Premier Alison Redford has appointed local MLA Mike Allen as a special advisor on Highway 63.
She was in town to make the announcement this afternoon, and says Allen will report not just on the twinning project, but short-term solutions as well.
“[Those] could include passing lanes, other approaches with respect to enforcement and traffic planning, that could allow us to make that highway safer in the interim,” she said.
“So we are not saying, quite honestly, that there is an end date to this [twinning project],” she added.
However, the government does say the report will set a timeline for finishing the twinning.
The report will come down by June 29th.
“What you’ll see in the next 6 weeks is a very intense dialogue with Mike and community stakeholders,” Redford predicted.
Allen admits his new appointment doesn’t mean he’ll be able to find a quick fix for the highway.
“If this was a matter of Bewitched and I could just wiggle my nose and make it happen, it would happen overnight,” he joked. “[The goal] is to make sure that we have something that is realistic, but that we are also creating a new highway that is engineered properly and safely.”
Allen recalled safety issues that cropped up when the first 16 kilometre stretch of 63 south of town was twinned.
“It was done in a bit of a hurry,” he said. “And there were places on that highway where if you hit it too fast, your tires left the ground.”
Allen also says short-term fixes like more passing lanes are in the mix.
“I don’t think we want to put more passing lanes in areas where we’ll have pavement down next year, because that becomes a throwaway later on,” he emphasized. “What we need to do though is make sure we have the resources in place so that it is safer when you go down the highway.”
Published May 22, 2012
