the broken typewriter

Project is something that should be considered: PRRD

When the County of Grande Prairie asked the Peace River Regional District for a letter supporting its application to the Alberta government to twin Highway 43 to the British Columbia border, the PRRD was happy to provide the support.

As a result of that conversation with their Alberta neighbours, the board felt that the possibility of twinning Highways 97 and 2 from Fort St. John to the Alberta border was worth revisiting. But when the PRRD board wrote to Minister of Transportation and Transit (MOTT), Mike Farnworth asking that the Province revisit the potential project, the answer was, as Dawson Creek Director and Mayor Darcy Dober described it “a polite no.”

In their June 12 letter to Minister Farnworth, the board asked for the project to be revisited to facilitate cross border trade, movement of goods, enhanced safety for the travelling public and safer emergency response.

“On the Alberta side, they’re focussing on this and pushing it forward because there was one major accident, and one is more than any should be,” said Dober at the July 17 PRRD board of directors meeting.

As Dober noted during the May 22 PRRD meeting when the board decided both to support the County of Grande Prairie’s request and write to Farnworth, the concept of twinning the highways from Fort St. John through to the Alberta border is not new.

In 2011, when Peace River South MLA Blair Lekstrom was the Minister of Transportation, the province announced projects that were “the first steps in a long-term plan to widen the corridors to four lanes on Highway 2 between the Alberta border and Dawson Creek, and Highway 97N between Dawson Creek and Fort St. John,” according to a Ministry press release on July 25, 2011.

The government planned seven “initial” projects along these routes, which have since been completed, including widening the bottom of the South Taylor Hill to four lanes, adding passing lanes and widening parts of Highway 2 to four lanes.

These projects, although they improved safety and efficiency of movement into and out of the Peace region, don’t constitute “twinning” the highways.

In its response to the PRRD’s request, MOTT’s local district manager of transportation Hali Davenport wrote:

“We fully recognize the importance of this corridor and remain committed to ensuring its continued safety and mobility.

“The ministry monitors performance through various efforts, including our traffic data count program and corridor analysis studies such as the Collision Information System. Current data indicates that the corridor is functioning effectively, with approximately 50% of the route now four-laned or equipped with passing lanes to facilitate the safe and efficient movement of people and goods.”

Dober doesn’t believe the PRRD should let the matter die, twinning the highways is something that should be considered.

“There’s still a lot of accidents, it’s a busy highway for our emergency services, it doesn’t meet their standards to look at it,” he said.