Stoney Trail - Stoney Trail Northwest

Stoney Trail Northwest

Stoney Trail consists of the western and northern part of the ring road, and, at its completion, will effectively be a freeway link between Highway 1 (Trans-Canada Highway) on the west side of Calgary and Deerfoot Trail (Highway 2). Although Highway 1 (as 16 Avenue N) does intersect directly with Deerfoot Trail, travellers from the west must go through the city's urban area to do so.

The NW Quadrant of the Ring Road was the first to be constructed. In the mid 1990's, the Province of Alberta built the first segment around the Bow River Bridge connecting Highway 1 with Crowchild Trail. This was subsequently extended to Country Hill Boulevard. In 2003, the province announced finishing the quadrant by extending the Ring Road 17 km north to link up with Deerfoot Trail. The original design was limited in scope and incorporated 2 interchanges, 1 flyover and 2 signalized intersections with completion scheduled in 2007 at a cost of 250 million dollars. In January 2005, the province announced an increase in scope of the project with the addition of 3 additional interchanges replacing the existing lights at Croswhild Trail, Country Hills Boulevard and Scenic Acres. Although the additional work was originally announced to fall within the original budget, subsequent news reports in 2006 reported the project budget had increased to 485 million dollars.

Along with increasing costs, the project was delayed and the full extension to Deerfoot Trail was not opened until November 2, 2009 although some sections were opened earlier.

The portion of the ring road between Harvest Hills Boulevard and Deerfoot Trail opened to traffic on November 2, 2009. 30,000 to 40,000 vehicles were expected to use this segment daily. Actual Peak traffic volumes have exceeded 40,000 vpd between Crowchild Trail and Country Hills Boulevard in 2010.