Hopes high for Alberta twinned highway project

What oil and gas has meant to northern Alberta, agriculture has meant to the southern part of the province.

Twenty years of lobbying to twin the major traffic artery came to fruition after a functional planning study in 2019 led to a $2 billion provincial vision over eight phases.

Construction of the first phase started in spring 2024 and is expected to be finished by summer of 2026, turning two lanes into four.

The $180 million first phase involves twinning a 46 kilometre stretch between Taber and Burdett, the longest leg of the 323 km highway that links British Columbia to Saskatchewan and intercepts Highways 2 and 1.

Bill Chapman, vice-president of the Highway 3 Twinning Development Association, said potatoes, sugar beets, seed and fertilizer are constantly movingon this stretch of highway.

One example is the Cavendish Farms processing plant in Lethbridge, Chapman added, which receives 7,000 truck loads a year.

“Multiply that by Lamb Weston, by McCain’s and all the growers, the number of heavy trucks on the road has gone crazy,” said Chapman.

Recent traffic counts have recorded approximately 4,000 vehicles travelling daily on that stretch of highway.

“The agriculture community is stoked on transportation getting product to market. For every dollar of construction the government puts in, there will be $3 of economic return. That’s an excellent return on investment,” he said.

The Highway 3 twinning project is one of many provincial initiatives that recognize agriculture’s impact on the region, including the $133 million expansion of Chin Reservoir.

“The way it is going with irrigation, we are becoming the agricultural capital of Canada as our claim to fame. In potatoes, we are surpassing Manitoba and the Maritimes,” said Chapman.

In recent years the southern Alberta area has seen McCain’s $600 million expansion of its Coaldale potato processing plant, with Irving investing another $360 million in a new Lethbridge processing plant.

Netherlands-based NewCold is getting ready to unveil its new $222-million cold food storage facility in Coaldale in June.

The $77 million Agri-Food Hub and Trade Centre opened in Lethbridge in 2023.

Chapman said the Highway 3 twinning project will be another incentive for an even bigger piece of the national agriculture pie for the area.

“This whole corridor is a perfect fit with the twinning of Highway 3. It is the centrepiece to everything else that happens in the mega industries in agriculture that are moving to southern Alberta,” he said.

“Be it agriculture, tourism, recreation, commercial traffic … people just going to and from work, it excites me to share this. The government for years kind of knew this was needed; it just needed one agriculture minister, one premier, one MLA to say yes, we need this to get that final push.”

Safety concerns will also be alleviated.

“Certain times of the year from an agriculture perspective, it’s dangerous,” said Tenille Miller, executive director of advancement for the Highway 3 Twinning Development Association.

“With all the big loads and equipment moving in spring, summer and fall, it gets very congested.”

Jack Brewin, the association’s treasurer and a sales consultant with Rocky Mountain Equipment, regularly travels the stretch between Taber and Bow Island and has witnessed the obvious safety concerns.

“If you drive at 5 p.m. in the afternoon, it’s bumper to bumper,” said Brewin.

“Set your cruise at 80 km-h and don’t worry about passing. A lot of young and inexperienced drivers on the road, without a lot of patience, it makes for a dangerous combination. If twinning saves one life, it’s worth it. It could be someone you know and love.”

The first phase of the project includes nearly three million cubic metres of grading work, laying of one million tonnes of granular base materials and 475,000 tonnes of asphalt concrete pavement, according to Ledcor.

Also included is an eight-kilometre, four lane divided highway bypassing the hamlet of Grassy Lake and 11 bridges, additional auxiliary lanes, intersection improvements and rest pullouts.

Members of the association, which includes municipalities, chambers of commerce and private businesses, say it will be importatnt to ensure that the other phases are completed once the first phase is finished.

“Governments change, they could choose not to fund the next section. There’s budgets and tariffs,” Miller said about the competitive nature of infrastructure funding and shifting priorities.

Source: producer.com