Southwest ring road construction to bring major detours and delays along Glenmore

Construction on the southwest portion of Calgary's ring road is about to ramp up, which could bring traffic headaches for surrounding communities.

Major detours are coming to GlenmoreTrail at the intersections at Sarcee Trail, Highway 8 and 37thStreet S.W. now that the realignment of Fish Creek and the Elbow River has been completed.

Alberta Transportation spokesperson Adam Johnson says even though efforts to maintain current traffic flow have been made, southwest commuters should still plan for delays.

"What we're going to see is the elimination of the current intersection of Highway 8, Glenmore Trail and Sarceeso there will be free-flow traffic moving from Glenmoremoving northboundonto Sarcee,"

"And then we will install lighted interchanges to ensure that anybody moving between GlenmoreTrail and Highway 8 is still able to do that and moving from Highway 8 to SarceeTrail North is still able to do that," Jonson said.

Detours starting in June

Starting in June, SarceeTrail will go down to two narrowed lanes in each direction. Vehicles driving between Highway 8 and Glenmorewill be directed through a controlled U-turn intersection along Sarcee.

Also starting next month, access betweenGlenmoreandLakeviewwill also be realigned along Grey Eagle Boulevard. Access between the two roads will be through the existing traffic circle north of GlenmoreTrail.

One exception travellers heading east on Glenmore will be able to access Grey Eagle Boulevard from the off-ramp.

According to Alberta Transportation, the permanent closures of the intersections at 37th Street S.W. and Highway 22X, and 45th Street S.W. and GlenmoreTrail will be delayed until 2019 "to minimize disruption to the travelling public."

The current detours will be replaced by new detours in the fall of 2019.

Work is slated to be complete on the new alignments by the fall of 2020. Thesouthwest section of the ring road is on track to open to traffic in the fall of 2021.

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