A bottleneck on Metis Trail in northeast Calgary is going to take another year to unblock after negotiations with a couple of landowners to buy parts of their land to widen the route fell through.

Most of Metis Trail is a four-lane road, but between 80th and 96th avenues, the busy route narrows to just two lanes.

South of that intersection, the city wanted to acquire the land needed to widen the road.

"Those negotiations didn't go well so we decided to basically just go around them so there will be a slight ... movement in the road but it won't be really noticeable," he said.

"They realized that it wasn't going to be much of a variation on the path of the road so they decided they could go without it … and there's no reason to take the time that it would take to go through expropriation."

The development company Genstar, which owns land along Metis Trail north of 88th Avenue, also needs more time to design that section of the road and a new intersection at 88th Avenue.

Stevenson says construction will not begin until next year. It will be finished in late 2018.