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In a Canadian first, the City of Calgary has just partially opened the country’s first diverging diamond intersection, an innovative design that deftly avoids the need for turning left against oncoming traffic.

The $78 million project is expected to dramatically reduce congestion and crashes. At the moment of its inauguration this week, Calgary Mayor Naheed Nenshi even seemed to get poetic.

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“Symbolically, a bridge, bringing together two different sides, is a great way for us to continue to build community,” he said, adding that local commuters would no longer be “stolen away from their families” while waiting in traffic.

Photo by City of Calgary

And, since it’s Calgary, at the ribbon-cutting were all presented with commemorative belt buckles inaugurating them as the builders of “Canada’s first DDI” (diverging diamond intersection).

Where Calgarians once had to turn left through a massive four-way intersection, they will now follow a path that weaves them onto the other side of the road.

Anyone turning left, therefore, doesn’t face any traffic coming from the opposite direction. Right-turners, meanwhile, are peeled off before the “weave.”

The only signals at the intersection are two sets of lights at the weave points.