By Aaron Mahoney - Lethbridge News Now

Highway 3 twinning project retains support from City of Lethbridge

Sep 5, 2018 | 4:20 PM

LETHBRIDGE, AB — Lethbridge City Council reaffirmed its support for the Highway 3 Twinning project in a unanimous vote on Tuesday, Sept. 4 after receiving an update from the Highway 3 Twinning Development Association.

A presentation from the group discussed collaborative ways municipalities in Southern Alberta could support the completion of twinning Highway 3 from the BC border to Medicine Hat.

Harry Harker, one of the presenters from First Principles Planning, says the development association is looking at renewing its mandate and finding new ways of creating a wave of interest from outside just municipal governments to complete the twinning project.

“To do that we’ve undertaken a public engagement process working with each of the municipalities sharing ideas to come up with a strategic plan we think gives the municipalities a really good platform to begin building on. The goal is to complete the twinning, that’s the obvious strategic planning objective, but along the way, there needs to be better promotion and communication of how the highway can benefit the communities.”

A study commissioned in 2004 showed that twinning Highway 3 would have a positive impact on the economy in Southern Alberta.

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“There’s also been a cost-benefit analysis done by the University of Lethbridge that’s talked about a 3-to-1 benefit from capital dollars in terms of economic development in the region and obviously there’s a safety benefit as well,” Harker added.

Council was told it would be an integral part of the evolving multi-modal provincial transportation system, and no financial ask was involved, just support from council.

The City of Lethbridge is one of many municipalities along Highway 3 already with membership in the Highway 3 Twinning Development Association. On top of municipalities, Chambers of Commerce, School Divisions and REDAs are also included.

The City of Lethbridge has contributed financially in the amount of $5,000, half of which is in kind due to the contribution of office space at Tecconnect.

Since May, the association has developed a Strategic Plan and based on feedback from members objectives have been set out as well. Moving forward they are looking to determine how much support they have for the project in the region.

Harker, in putting his planning hat on, says the other thing they’ve talked about is this is a very unique opportunity from a policy perspective.

“The provincial government, when they amended the municipal government act, they created something called intermunicipal collaborative frameworks as well as municipal development plans,” he continued. “Those are all adoptive policies by municipal councils, if every municipality that’s in the Highway 3 corridor adopted supporting statements in their frameworks and their plans, that’s an incredibly powerful statement that’s never been there before for the municipalities to use.”

To have the unanimity in terms of the statements from municipalities is important, but Harker also spoke about the importance of looking for new partners.

“Finding ways of getting industry and post-secondary institutions involved to broaden the base of support for this so that it invigorates the whole community, not just people who are interested in moving transports up and down the road.”

If they can drum up that kind of support, it would send a signal to the provincial government that the Highway 3 twinning project is something deserving of provincial dollars.

“That’s exactly my thinking. When you get 16 to 20 municipalities all saying the same thing with respect to a single project, that’s got to land on the desk of the finance department with some pretty significant weight. What we really want to do here is find a way to raise the profile of Highway 3 when it comes to dollars, as well as raising its profile with people who travel on Highway 3 and want to live and work in the area.”

At the same time, this project has been in the works now for almost 20 years, and Harker says part of the problem is progress has always been incremental.

“There’s never been a clearly connected process to move it forward, it’s all been based on what the current budget of the day is, and the government of the day is. What we’re hoping is the strategic plan will give us a unified approach that goes past what each municipality has supported for its own twinning and takes it literally from border to border.”

Mayor Chris Spearman was asked why it’s important to advocate to the province on behalf on the twinning project and responded they need to elevate the importance of Highway 3, not just for the City of Lethbridge but for all of Southern Alberta.

“Highway 3 being single lane in many places restricts traffic, restricts economic development, and creates a safety hazard for the citizens that live in the region. I think many of us can recall some of the horrific accidents that have happened on Highway 3, almost always in the dual lane areas,” Spearman said.

There are significant serious safety issues that need to be addressed, and Spearman also mentioned the fact it creates an economic development multiplier.

“When you have sufficient transportation routes it basically encourages other businesses to build here, they can get access to other markets and transportation infrastructure can flow smoothly down the road.”

“We have some significant impediments from time to time, we have large slow-moving vehicles on the un-twinned portion of Highway 3 which obstructs traffic and causes frustration for drivers,” Spearman continued. “We need to address those issues and recognize that Highway 3 is a significant highway in Alberta and it does need to be twinned.”

The Highway 3 Association meets on the first Friday of every month, except for July and August, and Spearman says they will work together as communities to elevate the importance of the project.

“The [other] important thing is to speak with the Ministry of Transportation, and the Minister of Transportation to continue to say Highway 3 is important.”

While the portion of Highway 3 that runs through Lethbridge is twinned, this would be putting support towards twinning the other portions of the highway closer to Fort Macleod and Taber that would benefit the city.

“Businesses in the city ship east and west, people travel for recreational purposes east and west, so Highway 3 is a benefit to everyone in the City of Lethbridge at some point in time. We want to make sure that Highway 3 is a viable choice, and you have to recognize if we want to promote industries like tourism we’ve got to have highways that people feel comfortable travelling on. They need to be safe for everybody, tourists and people that live here alike,” Spearman stated.

During the council meeting, Councillor Belinda Crowson raised how an improved Highway 3 would benefit the Lethbridge Airport as well as local businesses.

That’s something that Spearman believes needs to factor in as well.

“When you have efficient roadways it helps our airport, and we want to make sure all of the highways flowing into and through Lethbridge are as efficient as they can be. We want to encourage the use of Highway 3, but people will make choices to avoid Highway 3 while it’s not twinned.”