Eau Claire Access
Eau Claire is a vibrant, multi-use neighbourhood in the heart of Calgary. It encompasses a thriving residential community; a busy commercial sector; and a large urban park with public spaces and natural areas. Eau Claire is bordered by the Bow River, the commercial and hospitality centre of Calgary, Chinatown, and Downtown West, another high-density river-front district.
A Residential community including high-rises, low-rises, townhouses, seniors’ homes, subsidized housing, office to residential conversions, and private residences that range in value from the mid-$200s to in excess of $5 million.
“Eau Claire Plaza, West Eau Claire Park, Eau Claire Promenade, and Prince’s Island Park are the central jewels in Calgary’s phenomenal open space network” (engage.calgary.ca), an attraction that brings visitors from all areas of Calgary and is a must see for tourists resulting in a high volume of foot traffic.
Commercial buildings with active Monday to Friday daytime use are connected throughout downtown by the Plus 15 network.
All users need to be considered but we struggle with getting the City to view our neighbourhood holistically. Too often in recent years different individuals in municipal government have looked only at their own project and not viewed its impact on Eau Claire as a whole. Recently when we expressed our concerns about having vehicular traffic curtailed, we were blithely told “traffic will find a way.”
In recent years a lot of work has been done to increase access to our neighbourhood for bicycles, scooters, pedestrians, and that’s great. That serves a large constituency of users. But vehicular traffic has been reduced to a level that could impact safety for our residents and fundamental desirability for the community.
When we discuss vehicular traffic, we mean:
• Emergency vehicles
• Secondary emergency vehicles (such as restoration companies who help after a flood)
• Contractor vehicles which help us to maintain our homes
• Personal vehicles that residents need to get to our homes and to leave for the other exciting parts of our city and our province.
Currently, multiple projects, as proposed, will severely impact vehicular access/egress to Eau Claire, and we need the City to address these concerns broadly and immediately – if we wait until each project is entrenched we have no hope of changing anything.
• 3 Street redesign, as it’s currently configured, will reduce an already inadequate route to one-lane traffic for most of its length for most of the day.
• RiverWalk West, as selected planning suggests, will exacerbate already limited egress from our community to Bow Trail and Crowchild Trail by cutting 4 Avenue off at 9/10 Street SW.
• 8 Street redesign, as it stands, will reduce vehicular access to/egress from Eau Claire.
While the future of the Green line LRT is uncertain, both the last plan and potential new plans would severely curtail vehicular traffic on 2 Street permanently.
Within the last few years vehicular traffic has been reduced in other areas due to the addition of bike lanes and the community association has received complaints from nearby businesses that reduced access and reduced street parking has impacted business.
• 7 Street has been reduced to only two lanes.
• 3 Avenue has become single-lane east-bound at 7 Street.
Last year Eau Claire residents lost their Commercial Business Zone parking, reducing the ability of residential buildings to bring in contractors and repair vehicles, including secondary emergency response vehicles. It has slowly become more difficult to access our homes and businesses in this neighbourhood and we need help and advocacy from the city to prevent further erosion.
Click here to the Eau Claire Community News home page for the latest Eau Claire community updates.
