In 1969, plans called for Alberta Highway 2 to continue into Edmonton, akin to the Deerfoot in Calgary, using 91st Street then descending into the Mill Creek Ravine. However, residents along Mill Creek as well as many others who did not wish to have portions of the river valley destroyed at the expense of a freeway opposed the plans and, as such, they were never completed. The only portions to be completed were 91st Street, Wayne Gretzky Drive and the James MacDonald Bridge.This explains the bizarre look of the James MacDonald Bridge's nearby interchange, which was only meant to be temporary, however serves in its original state today. The plan would have also built a Downtown Freeway Loop encircling the city's downtown core, with freeways reaching out to all corners of Edmonton via present day Fort Road/Manning Drive/Wayne Gretzky Drive as the Northeast Freeway, St Albert/Mark Messier Trail as the Northwest Freeway, 111 St as the South Freeway, 91 St as the Southeast Freeway and would have the designation of Highway 2, and a freeway running along present day River Valley Road/Stony Plain Road and 100 Ave/Baseline Road, which was to be named the Jasper Freeway. While the projects were approved, they were ultimately killed because of cost and the 1978 Commonwealth Games in which Edmonton built an LRT system for instead.
