Edmonton's transportation committee tried to peer into the future Wednesday as they weighed their road development priorities.

The committee heard up to 60 interchanges need to be built in the next 50 years, costing between $4 billion and $7 billion, to deal with projected increases in traffic. Of those, 21 (up to $2 billion worth) are considered high-priority and should be built in the next 10-15 years.

But some believe the plans are missing the effect on homeowners and not considering future technology.

Paul Godsmark, an expert in autonomous vehicles, says the ultimate impact of driverless cars could mean much of the infrastructure may not be needed as each one of these cars will take an average of six of today's vehicles off the road.

"My concern is there is a gross error in the methods used to forecast and model the future traffic requirements," said Godsmark.

He said more consideration has to be given to the possibility that automated cars will be appearing on Edmonton's roads no later than 2023.

"Once automated vehicles are deployed, it is very possible that the numbers of vehicles on the roads quickly start to fall," he said.

Though the cars have yet to take root in any city, interest has been expressed from both Los Angeles and Helsinki.

Before that happens, Jordan Davis, chair of the Urban Development Institute in Edmonton, said the cost of the interchanges will fall on new homeowners.

"The idea is to ensure that these don't cost the residents in these specific locations more money than the residents in other locations," Davis said, adding more pressure has to be put on the provincial and federal governments to avoid the downloading of costs onto those nearby residents.

Corridor improvements that the city have marked as priorities include 50th and 75th Street railway crossings, a few along Whitemud Drive and Anthony Henday Drive as well as a selection of intersections on the west end of Yellowhead Trail and others along Terwillegar Drive.

So far, no capital funds have been allocated to those interchanges but council will have to decide how to deal with those needs in the budgets between 2015 and 2024.

david.lazzarino@sunmedia.ca

@SUNDaveLazz