Ray Gibbon Drive, referred to as the West Regional Road during proposal and planning stages, is a major arterial road in St. Albert,

Alberta Alberta ( ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is part of Western Canada and is one of the three prairie provinces. Alberta is bordered by British Columbia to the west, Saskatchewan to the east, the Northwest Ter ...

. Except for the

Edmonton Edmonton ( ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Alberta. Edmonton is situated on the North Saskatchewan River and is the centre of the Edmonton Metropolitan Region, which is surrounded by Alberta's central region. The city ancho ...

portion, it is only partially constructed as a two-lane road. Currently it is long and runs between

Anthony Henday Drive Anthony Henday Drive (Highway 216) is a freeway that encircles Edmonton, Alberta. It is a heavily travelled commuter and truck bypass route with the southwest quadrant serving as a portion of the CANAMEX Corridor that links C ...

and

Villeneuve Road Villeneuve, LaVilleneuve or deVilleneuve may refer to: People * Villeneuve (surname) Places Australia * Villeneuve, Queensland, a town in the Somerset Region Canada * Circuit Gilles Villeneuve, a Formula One racetrack in Montréal * Villeneuv ...

. It was named, at the official opening of Stage One in October 2007, after former mayor

Ray Gibbon Ray M. Gibbon ( – October 16, 1999), "Ald. Ray Gibbon, a 66-year-old life insurance agent"... is a former mayor of St. Albert, Alberta, having served in this capacity from 1968 to 1974, and briefly again in 1989. By profession, Gibbon was a con ...

, who served from 1968 to 1974 and again in 1989. Gibbon died in 1999, but his wife and family were present for the official opening, riding in the vintage lead vehicle for the first use of the road. Ray Gibbon Drive preceded in Edmonton as 184 Street, an

arterial road An arterial road or arterial thoroughfare is a high-capacity urban road that sits below freeways/motorways on the road hierarchy in terms of traffic flow and speed. The primary function of an arterial road is to deliver traffic from collector ro ...

which begins at 100 Avenue and travels north to Anthony Henday Drive.

Expansion history

Plans to extend and upgrade Ray Gibbon Drive have been steadily revised in

Edmonton Capital Region The Edmonton Metropolitan Region (EMR), also commonly referred to as Greater Edmonton or Metro Edmonton, is a conglomeration of municipalities centred on Alberta's provincial capital of Edmonton. The EMR's commonly known boundaries are coincide ...

Transportation Planning documents. , construction had commenced on widening the road to a 4-lane expressway standard, as per requests in 2015 by St. Albert City Council instigated in its own transportation plan, approved by the Province of Alberta in 2019. Original plans for a freeway conversion were scrapped as it would cost too much.

Major intersections

Future

The City of St. Albert proposed an annexation of of fragmented land from the City of Edmonton in January 2016, which was adjusted to a proposed in March 2021. Throughout, St. Albert has maintained that it would simply be more cost efficient for it to service and maintain this small area, as the fragments are adjacent to serviced St. Albert land, while the natural barrier of the

would make it less efficient for Edmonton to extend utility and other services. The fragments are located in a small northwest section of the Anthony Henday transportation utility corridor (adjacent to the north side of Anthony Henday Drive), adjacent to the south side of St. Albert, east of the southern-most stretch of Ray Gibbon Drive owned and serviced by the City of Edmonton (see #Major intersections), and to the west and south of 137 Avenue NW.

References

Roads in Edmonton Roads in St. Albert, Alberta Proposed roads in Canada {{Edmonton-stub

Expansion history

Major intersections

Future

See also

References