The Town of Cochrane is hopeful its preliminary design for the future pedestrian railway crossing at Horsecreek Road will be ready to present to CP Rail in the next week or two.
“The real focus of this project is to ensure all residents have safe access and to enhance connectivity between the two communities (Heritage Hills and Heartland) to the rest of Cochrane,” explained Drew Hyndman, senior manager of development services for the town.
Hyndman said that following CP Rail’s feedback on the preliminary design – the town will submit a detailed design, along with a safety assessment, to CP Rail for its review. The approval process could take upwards of eight to 12 months.
“In the meantime, we’re encouraging people to stay off the tracks – it is trespassing and people could potentially be ticketed by CP police,” added Hyndman.
Eventually, Hyndman said the town would look to further work with CP to make that crossing a multimodal one, but not in conjunction with the 2019 construction for the intersection at highways 1A/22 – as the town would not want traffic to “shortcut” through the Horsecreek Road crossing, which would potentially impact the west side communities.
It was two weeks ago that Mayor Ivan Brooker received verbal confirmation that CP Rail was willing to work with the town on a pedestrian crossing – what Cochrane has long identified as a point of connectivity for residents living in communities west of town to link up safely with downtown.
Brooker said the town has been advocating for a crossing at that location for several years.
