November 29, 2006

HIGHWAY CONSTRUCTION

TransCanada funding announced

Suzanne Zwarun

Correspondent

Money has been found for the on again-off again twinning of the TransCanada Highway through Banff National Park.

Parks Canada announced in July that its project to twin ten km. of the highway had to be scaled back to six km. because of soaring construction and labour costs.

That set off intense lobbying by transport associations, wildlife groups and area MPs. The ten km. section of highway east of Lake Louise, which has claimed 28 lives in the past seven years, is one of the deadliest in western Canada. The carnage extends to wildlife, particularly grizzly and black bears.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper has announced a $37 million transfusion that puts the TransCanada Highway twinning project back on track but roadkill may not have been his main incentive. The twinning transfusion came as part of a $591 million Asia-Pacific Gateway plan to make Canada the crossroads between the United States and the booming economies of Asia. Over the next eight years the money will be spent on roads, ports, rail and other infrastructure to improve access to Asia Pacific markets.

Construction began in September 2005 on the Banff park twinning project that Infrastructure Canada initially budgeted at $50 million. Construction involves several new bridges, wildlife overpasses and underpasses and a redesign of several sharp curves.

Twinning was supposed to have been completed by the fall of 2007 but some girders for bridges were almost six weeks late arriving and a province-wide bitumen shortage increased costs and delayed work. With Harper’s funding transfusion the new completion date for the project is late 2008.

There is yet no additional funding to twin the entire 32 km. from Castle Mountain to the B.C. border at an estimated cost of $160 million.

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