Associated Engineering has a long history of working with The City of Calgary on a wide range of infrastructure projects, including many involving the transportation network serving its over 1.6 million residents.

With a growing population putting increased demands on existing transportation infrastructure, The City of Calgary originally retained Associated Engineering to provide design and construction services for rehabilitating the girders, diaphragms, and bearings of two bridges along the Crowchild Trail over the Bow River corridor. This ten-span, 345 metre long bridge, was originally constructed in the 1960s to carry the Crowchild Trail over the Bow River Pathway, Bow River, Canada Pacific Railway and 10^th Avenue SW. This structure also accommodates a suspended pedestrian walkway providing pathway connectivity. 

With our local understanding of this corridor and the City’s desire to upgrade the capacity and life expectancy of these existing assets while navigating the challenges of maintaining traffic (approximately 100,000 vehicles per day) during construction, we proposed a staged and sequenced widening strategy during the RFP phase for the rehabilitation assignment.

Once awarded the rehabilitation contract, we began collaboration with several City of Calgary business units to fund and implement our proposed widening concept. With an appreciation for procurement policies and the concurrent Corridor Planning study, The City of Calgary worked with Associated Engineering to create a multi-consultant engineering services project to widen and upgrade the Crowchild Trail corridor between 5^th Avenue SW to 17^th Avenue NW, known as the Crowchild Trail Short-Improvement Project.

Associated Engineering provided full engineering services (concept design, detailed design, construction and contract administration) for the widening and rehabilitation of Crowchild Trail between the north side of Westbound Memorial Drive over Crowchild Bridge to the north side of Westbound Bow Trail SW. Our scope of work included three major bridges, four new retaining walls, and four new ramps, including new interfaces for Eastbound Memorial Drive east of Crowchild Trail, new sign structures and utility modifications and upgrades. 

Associated Engineering’s scope accounted for approximately 75% of the $87 million construction capital investment

On the major sections led by Associated Engineering, our team successfully overcame challenges such as difficult geometry, tight property constraints, and existing utilities. David Nagy, Manager of the Calgary Bridge Group tells us, “We developed unique solutions to accommodate roadway relocations with minimal shutdowns, lane and deck rehabilitation staging strategies to maintain traffic lanes, new wall and barrier systems, new ramps to optimize traffic flow and reduce traffic weaving, and widened existing bridge piers, abutments, and decks to reduce construction costs.”

As a result of these major upgrades to the Crowchild Trail completed in late-September, the new traffic lanes and bridges are fully accessible and offer faster movement through Calgary for road travelers and increased connections for residents to access the city’s popular recreational pathways.

For more information on this project and Associated Engineering’s leading role, please contact David Nagy (nagyd@ae.ca) and Jim Zagas (zagasj@ae.ca).