Improvements to University Drive help to accommodate growth in Lethbridge

Storm sewer and roadway widening on the north portion of the project.

Located in southern Alberta, the City of Lethbridge is a growing community with almost 80,000 residents. The City has experienced significant growth between 2005 and 2006. To accomodate the anticipated growth in the City, in 2004, the City prepared a Transportation Master Plan for Roadways. The plan identified a number of roadway needs and improvements to support growth and provide a safe roadway network.

The City’s strongest growth has occurred in West Lethbridge, in particular at the University of Lethbridge and residential developments such as Riverstone, Sunridge, Mountain Heights, Riverbend, and Paradise Canyon. Given the anticipated growth in adjacent developments, the City identified the need to upgrade University Drive (the main north-south arterial on the west side of Lethbridge) from the Whoop-up Drive on-ramp to Rocky Mountain Blvd.

Placement of curb and gutter

The City engaged Associated Engineering to complete a safety analysis of the University and Whoop-Up Drive Interchange, traffic analysis along the University Drive corridor, detailed design, and construction administration.

Associated Engineering’s project team conducted the traffic planning to determine the required road improvements for the 10 year time frame. The operations review and traffic analysis included the following:

• Review and risk assessment of the recommendations and assumptions from existing reports
• Detailed traffic analysis using Synchro, including assessment of split phase signal controls
• Assessment of alternative intersection configurations
• Lane configuration and requirements
• Review of transit impacts and safety concerns,

Following the traffic analysis, Associated Engineering undertook the detailed road design. Using the skills and resources of our staff in Lethbridge, Kelowna, Calgary, and Burnaby, we completed the detailed design in three months.

Roadway widening on University Drive

The overall design included:

• Approximately 3 killometres of arterial roadway with cross sections ranging from four lanes to six lanes
• Eight intersections, of which six are signalized
• Streetlighting
• Watermain installation
• Stormwater management facilities including a stormwater pond and approximately 1680 metres of storm sewer pipe
• Traffic accommodation
• Landscaping.

The University Drive Improvements Project was led by Richard Brummund of the City of Lethbridge and Greg Kaupp from Associated Engineering. Staff from across Associated Engineering involved in this project include Derek Trischuk, Greg Brouwer, Alan Emery, Jacquelyn Jensen, Travis Jensen, Corinne Wotton, Sarah Huber, Jeremy Barretto, Louis De Lange, Glenn Parry, Brenda Derry, Doug Falkins, Ming Zhou, Subbu Gopalakrishnan, Sandra Menzies, Sorpea Lim, and Bryan Petzold.