By RENATO GANDIA, SUN MEDIA

Travel time for people working near a major northeast intersection will be five minutes longer after a street is permanently closed to make way for the ring road.

The province announced yesterday plans to permanently shut 84 St. at 16 Ave. N.E. on May 3 at noon.

The Alberta Transportation said the closure will ensure the safe operation of the new Stoney Tr. interchange.

“The intersection can’t stay open because it conflicts with the interchange ramps,” said Trent Bancarz, a spokesman for Alberta Transportation.

This means that motorists on 16 Ave. wanting to get to 84 St. N.E. will have to continue to the next intersection, 100 St. (RR 285), and go back around either north or south.

Access to 84 St. between Mc-Knight Blvd. and 16 Ave. will be via 32 Ave. from 100 St., which has been paved.

“We realized it’s going to be inconvenient to people so we tried to provide quality access for driving on nice paved road,” said Bancarz.

A new service road connecting 84 St. to McKnight on the south side will be open to traffic May 5.

A gated access route to the south side of 16 Ave. will be available for emergency vehicles only to enter Chateau Estates Mobile Home Park.

Signs announcing the permanent closure of the street have been put up in the area.

“We’ve tried to get the information out there in as many ways as we can think off.”

Access onto 84 St. from 17 Ave. S.E. will remain open.

The Calgary Herald
Thu 23 Apr 2009
Page: R3
Section: Neighbours
Source: Neighbours

If you can afford to spend money on your house, the provincial government will help pay for environmental upgrades.

Earlier this month, the province rolled out a $36-million incentive program that includes consumer rebates for energy-efficient clothes washers, hot water heaters, furnaces and boilers.

Up to $3,150 is offered for insulation upgrades, and rebates will cut the cost of a professional pre-and post-retrofit evaluation by about half.

To encourage reducing greenhouse gas emissions, Albertans who purchase a new home with a higher-end EnerGuide efficiency rating will see 30 to 50 per cent of the extra cost recouped through the rebate process.

“It’s great to see Alberta starting to take this sort of thing seriously,” said Fraser Tingle, an environmentally conscious Calgarian who has made a number of energy-efficient upgrades to the Rosscarrock home he bought last year.

“It’s an encouraging first step, but there’s so much more that needs to happen that this rebate program doesn’t address. There is nothing, for example, that would encourage people to investigate renewable energy systems, like wind or solar,” Tingle said.

Most of the rebates, which can be combined with rebates from Ottawa, are available on purchases retroactive to Jan. 1, 2009.

Even before the provincial rebate is combined with federal programs, including the eco Energy program and temporary Home Renovation Tax Credit, this new provincial program is “substantial,” said VerdaTech Energy president Stephen Farrell.

And unlike programs such as the province’s now-defunct natural gas rebate, the new rebates are an investment for future energy savings, said Farrell, whose company does residential energy assessments.

“It’s realistic to take an average house and reduce energy use by 25 to 50 per cent,” he said.

Details on the program are available at Climate Change Central, the non-profit organization that w ill administer the program for the government: www.climatechangecentral.com.

Response to the program appeared swift.

Climate Change Central received three completed rebate applications in the hour after the program was announced.

“We believe there’s pent-up demand,” said Fred Walter, director of energy efficiency and conservation at Climate Change Central.

In Rosscarrock, Tingle said he hopes the new provincial program will inspire Albertans to make other lifestyle changes, “like composting, installing low-flow water fixtures, not idling their car outside of traffic — or better yet — using public transportation and generally becoming more informed about the products we buy and their effects on our world.”

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The Rebate

The Alberta government is investing $36 million over three years on energy efficiency rebates to help Albertans reduce how much energy they use in their day-to-day lives.

The consumer rebate programs are available to homeowners, new home-buyers and taxi operators to offset the cost of making energy efficiency improvements. Eligible purchases are retroactive to Jan. 1, 2009.

What’s Eligible: – New homes: Must achieve an EnerGuide efficiency rating of 80 or higher; rebate value: $1,500 to $10,000 – High-efficiency heating systems: Includes furnaces and boilers; rebate value: $400 to $600 – Clothes washers: All Energy Star clothes washers; rebate value: $100 – Insulation: Upgrading insulation based on federal ecoEnergy home evaluation; rebate value: up to $3,150 – Hot water heaters: Energy-efficient models based on federal ecoEnergy home evaluation; rebate value: $250 to $300 – Home energy evaluation: Federal ecoEnergy home evaluation; rebate value: $100 pre-retrofit evaluation; $100 post-retrofit evaluation

How To Apply:

Climate Change Central, a non-profit organization created in 2000 to empower Albertans to take action on climate change, administers the provincial rebate program.

To apply for a rebate, contact Climate Change Central at: – Web: www.climatechangecentral.com – Phone: 1-888-537-7202 – Mail: P. O. Box 2520, Station M, Calgary, AB T2P 0P3