you think of it?

[@AsphaltPlanet1]

I’d rather drive in good weather than in a rain storm

[@canadiandriverjez3965]

ah I was just there! I missed yah! great video as always!

[@AsphaltPlanet1]

Thank you.

[@petey611]

What would be the fastest lap time 🤔

[@CrystalClearWith8BE]

The Anthony Henday Drive aka Alberta Highway 216 (AB 216) is a complete freeway beltway encircling approximately 78 km around Alberta's provincial capital, Edmonton. Edit: In my opinion of numbering, it's numbered as a beltway of AB 16/TCH Yellowhead Highway and the hundreds digit is 2 that represents an auxillary route (reminds me of comparing even hundreds digit to Interstates in the US) or the hundreds digit represents also a beltway of AB 2.

[@AsphaltPlanet1]

Thanks for the comment

[@highway2heaven91]

The second reason is correct.

[@Jacobthehighwayfan]

U Should Do Orlando Florida Someday

[@AsphaltPlanet1]

I have one video of I-4 through Orlando, but the footage is pretty out of date now.

[@Jacobthehighwayfan]

@@AsphaltPlanet1 Ok

[@SoulOfTech]

Ignorant question but isnt having a highway around the city inefficient as opposed to it cutting through the city like the 400 series highways do? I can’t imagine these ring highways being too useful to get from one area of the city to another without adding a ton of extra KM and travel time.

[@TransCanadaPhil]

There is a freeway that runs through the city albeit East/West; Whitemud Drive on the south side of town. The Yellowhead has pretty much the same function on the north side (east/west); it's "almost a freeway" with only a few intersections remaining but construction is well underway to turn that into a full freeway very soon. There really isn't a north-south freeway in Edmonton similar to anything like Deerfoot Trail in Calgary though.

[@AsphaltPlanet1]

Edmonton is fairly unique in that it's never really had a high quality north-south road bisecting it. I'm sure the ring road is very effective at diverting heavy traffic around the outer edges of the city. Though the connection between Edmonton and Hwy 63 to Fort Mac seems a bit awkward to my untrained Ontario eyes.

[@highwaysbyways4281]

It depends where you choose to live and work. Our place in the far north-west is about a five minute drive to the Henday, so it makes going to the far sides of the city very quick. My wife uses the Henday to get to work on 'refinery row' in the Far East of the city. It takes her about 20 minutes to drive to work.

[@highway2heaven91]

Part of the reason why the cities of Alberta (and most of Canada outside of Toronto and Montreal) don't have a lot of freeways cutting through them is because of the preservation of older neighborhoods and the idea that public transit would satisfy the commuting needs of inner city residents. Most Canadian planners didn't like the fact that many American freeways destroyed urban neighborhoods and displaced urban residents so they tried their best to avoid this. Nearly all of the freeways in Canadian cities were built around established neighborhoods and later neighborhoods (after the 1960s or so) were planned and built with freeways in mind. Because of this most Canadian freeways took the longer route around the inner city neighborhoods of most cities. In Winnipeg's case, they just didn't build any freeways at all. For Calgary and Edmonton, they just placed the freeways on the edge of the city (or what was the edge at the time). Edmonton has no N-S road bisecting it because there wasn't really any place to put one, unlike Calgary which placed the Deerfoot at the then-edge of the city.

[@jakeregencia36]

Wow this is the good highway i ever seened😊

[@onunkwodumebi1211]

This is very nice

[@AsphaltPlanet1]

Thank you.

[@zaitunmatdiah6850]

You doing well, Asphalt!

[@AsphaltPlanet1]

Thank you.

[@andyjay729]

Hey Edmontonians, I've been wondering, how do you pronounce the numbered streets in your city, as "16 Avenue" etc. or "16TH Avenue"?

[@highwaysbyways4281]

Usually as an ordinal number, i.e. with the 'st', 'nd' or 'th' suffix. But we sometimes won't say 'hundred' for the larger numbers. Examples for 170 street we say 'One Seventyth Street' or 156 street we say 'One Fifty-sixth Street'. Even though we do have quadrants like Calgary, we generally don't include the quadrant in an address if we're talking about the places in the north-west (which is most of the city). The quadrant system was added after the city expanded out the the south and east and we ran out of street numbers.

[@andyjay729]

@@highwaysbyways4281 Thanks. I was just wondering if you used the ordinal form, since of course the streets are all spelled 170 Street, etc. instead of 170th.

[@mpaulm]

Great video. Just don’t drive on the southwest part during rush hour.🙄

[@alantaylor3910]

The music sounds like all the wheel nuts are loose on one wheel

[@christmashunter4573]

Its a was a pretty day to flim a video

[@AsphaltPlanet1]

Thank you.

[@jonathanselevators]

Eh they could have done a better job with the concrete.

[@AsphaltPlanet1]

maybe. Alberta doesn't really have a concrete paving industry, so it's possible the contractors making and laying the concrete (and the engineers designing the pavement structure) didn't understand the local conditions properly and made avoidable mistakes during the pavement design and construction of Anthony Henday Drive. But, the flip side is, in Michigan, a state that does have considerable experience building and designing concrete highways, M-6 was constructed in 2004 and has fallen apart. MDOT has updated it's concrete pavement design specifications since 2004 to try to remedy the issues that lead to the joint failures of the concrete paving on M-6, but still, a reputable state agency with considerable experience constructing concrete highways constructed a brand new concrete highway where the concrete joints started to fail almost instantly. So it's hard to say exactly why the concrete on AB-216 has not held up as well as hoped.

[@jonathanselevators]

@@AsphaltPlanet1 that is true. They did learn from that mistake. That happened with two lanes of westbound I-696 west of gratiot recently. During construction, they inspected the concrete and realized that it was not built up to MDOt concrete standards and had to rip it out a week later as apposed to 14 years later with M-6. So I mean, it all depends.

[@coolkid10521]

Anthony henday drive

[@dennishayko1289]

Visited your city recently and we got on your Anthony Henday freeway. If I was a tax payer in Edmonton I'd be PISSED! Holes, bumps, and uneven asphalt. One of the worst freeways we've been on.

[@apkiller10]

Lucky I got to gas fish