Seven Persons residents gave feedback on the twinning of Highway 3. Eli J. Ridder/CHAT News

By Eli J. Ridder

Seven Persons residents hope highway access is maintained with twinning

Sep 12, 2024 | 12:35 PM

Many residents of Seven Persons and the area around it hope those driving on Highway 3 will still have easy access to the hamlet after more lanes are added when it gets twinned in the near future.

Duncan MacPherson, who owns and operates the Que-Bickle Eatery and Pub, is worried about Seven Persons getting wiped off the map if access isn’t maintained.

“My big concern is small town Alberta disappearing because of these big corridors without easy access to the communities,” MacPherson said.

The highway is a lifeblood for rural communities and it’s critical an expansion out to four lanes does not interfere, he explained.

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“I want to do everything in my power to make sure that they stay thriving and growing and prosperous. With the access, I think that’s a possibility.”

MacPherson was among over 200 people who came to the second of two feedback sessions the Alberta government held this week on the third phase of the Highway 3 twinning initiative.

Premium Sausage, the town’s major employer, sees the project as an opportunity, according to manager Nathan Penner.

“It’s super important for us to have safe highways and to use those highways to exchange goods between communities and cities,” Penner said.

“I think that’s very beneficial.”

Nathan Penner, manager at Premium Sausage, speaks to Laurie and Kimberly Sibbald. Eli J. Ridder/CHAT News

Penner reiterated the way residents of Seven Persons will access the highway is crucial to its success.

“The fire department just built a new fire hall out here and if we pull the highway away or make the access to Seven Persons farther away, it’s a lot more difficult for them to respond to emergencies,” he said.

The students that attend the town’s elementary school don’t need longer trips so points of access must be close by, Penner added.

For Penner and others, community safety needs to be a priority as the provincially-contracted designers put together the final project.

When extra lanes are added to a two-lane highway, it more than doubles in width. That means eating into the land on at least one side of the original throughfare.

For people like Laurie and Kimberly Sibbald, who own Seven Skies Observatory just north of Seven Persons, such a project can be life-changing.

“It’ll cut into our buffer — we have about 11 acres at the front of our property — or eliminate us completely,” Kimberly said.

It’s not just losing their land that’s a concern. A wider highway will bring more cars and, with that, light. That will make it difficult to take photos of the Milky Way Galaxy.

“We’re light pollution freaks because we’re astronomers, but we think it’s generally good for everybody,” said Laurie.

“There’s kids in this hamlet that have never seen the Milky Way, which seems bizarre when you’re living out in a rural area,” he added.

“We’re dark sky advocates, both for environmental reasons too, for animals, et cetera.”

Alberta transportation officials say the feedback gathered from the Seven Persons open house, and an earlier one held in Medicine Hat, will inform their decision.

The government will hold another round of open houses in the spring of 2025. Construction on the Seven Persons-Medicine Hat section is scheduled to begin by 2026.