Wildrose infrastructure and transportation critic Drew Barnes made a stop in Rocky View County (RVC) during a seven-day tour across Alberta that set out to take a closer look at how provincial decisions have filtered down to the municipal level and local communities.
Barnes and Chestermere/Rocky View MLA Bruce McAllister toured RVC’s Highway 8 west of Calgary Sept. 26 – which goes through the Elbow Valley. The stretch of highway has been the site of many fatal accidents in the last few years.
“The PC government’s politicization of infrastructure spending has caused uncertainty on the ground regarding when and where projects will be built,” stated Barnes.
“The government needs to step up and finally release a prioritized infrastructure list so Albertans aren’t left hanging as to when they can expect critical priorities to be addressed,” he added.
Barnes added many capital projects that originally appeared on the capital plan are removed without explanation.
“We’ve seen it across the whole province that there have been a lot of broken promises,” he said.
The tour stopped in more than 10 cities across Alberta including Medicine Hat, Fort McMurray and High River.
Highway 8 is one of the areas that needs provincial attention, said Barnes, who added that a high-volume of traffic on the single-lane highway is causing dangerous conditions for drivers.
McAllister said Highway 8 has a daily traffic count of 14,320 vehicles and roughly three tractor-trailers travel the east and westbound lanes every two minutes. In order for a highway in Alberta to be eligible for twinning an average of 10,000 vehicles per day (VPD) need to travel on the road.
Parker Hogan, press secretary for Minister of Transportation Ric McIver, said McAllister’s figures aren’t accurate and the full length of Highway 8 is still beneath the 10,000 VPD threshold. He said the twinning of Highway 8 isn’t on the province’s three-year plan and there is no timeline when it may be.
He added that since 2007, $5.5 million has been spent on improving safety on Highway 8 including placing a roundabout at Highway 22 and Highway 8, installing rumble strips along the centre and shoulder lines and creating acceleration and deceleration lanes and dedicated left-hand turn lanes at Range Road 41 and Highway 8 as well as at Range Road 25 and the highway.
