Calgary, November 26: The Alberta government has announced it will be going ahead with twinning Highway 3.
The Highway 3 Twinning Development Association has been advocating for the twinning of the major southern Alberta route for the last 20 years and now shovels are slated to hit the ground on another section of road in the spring.
Today’s announcement was, really, a clearer announcement of what the government wants to do and to ensure the whole project from Medicine Hat to the Crowsnest Pass is fully done,” said Bill Chapman, president of the Highway 3 Twinning Development Association.
Highway 3 connects the Crowsnest Pass to Medicine Hat and is 324 kilometres long, but only about 100 kilometers is twinned – from Fort Macleod to Taber.
On Friday, the province said a 46-kilometre stretch between Taber and Burdett has funding and construction is expected to start in the spring.
The project will include eight phases of construction. Chapman says Highway 3 has outgrown the volume of traffic and now was the right time to move forward with the project.
“Twenty-four kilometres of passing lanes was certainly okay back in the 90s and of course in the 2000s, but we’ve advanced past that,” he said.
The twinning of the 215 kilometres won’t just improve safety along the highway, but will also impact the local economy, according to Trevor Lewington with Economic Development Lethbridge.
“Anytime you can speed up access to markets, anytime you can make logistics simpler, especially in this day and age, that’s a huge benefit to local business,” Lewington said.
The same message was echoed by Alberta’s premier.
“If we can create the transportation infrastructure for this entire region to grow then that’s the job we got to do,” said Danielle Smith.
Lewington says the project will not only create construction jobs in the region, but, according to an economic report done by the Highway 3 Twinning Development Association, it will bring in additional revenue to smaller towns along the highway.
