Submitted by Bob Merchant, Feb 27, 2008 00:05

We've been having this debate for 30 years now in Calgary. We have over 60 downtown city blocks connected by over 70 "Plus 15" bridges, providing a 2nd storey (and 3rd storey) connection for the 90,000 workers and 30,000 residents in downtown Calgary. No question that we have the largest. longest, and most complete network of skywalks in the world. It's called Plus 15 here because they are all set 15' (4.6 m in our current official measure) above street level. Yes they can suck liveliness out of the streetscape, and yes they can be really boring, and occassionally unsafe, but so are the streets they span. In fact, Calgary's density well supports the network, and are especially welcome in the occassional arctic surges from Alaska. Even Norman Foster's giant new Encana Tower (The Bow) will incoporate three broad bridges over 6th and 5th Avenues and Centre Street. If you really want to see the potential of this three dimensional gridding of the City, give us a visit next time you are going to ski Banff.

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