Alberta provincial highway 22X
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Alberta Highway 22X is a highway in Alberta, Canada.
Highway 22X is an east-west branch of the north-south running, Highway 22. The 22X goes from the junction of Highway 24 and Highway 901, westerly to Bragg Creek over a distance of about 54 km (34 miles). The highway passes through southern Calgary, where it becomes Marquis of Lorne Trail, and over Highway 2 (Deerfoot Trail within Calgary). When the highway crosses Macleod Trail (Highway 2A), it changes its name to Spruce Meadows Trail, after the show jumping facility of the same name that it passes. About 10 km (6 miles) after it exits the west end of the city, the 22X ends at Highway 22 just east of the village of Priddis.
The Marquis of Lorne Trail portion of 22X has, in recent history, earned a reputation of being extremely dangerous. Unprecedented southward growth of the city had turned the small rural highway (it remains a 2-lane rural arterial road in many places) into an urban street that was not suited for high traffic volumes. Major upgrades have taken place, and continue to take place, to make the stretch of highway safer, the most important of which being the extension of Deerfoot Trail southward to create a continuous Highway 2, reducing the need for trucks and other vehicles heading south to cut over to Macleod Trail via 22X. In the late 1990s the son of a motorist killed along 22X spearheaded efforts to have streetlights installed along the most dangerous stretch of road.
The latest upgrade project, a plan to twin 22X itself is almost completed. Currently the groundwork for the second bridge that crosses Fish Creek Provincial Park and the Bow River is being done. Once completed the four lanes will no longer merge into two lanes, creating a substantial bottle neck. The bridge is where most of the accidents occur, since it tends to freeze up in the winter. Accidents tend to happen when cars slide into the oncoming lane, as the lanes are narrow and there is no median, and a twinned bridge would be much safer in preventing these types of accidents. Highway 22X is already twinned west of Macleod Trail to a point beyond Calgary's city limits. It is also twinned between Macleod Trail and the Bow River Bridge, as well as east of the river onto just before 52nd street SW, east of Deerfoot Trail.
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