Twinning of Highway 22 between Highway 8 and the Cochane south boundary, and upgrades to the Highway 1 interchange might not be started for at least five to 15 years, as representatives of Alberta Transportation confirmed it is not in the Province’s three-year-plan.
Chris Delanoy, transportation manager with ISL Engineering - the group hired by Alberta Transportation to conduct the Functional Planning Study (FPS) for the highway and gather feedback from area residents, presented the final report to the Rocky View County (RVC) Policy and Priorities committee on Jan. 7.
He said feedback from several meetings with area landowners throughout 2012 and 2013 and the open house in January 2013 “led to numerous substantive changes” since the last report to RVC in 2012 to address landowner concerns.
But, in some cases, landowner concerns could not be fully addressed, said Delanoy.
“Options for additional work in the future at the detailed design and construction phase where some concerns have been an issue have been identified,” he added.
Delanoy presented to the committee eight “major” examples that were brought up throughout the feedback process and described how the concerns have been addressed.
Original plans by Alberta Transportation proposed twinning Highway 22 on both sides of the original road, but Delanoy said the current recommendation is to twin to the west.
He said twinning to the west is advantageous for several reasons: although there are homes on both sides of the highway, fewer homes will be impacted by twinning to the west; there are less impacts to wetlands because there are a significant amount on the east side of the highway; it avoids other constraints such as utilities and rock outcroppings; and it’s advantageous for the design of the Highway 1 interchange.
Other recommendations in the FPS include realigning Highway 22 to the east at Township Road 252 to mitigate impacts to an adjacent homestead; creating a parallel service road on the west side of Highway 22 at Township Road 243 to enable access to land parcels; and creating a parallel service road at Township Road 253 to avoid having to upgrade a private road to a public road through the existing subdivision.
Delanoy said the project is currently not in Alberta Transportation’s three-year construction program.
“This is not an eminent project, so these impacts are not right down the road for area landowners. It could be five to 10 to 15 years at this point,” he said.
He added he could not speculate when construction on the project would begin, or whether twinning the highway or upgrading the interchange would come first.
He said when the project does make it onto the three-year program, land acquisition and the detailed design process will begin two to three years ahead of construction.
In the FPS, Alberta Transportation has protected land for an eight-lane highway – four in each direction, Delanoy said.
Councillor Rolly Ashdown asked whether current traffic counts along Highway 22 make the project a priority.
Delonay said about 22,000 vehicles travel the 14-kilometre stretch of highway each day, which he said “is fairly substantive.”
“It is in the range today where the Province would consider the twinning,” he said, adding the Highway 1 interchange was opened in its current form in 1966 and is “nearing the end of its working life from a maintenance and operation point of view.”
Prompted by Councillor Liz Breakey, Delonay said the estimated cost for the whole project is about $150 million, which will be paid for entirely by the Province.
“This is an interchange between two significant provincial highways and is very important in the provincial network, and from a local traffic and development perspective as well,” said Delanoy, adding there has been discussion about breaking the whole project into phases.
Councillor Earl Solberg said he thinks the Province should consider implementing toll roads so the project can be accomplished sooner.
“The Province needs to step up to the plate and do toll roads so we can actually build the (infrastructure) and accommodate the traffic because the traffic today on Highway 22 needs the upgrade, not five to 15 years from now,” he said.
The project is the under Alberta Transportation’s jurisdiction, however, a County report stated the presentation was to inform the committee of future impacts or changes.
