1.
Transportation in Edmonton
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The metropolitan area covers over 9,418 km2. This has resulted in a heavily private transportation-oriented transportation network typical of any city of its size in North America. The Edmonton Transit System is the public transportation agency, covering most parts of the city. The smaller city of Fort Saskatchewan contracts out bus services there to ETS, in 1978, Edmonton became the first city with a population of under one million to operate a light rail transit system in North America. The LRT currently runs on two lines - the Capital Line and the Metro Line - extending 24.3 km, the system runs from Clareview Station in northeast Edmonton, across the North Saskatchewan River, to Century Park in the south, and northwest from downtown to NAIT. Of the 18 stations on the network, six are underground running through the downtown core, the ETS operates a fleet of well over 960 buses across the city with 180 regular routes. Edmonton was one of two cities in Canada that operated a bus system until service was discontinued in May 2009. The ETS also operates a system for disabled people called DATS. Commuter service to Edmontons suburbs is provided by Strathcona County Transit, Edmonton is connected to British Columbia and Saskatchewan via the Yellowhead Highway, and to Calgary and Red Deer via the Queen Elizabeth II Highway. Anthony Henday Drive is a 78 km ring road encircling the City of Edmonton completed on October 1,2016, in a clockwise direction, the 78 km of free-flowing road spans from the Yellowhead Trail /Meridian Street in the east to Manning Drive Highway 15 in the northeast. The southeast leg from Calgary Trail/Gateway Boulevard to Highway 14 opened on October 23,2007, the northwest leg of Anthony Henday Drive from Yellowhead Trail in the west to Manning Drive in the northeast opened on November 1,2011. West of Queens Avenue, the avenues also switched, although, unlike the streets and this led to a confusing situation with avenues becoming streets despite no change in direction. For example, MacKenzie Avenue became Boyle Street west of Queens Avenue, the city of Strathcona had adopted a grid and quadrant system before its amalgamation with Edmonton, with the city being centred on Main Street and Whyte Avenue. This street system was similar to that of present-day Calgarys system, having NW, NE, SW, strathconas grid/quadrant system was abandoned in 1914. In 1914, following amalgamation with Strathcona, Edmonton adopted a new numbering system. The centre of the city, Jasper Avenue and 101 Street, was set as the starting point, Jasper Avenue was one of the few streets that was not assigned a number. The other avenues were numbered as if Jasper Avenue had been 101 Avenue, Avenues run east and west, streets run north and south. Avenue numbers increase to the north, street numbers increase to the west, when a street lies between two numbered streets, letters are appended as suffixes
2.
Edmonton
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Edmonton /ˈɛdməntən/ is the capital city of the Canadian province of Alberta. Edmonton is on the North Saskatchewan River and is the centre of the Edmonton Capital Region, the city anchors the north end of what Statistics Canada defines as the Calgary–Edmonton Corridor. The city had a population of 932,546 in 2016, making it Albertas second-largest city, also in 2016, Edmonton had a metropolitan population of 1,321,426, making it the sixth-largest census metropolitan area in Canada. Edmonton is North Americas northernmost city with a population over one million. A resident of Edmonton is known as an Edmontonian, Edmontons historic growth has been facilitated through the absorption of five adjacent urban municipalities and a series of annexations ending in 1982. Known as the Gateway to the North, the city is a point for large-scale oil sands projects occurring in northern Alberta. Edmonton is a cultural, governmental and educational centre and it hosts a year-round slate of festivals, reflected in the nickname Canadas Festival City. It is home to North Americas largest mall, West Edmonton Mall, in 1754, Anthony Henday, an explorer for the Hudsons Bay Company, may have been the first European to enter the Edmonton area. By 1795, Fort Edmonton was established on the north bank as a major trading post for the Hudsons Bay Company. The new forts name was suggested by John Peter Pruden after Edmonton, London, the home town of both the HBC deputy governor Sir James Winter Lake, and Pruden. In 1876, Treaty 6, which includes what is now Edmonton, was signed between the Aboriginal peoples in Canada and Queen Victoria as Queen of Canada, as part of the Numbered Treaties of Canada. The agreement includes the Plains and Woods Cree, Assiniboine, and other governments of First Nations at Fort Carlton, Fort Pitt. The area covered by the treaty represents most of the area of the current provinces of Saskatchewan. The arrival of the CPR and the C&E Railway helped bring settlers and entrepreneurs from eastern Canada, Europe, U. S. the Edmonton areas fertile soil and cheap land attracted settlers, further establishing Edmonton as a major regional commercial and agricultural centre. Some people participating in the Klondike Gold Rush passed through South Edmonton/Strathcona in 1897, in November 1905, the Canadian Northern Railway arrived in Edmonton, accelerating growth. During the early 1900s, Edmontons rapid growth led to speculation in real estate, in 1912, Edmonton amalgamated with the City of Strathcona, south of the North Saskatchewan River, as a result, the city extended south of the North Saskatchewan River for the first time. Just prior to World War I, the boom ended, many impoverished families moved to subsistence farms outside the city, while others fled to greener pastures in other provinces. Recruitment to the Canadian army during the war contributed to the drop in population
3.
Anthony Henday Drive
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Anthony Henday Drive is a 77-kilometre freeway that encircles Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. It is a heavily travelled commuter and truck route, with the southwest quadrant serving as a portion of the CANAMEX Corridor linking Canada to the United States. Henday is one of the busiest roads in Western Canada, carrying over 105,000 vehicles per day near West Edmonton Mall, rush hour congestion is common in southwest Edmonton where traffic levels have outpaced Alberta Transportation estimates by a significant margin due to rapid suburban development. It continues east past 97 Street to Manning Drive, then south across the North Saskatchewan River a second time, entering Strathcona County, it again crosses Yellowhead Trail before passing Sherwood Park and Whitemud Drive. Continuing south to Highway 14, the road re-enters southeast Edmonton, the freeway was named after 18th century explorer Anthony Henday, one of the first European men to explore central Alberta. Its designation of 216 is derived from its bypass linkages to Edmontons two major crossroads, Highways 2 and 16. Constructed over 26 years at a cost of $4.3 billion, planning of the ring began in the 1950s, followed by design work and initial land acquisition in the 1970s, and construction of the first expressway segment beginning in 1990. Plans for Henday were developed in tandem with Stoney Trail, a freeway around Calgary. The majority of Capital Region residents reside within the approximate 20-kilometre diameter of the ring, by physical size, Edmonton is larger than both Toronto and Montreal, but has a relatively low population density. Some have argued that the freeway is a significant contributor to urban sprawl in the region, the city also lacks a free-flowing north–south route, further increasing traffic levels on Anthony Henday Drive. The roads travels primarily through suburban areas in the south and west of the city. The highest number of lanes is seven, between Aurum Road and 153 Avenue in northeast Edmonton. The entire road is paved with asphalt, except for an experimental 14.4 km concrete segment in southwest Edmonton, Alberta Transportation intended for the section to have lower long-term maintenance costs, but only six years after construction it required significant repairs. Concrete was not considered for subsequent sections of the road, Alberta Transportation considers the starting point of Anthony Henday Drive to be at Calgary Trail / Gateway Boulevard in south Edmonton, with mileage increasing clockwise around the ring. At this major interchange, two lanes of the freeway are joined by two lanes from northbound Gateway Boulevard and a third from southbound Calgary Trail. All five lanes merge into two over a distance, creating congestion in the afternoon rush hour. Two westbound lanes continue across Blackmud Creek past 111 Street to 119 Street, curving slightly to the southwest through the suburbs of south Edmonton, Henday crosses Whitemud Creek to an interchange at Rabbit Hill Road. Veering back to the northwest, the freeway passes beneath Terwillegar Drive before descending to cross the North Saskatchewan River on twin 360-metre bridges, West of the river, the four lane freeway passes Maskêkosihk Trail and Cameron Heights Drive on its way to Lessard Road and Callingwood Road
4.
Alberta
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Alberta is a western province of Canada. With an estimated population of 4,196,457 as of July 1,2015, it is Canadas fourth-most populous province and its area is about 660,000 square kilometres. Alberta and its neighbour Saskatchewan were districts of the Northwest Territories until they were established as provinces on September 1,1905, the premier has been Rachel Notley since May 2015. Alberta is bounded by the provinces of British Columbia to the west and Saskatchewan to the east, the Northwest Territories to the north, and the U. S. state of Montana to the south. Alberta is one of three Canadian provinces and territories to only a single U. S. state and one of only two landlocked provinces. About 290 km south of the capital is Calgary, the largest city in Alberta, Calgary and Edmonton centre Albertas two census metropolitan areas, both of which have populations exceeding one million, while the province has 16 census agglomerations. Tourist destinations in the province include Banff, Canmore, Drumheller, Jasper, Alberta is named after Princess Louise Caroline Alberta, the fourth daughter of Victoria, Queen of Canada, and Albert, Prince Consort. Princess Louise was the wife of John Campbell, Marquess of Lorne, Lake Louise and Mount Alberta were also named in her honour. Alberta, with an area of 661,848 km2, is the fourth largest province after Quebec, Ontario and British Columbia. To the south, the borders on the 49th parallel north, separating it from the US state of Montana. The province extends 1,223 km north to south and 660 km east to west at its maximum width, with the exception of the semi-arid steppe of the south-eastern section, the province has adequate water resources. There are numerous rivers and lakes used for swimming, fishing, there are three large lakes, Lake Claire in Wood Buffalo National Park, Lesser Slave Lake, and Lake Athabasca which lies in both Alberta and Saskatchewan. The longest river in the province is the Athabasca River which travels 1,538 km from the Columbia Icefield in the Rocky Mountains to Lake Athabasca, the largest river is the Peace River with an average flow of 2161 m3/s. The Peace River originates in the Rocky Mountains of northern British Columbia and flows through northern Alberta and into the Slave River, Albertas capital city, Edmonton, is located approximately in the geographic centre of the province. It is the most northerly city in Canada, and serves as a gateway. The region, with its proximity to Canadas largest oil fields, has most of western Canadas oil refinery capacity, Calgary is located approximately 280 km south of Edmonton and 240 km north of Montana, surrounded by extensive ranching country. Almost 75% of the population lives in the Calgary–Edmonton Corridor. The land grant policy to the served as a means to populate the province in its early years
5.
Transit-oriented development
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In urban planning, a transit-oriented development is a type of urban development that maximizes the amount of residential, business and leisure space within walking distance of public transport. A TOD typically includes a transit stop surrounded by a high-density mixed-use area. A TOD is also designed to be more walkable than other built-up areas, through using smaller block sizes. Many of the new towns created after World War II in Japan, Sweden, in the United States, a half-mile-radius circle has become the de facto standard for rail-transit catchment areas for TODs. A half mile corresponds to the distance someone can walk in 10 minutes at 3 mph and is an estimate for the distance people will walk to get to a rail station. The half-mile ring is a more than 500 acres in size. Another key feature of transit-oriented development that differentiates it from transit-proximate development is reduced amounts of parking for personal vehicles, many cities throughout the world are developing TOD policy. One of the earliest and most successful examples of TOD is Curitiba, Curitiba was organized into transport corridors very early on in its history. Over the years, it has integrated its zoning laws and transportation planning to place high-density development adjacent to high-capacity transportation systems, the source of innovation in Curitiba has been a unique form of participatory city planning that emphasizes public education, discussion and agreement. This is simultaneously being implemented along with a bus transit system called Transmetro. Calgary is home to a very successful TOD community called The Bridges, the Bridges is home to a diverse range of condos, shops, services, and parks. Some other TODs currently being constructed are London and Westbrook, both high rise condo and retail communities in areas of the City. The City continues to create TOD policy for other Calgary communities, Calgary City Council has allocated funding for the creation of six Station Area Plans around the city, to guide increasing development pressure around some of the light rail transit stations. On June 9,2008, Calgary City Council approved the first station area plan in Calgarys history, most of the suburban high rises were not along major rail lines like other cities until recently, when there has been incentive to do so. Century Park is a growing community in southern Edmonton at the south end of Edmontons LRT. It will include low to high rise condos, recreational services, shops, restaurants, Edmonton is also looking into some new TODs in various parts of the city. In the northeast, there are plans to redevelop underutilized land at two sites around existing LRT, Fort Road and Stadium Station, according to the Metropolitan Development and Planning Regulation of late 2011, 40% of new households will be built as TOD neighbourhoods. Toronto has a policy of encouraging new construction along the route of its primary Yonge Street subway line
6.
Alberta Highway 2
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Running primarily north to south for approximately 1,273 kilometres, it is the longest and busiest highway in the province carrying nearly 170,000 vehicles per day in central Calgary. The majority of Albertas 4 million residents live in the Calgary–Edmonton Corridor that is bisected by Highway 2. U. S. Route 89 enters Alberta from Montana and becomes Highway 2, in Calgary, the route is a busy freeway named Deerfoot Trail that continues into central Alberta as the Queen Elizabeth II Highway, bypassing Red Deer and bisecting Leduc. In Edmonton, it is concurrent with freeway sections of Highways 216 and 16. It exits the Capital Region through the city of St. Albert, Highway 2 was originally numbered as Highway 1 and is one of the oldest major highways in Alberta, historical names include the Calgary and Edmonton Trail, Sunshine Trail, and the Blue Trail. In southern Alberta, the highway comprised a portion of the proposed Glacier-to-Gulf Motorway that ran from Calgary to Mexico. Major changes include the construction of an expressway between Calgary and Edmonton in the 1960s, realignment along Deerfoot Trail in the 1980s. A1998 Highway 43 realignment shortened Highway 2 by nearly 90 km to its current northern terminus in Grande Prairie, bypasses of Fort Macleod, Claresholm, and Nanton are planned as part of Albertas effort to make its portion of the CANAMEX Corridor free-flowing from border to border. Highway 2 is a route in the National Highway System of Canada. As the main access in Alberta, Highway 2 is the preferred path of the CANAMEX Corridor. Highway 2 begins at the United States border, as the two lane U. S. Route 89 crosses into Canada at Carway, the road proceeds north through the Rocky Mountain Foothills to a brief concurrency with Highway 501, before bisecting the town of Cardston. Less than 1 km before meeting Highway 3 southeast of Fort Macleod, Highway 3 splits east to Lethbridge, and the combined Highways 2 and 3 turn due west through town as a divided highway at a speed limit of 50 km/h. It continues approximately 25 km north to Granum from which Highway 519 splits to the east, in tandem with Highway 23, Highway 519 is often used by CANAMEX traffic to bypass Fort Macleod. Further north on Highway 2, the towns of Claresholm and Nanton are each bisected at reduced speed limit of 50 km/h, the highway is concurrent with Highway 533 for its brief distance through Nanton. North of Nanton, the highway continues into the Municipal District of Foothills to a junction with Highways 23. From its split with Macleod Trail, Highway 2 becomes a major freeway named Deerfoot Trail that descends to cross the Bow River before entering Calgary city limits, in the city it crosses the river twice more, jogging back and forth between its east and west bank. Deerfoot Trail then merges with the routes of Anderson Road. The Deerfoot Trail designation is dropped, and the highway carries on north into Rocky View County, Highway 2 exits north Calgary as a six lane freeway called the Queen Elizabeth II Highway, a name it retains until the southern city limit of Edmonton
7.
109 Street, Edmonton
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109 Street is an arterial road in central Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. It takes travelers out of Downtown to the south to Old Strathcona and it passes several Edmonton landmarks including the Garneau Theatre, Alberta Legislature Building, MacEwan University, RCMP K Division Headquarters, and Kingsway Mall. It is a street, southbound, from 97 Avenue to Saskatchewan Drive. Before Edmontons amalgamation with Strathcona in 1912, the Edmonton portion was known as 9 Street
8.
Google
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Google is an American multinational technology company specializing in Internet-related services and products. These include online advertising technologies, search, cloud computing, software, Google was founded in 1996 by Larry Page and Sergey Brin while they were Ph. D. students at Stanford University, in California. Together, they own about 14 percent of its shares, and they incorporated Google as a privately held company on September 4,1998. An initial public offering took place on August 19,2004, in August 2015, Google announced plans to reorganize its various interests as a conglomerate called Alphabet Inc. Google, Alphabets leading subsidiary, will continue to be the company for Alphabets Internet interests. Upon completion of the restructure, Sundar Pichai became CEO of Google, replacing Larry Page, rapid growth since incorporation has triggered a chain of products, acquisitions, and partnerships beyond Googles core search engine. The company leads the development of the Android mobile operating system, the Google Chrome web browser, and Chrome OS, the new hardware chief, Rick Osterloh, stated, a lot of the innovation that we want to do now ends up requiring controlling the end-to-end user experience. Google has also experimented with becoming an Internet carrier, alexa, a company that monitors commercial web traffic, lists Google. com as the most visited website in the world. Several other Google services also figure in the top 100 most visited websites, including YouTube, Googles mission statement, from the outset, was to organize the worlds information and make it universally accessible and useful, and its unofficial slogan was Dont be evil. In October 2015, the motto was replaced in the Alphabet corporate code of conduct by the phrase Do the right thing, Google began in January 1996 as a research project by Larry Page and Sergey Brin when they were both PhD students at Stanford University in Stanford, California. They called this new technology PageRank, it determined a websites relevance by the number of pages, and the importance of those pages, Page and Brin originally nicknamed their new search engine BackRub, because the system checked backlinks to estimate the importance of a site. Originally, Google ran under Stanford Universitys website, with the domains google. stanford. edu, the domain name for Google was registered on September 15,1997, and the company was incorporated on September 4,1998. It was based in the garage of a friend in Menlo Park, craig Silverstein, a fellow PhD student at Stanford, was hired as the first employee. The first funding for Google was an August 1998 contribution of $100,000 from Andy Bechtolsheim, co-founder of Sun Microsystems, given before Google was incorporated. At least three other investors invested in 1998, Amazon. com founder Jeff Bezos, Stanford University computer science professor David Cheriton. Author Ken Auletta claims that each invested $250,000, early in 1999, Brin and Page decided they wanted to sell Google to Excite. They went to Excite CEO George Bell and offered to sell it to him for $1 million, vinod Khosla, one of Excites venture capitalists, talked the duo down to $750,000, but Bell still rejected it. Googles initial public offering took place five years later, on August 19,2004, at that time Larry Page, Sergey Brin, and Eric Schmidt agreed to work together at Google for 20 years, until the year 2024
9.
Google Maps
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Google Maps is a web mapping service developed by Google. It offers satellite imagery, street maps, 360° panoramic views of streets, real-time traffic conditions, Google maps began as a C++ desktop program designed by Lars and Jens Eilstrup Rasmussen at Where 2 Technologies. In October 2004, the company was acquired by Google, which converted it into a web application, after additional acquisitions of a geospatial data visualization company and a realtime traffic analyzer, Google Maps was launched in February 2005. The services front end utilizes JavaScript, XML, and Ajax, Google Maps offers an API that allows maps to be embedded on third-party websites, and offers a locator for urban businesses and other organizations in numerous countries around the world. Google Map Maker allows users to expand and update the services mapping worldwide. Much of the satellite imagery is no more than three years old and is updated on a regular basis. Google Maps uses a variant of the Mercator projection. The current redesigned version of the application was made available in 2013. Google Maps for mobile was released in September 2008 and features GPS turn-by-turn navigation, in August 2013, it was determined to be the worlds most popular app for smartphones, with over 54% of global smartphone owners using it at least once. In 2012, Google reported having over 7,100 employees, Google Maps provides a route planner under Get Directions. Up to four modes of transportation are available depending on the area, driving, public transit, walking, in combination with Google Street View, issues such as parking, turning lanes, and one-way streets can be viewed before traveling. China mainland, Hong Kong, Macau, Jordan, Lebanon, only public transit directions are provided for South Korea. All countries of mainland North and Central America are covered contiguously, all countries of mainland South America are covered. All countries including Trinidad and Tobago* are treated contiguously, all inhabited countries and territories in the Caribbean are covered, though in general there are no connections between islands. Like many other Google web applications, Google Maps uses JavaScript extensively, as the user drags the map, the grid squares are downloaded from the server and inserted into the page. When a user searches for a business, the results are downloaded in the background for insertion into the panel and map. Locations are drawn dynamically by positioning a red pin on top of the map images, a hidden IFrame with form submission is used because it preserves browser history. The site also uses JSON for data rather than XML
10.
Partial cloverleaf interchange
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A partial cloverleaf interchange or parclo is a modification of a cloverleaf interchange. The design has been received, and has since become one of the most popular freeway-to-arterial interchange designs in North America. It has also used occasionally in some European countries, such as Germany, Croatia, Italy, the Netherlands. A diamond interchange has four ramps, a cloverleaf interchange has eight ramps, as does a stack interchange. These are fully separated, unlike a parclo - traffic flows without stops on all ramps. A parclo has four or six ramps, not very common are five ramps to handle a specific demand, in Ontario, the specific variation is identified by a letter/number suffix after the name. Other jurisdictions do not have naming conventions, so Ontarios naming conventions are used in this article, the letter A designates that two ramps meet the freeway before the driver crosses the arterial road, while B designates that two ramps meet the freeway past the crossing. The number designates how many quadrants of the interchange contain ramps, in left-hand drive countries, the ramps function the same as in right-hand drive countries, but ramps with the same designation appear visually reversed. Common parclo configurations include the Parclo A2, Parclo B2 and Parclo A4, Parclo A2 and B2 configurations contain four ramps. On each side of the freeway there is a loop ramp, in Parclo A2, the loop ramps serve as on-ramps and the directional ramps serve as off-ramps. In Parclo B2 the roles are reversed, both on- and off-ramps require controlled intersections at the arterial road. The Parclo A2 and B2 ramps are usually longer and allow for higher speeds than their A4 counterparts because of rural land availability. It is possible to upgrade an A2 to an A4 by adding directional ramps, the Parclo A-4 contains 6 ramps. On each side on the freeway, there is a ramp, followed by a loop ramp. This also makes sense since freeways have a higher capacity than arterials and right-turn ramps serve effectively to absorb capacity. Some parclos have the right-turning on-ramp leave the road after the exit ramp intersection. This configuration is used when another road meets the freeway off-ramp. Traffic exiting the freeway to the road is provided with a long, relatively straight exit ramp
Anthony Henday Drive (Hwy 216)
Century Park station
Whitemud Drive (Hwy 2)
