Mayor Painter provided an update on the twinning of highway 3 at a recent council meeting.

The update provided by Mayor Painter focused on some tweaks he would like to see to certain areas of the twinning.

“This is nothing written in stone. This is not what Alberta Transportation has in their plans. It was just high level discussion with the board about tweaking some of our five areas that we want to target. One of the areas that was number four on our list was to target the area from highway 22 east towards Pincher Creek as being one of the sections that we wanted to have addressed. I suggested that we tweak that and make it from highway 22 west towards the Crowsnest Pass. That will have to come up at the board level to see if I can get support from the whole board that we can work that way.”

Painter also touched on the fact the Crowsnest Pass would be one of the final areas twinned due to the high cost of twinning the highway through the mountain areas and says currently, its unnecessary for this area to be twinned.

“If Alberta was flush with money, it wouldn't be a problem but being as our funds are non existent it begs the question of what area is priority. Everybody can appreciate that if we twin the highway and it was freeway status right from Medicine Hat to BC, then we're going to funnel all the traffic through at 110km/h and as soon as we hit that wall at the Alberta BC border everybody is back down to a snails pace.”

Currently, safety is the top priority.

“The main thing for the Crowsnest Pass is going to be the safety of our residents during these peak, high volume times. There's no advantage for the Crowsnest Pass to be twinned. If we have safety measures put in place, which we are working on like traffic lights at our high volume intersections and the turning lanes through Frank for residents to exit the highway safely for the next numbers of years, those measures are going to satisfy our community's needs,” said Mayor Painter.

Mayor Painter was also able to recently have his first conversations with the new Minsiter of Municipal Affairs, Tracy Allard.

“The meeting that we had with the new minister of municipal affairs was a regional meeting. I didn't have the opportunity for a one-on-one meeting with her. It was still nice to have some time for a quick chat,” said Mayor Painter.

“From what she said it was a breath of fresh air to talk to her. She seems receptive to get all the information before any decisions are made and has a willingness and openness to have good dialogue and communication, which we never experienced with the previous minister.”

Mayor Painter is aiming to have another meeting with Minister Allard in the weeks to come.

“I'm trying to schedule a meeting with her in the next couple of weeks. Whether that's a trip to Edmonton or we do a virtual meeting. We will be meeting with her over the next couple of weeks. She's only been in the job for eight days now.”

Digital issues of the Pass Herald are now available:

Subscribe and read the FULL Pass Herald online.

or read just this issue of the Pass Herald online.