Regarding the Impending Rocky Ridge Road Closure

Dear Residents of Rocky Ridge and Royal Oak;

As you may have heard by now City Council has voted to close Rocky Ridge Road. The anticipated closure date continues to move, however currently we have been told that it will close in the spring of 2010. Though unsuccessful in our attempts to keep the road open, through our efforts R3C3 has brought the awareness of this issue to the forefront and all of the concerns that surround the City's plan for our community. We fought long and hard to ensure the safety of the citizens of Rocky Ridge and Royal Oak. Many volunteer hours were spent with our Technical Committee proposing alternative road designs and our Communication Committee lobbying the Provincial Officials, City Officials, the City Aldermen and your Mayor to bring forward a viable solution to this issue that would have been a win win situation for all concerned.

Since February 2009, when meeting with any politician (other than Alderman Gord Lowe), they all sympathized and agreed that the road should remain open for the sake of the community - despite Alderman Hodges signing off on the 2005 plan to close the road. However, they felt that they were not provided with an "engineered stamp of approval" design to keep the road open. Our technical team (who were not "technical civil road engineers") worked very hard to establish viable alternatives by demonstrating design solutions in other parts of the city that could be used for our road alternative. The city/provincial engineers would not consider any other viable alternative based on current design standards and would not come up with their own solution to allow the road to remain open. Not at any point did the city or provincial engineers build a team and work collaboratively together to design an alternative on their own, all they did was "poke holes" through our technical teams designs. There was a design alternative from the 2005 Stoney/Crowchild Trail interchange plan that allowed the road to remain open. However, the expansion of the northwest leg of the LRT to Rocky Ridge required the closure of the road due to changes in design standards. We tried to get the province/city to work with the 2005 plan, however neither level of government was prepared to look at the cost to implement. Many costs were thrown about (from 30 million, 38 million, 40 million and finally $50 million) to keep the road open, however this was not a hurdle that we could over come within this short time frame. Because of our residents phone calls and emails to the Minister of Transportation,Luke Ouellette, Lindsay Blackett convinced the Minister of Transportation to hire an "independent" third party consultant. Within three days, the consultant had reviewed our technical teams designs and concurred that the Stoney/Crowchild Trail intersection is a "super interchange" which has more stringent design standards and consequently Rocky Ridge Road should be closed. The only option to keep the road open would have been to revert back to the 2005 design plan, however this had been deemed cost prohibitive at this time. There are presently only 2 super-interchanges within all of Alberta - one in Edmonton and now one at the Stoney/Crowchild Trail intersection.

To Mr. Hubble of the City's Transportation and Infrastructure Department, we would like to say to you that over 2,000 signatures from our community along with hundreds and hundreds of emails and phone calls to all levels of the political arena does not in anyway suggest support for the road closure - as he stated to council March 28th. In addition, Mayor Bronconnier on countless occasions within council meetings as well in person continued to state that he lives in a community where there is only one entrance into his community. We would like to say that just because your community only has one entrance does not make it right for ours. We are truly disappointed and disgusted in the way that our politicians have chosen not to listen to the people of our community and have instead blamed each other rather than find a win/win solution for all. They know that leaving the road open for as long as they have was wrong. City council has passed building permits to allow a high density area at the bottom of Rocky Ridge Road, they have passed three church building permits and allowed building on either side of Rocky Ridge Road, with no direct access from this intersection. They continued to condone the closure of the road by purchasing additional lands on two separate occasions from the North West Family Church to allow for entrance expansions into the community as well as upgrading the road from a two way to a 4 lane major artery. With this in mind, how can you honestly say that this road should be closed as it has become the major arterial roadway for our community? Alderman Dale Hodges, the Mayor, MLA, Lindsay Blackett and former MLA, Greg Melchin know that to close this road and make the residents and non-residents of this community travel our residential roads is wrong. This closure does not just effect the residents today but forever - from a risk/safety, economic, environmental and time perspective.

After the road closure announcement was made our plan was to have an open house June 18th to advise the community of our efforts, to allow you the citizens to address your politicians and to provide an update for the mitigation measures and safety concerns as a result of the road closure. Unfortunately, the city decided to have their Open House in Tuscany on June 17th and had notified us that they would be unable to directly address the public that day. Consequently, we were not able to make that meeting happen before summer begins, so we will try again in the fall if all parties are willing.

In the meantime as Chair of R3C3, I would like to take this opportunity to thank the committee members for all of their hard work and dedication over the last 3 months. The effort that was put in to raise the awareness in our community in such a short period of time was nothing short of a miraculous. I can't help but think what the outcome would have been if this same passionate and dedicated group of volunteers would have come together 2 years ago to address this issue.

It was a pleasure to have worked with you through this campaign. I am very proud of not only our committee but also the response from the community, which just goes to show you that Rocky Ridge/Royal Oak is the best community in Calgary and a place that I am proud to call home.

Sincerely,

Todd Phillips
Chair Rocky Ridge Road Closure Community Committee (R3C3)

Lauree Phillips
R3C3 Communications Subcommittee

CANCELLATION of Rocky Ridge Road Closure Town Hall Meeting

Due to the information provided to us today that the Calgary Transportation Infrastructure department will be having an Open House informing the community of the road closure to be held in Rocky Ridge June 17th, we have no choice but to cancel the Town Hall Meeting June 18th.

Sincerely,

Todd Phillips, Chairman,
Rocky Ridge Road Closure Community Committee