The road is a critical north–south link in West Calgary for both downtown-bound traffic and travel between the two quadrants of the city it passes through.

Although planned to be one single freeway from Glenmore Trail to the city limits, the route is divided by a section of slow-moving arterial road with four signalized intersections between 24 Avenue and Memorial Drive.

This section of the road is heavily used by football fans from McMahon Stadium and students of the University of Calgary at certain times of the day.

Prior to then, Crowchild was a 4-lane road with signal lights for most of its length with the exception of the few interchanges from the 60s in the Bow River Bridge area.

The south project was completed as shown in the plans, with phase one built in the early 1980s which including the Glenmore flyover and the interchange at 33 Avenue.

Phase two was completed in 2003 when an interchange opened at 50 Avenue SW and the whole south section was widened to its present 8-lane freeway arrangement.

However in 1990s extension of the CTrain along the Crowchild Trail corridor beyond 24 Avenue renewed interest in upgrading that section to a freeway.

In subsequent years the freeway got longer as the train was extended farther west with new interchanges being built at former signalized intersections.

Meanwhile the section between 24 Avenue and the Bow River without the C-Train right of way, which actually was planned to be built first, never was constructed resulting in traffic jams.

[6] The original design of Crowchild Trail contained many bottlenecks and traffic congestion had become a growing problem on the route.

The issue however was more than just poor road designed on the Crowchild Bridge and failure to complete the missing link in the freeway.

However both the Sarcee and Shaganappi river crossing projects were canceled in the early 2000s due to citizen opposition forcing Crowchild trail to carry more traffic than it was originally planned to take.

The opening of Stoney Trail in the far west provided some relief, but traffic volumes continued to climb on the bridge.

[7] As part of a separate Banff Trail Area improvement project, congestion mitigation for northbound traffic is being implemented by adding a fourth lane through the 24 Avenue signalized intersection.

A church at the corner of 24 Avenue and a set of apartment buildings at Suncourt Place will also have to be torn down to make room for the new road.