The new underpass

Once upon a time, the 37th St bike path came up out of Fish Creek, deked in a bit to cross 130th Ave, ran beside the sound berm between (duh) 37 St and Woodbine, crossed the street, and through a big green space to end up at the Glenmore Reservoir. It was like that for decades, with minor changes. As a side note, from there you can get to almost anywhere in the city via the bike path network. It's one of the best parts about living in Calgary.

I have run and biked up and down the 37th path an uncountable number of times over the decades we've lived here. All along there have been discreet signs saying something like 'future location of Southland Drive extension', or future 37 st freeway location.' When they first put in Oakridge, Cedarbrae, and Woodbine, the City was already negotiating with Tsuut'ina First Nation for road allowance. They've been doing that since about the time I was born.

As is well known, that road is now being built. Overbuilt in places. The bike path hasn't changed much coming out of Fish Creek. Along Woodbine we've been watching them build a major highway just on the other side of the berm. The berm itself has been torn apart in several places for utility work, the 130th Ave bridge, and the new bridge I talked about yesterday that's supposed to be for pedestrians. It doesn't really cross what was 37th St anymore, there is a new pedestrian bridge across Anderson road. It gives a good view of the new bowl of spaghetti interchange being constructed. (See below.)

What used to be a big green space is now mostly almost freeway, with the path skirting what I think is an on ramp. Southland Drive came to a T intersection and there was a wide green space that the residents enjoyed as an extension of their back yards for the better part of 50 years in some cases. Now it's a 4 lane road, and there does not appear to be any sound barriers or berms going in. Those homes now have a lot less privacy, and will be much less quiet. I'm sure they're thrilled.

They built a tunnel for the path underneath Southland as it curves north to meet up with 90th Ave. There is another tunnel under 90th Ave near where the street used to dead end. There's a new utility station there as part of the utility corridor. It looks like this.

As a side note, I made some artistic choices here. I wanted to get the tunnel and the utility station in the same shot so a panorama is an easy decision. The grass is unbelievably green for this time of year, and it eats the whole photo in colour. All your eye can see is green, but what I want you to see is the path leading to the tunnel, and the road leading to the utility station, while overlooking for the moment the huge patch of green and the mess beside the trees on the right. Plus in colour the sky is gross. B&W seemed to fix it all best.

Here's a couple more photos. The view from the pedestrian bridge over Anderson. Eventually Anderson will swoop off to the right and under the bridge girders. Where the road is now mostly goes away, and it was only put in a few years ago. The on ramp is on the right side of all that, and the bike path is just on the other side of that berm and bit of orange fencing.

Yes, really that green. I didn't do much to this photo. I took the above panorama from the very left side of this photo. I can't get over how green it is! October! Two big snowfalls! They must have put some serious fertilizer in with the grass seed.

I get back to the house and what do I see? The cats being adorable.

Lynx of the Day

Deadwood of the Day
3 Wood and rock shots, mainly because they are really close in real life, and the same theme applies. These are as found. I'm pretty sure someone put the rocks there for some reason. In the first case it's rip rap to help control Fish Creek if (when) it floods again. The others? There might be a story there, but I don't know what it is.

That third one reminds me really strongly of a shot from New Zealand. Rather than go try to find it in the blog, I just found it in Lightroom and included it here.