With summer well underway, Cochrane is busier than ever.
Over the last several years, council has worked hard to be proactive and plan for growth. In our 10-Year Financial Strategy, we have allocated $105 million for new roads, a bridge and railway crossings.
As much as we try to be prepared for our enormous growth with these infrastructure projects, there are two roads we don’t have any control over: Highway 1A and Highway 22. Both are under provincial control and are the cause of a large portion of our traffic issues.
In 2011, we had a commitment from the provincial government to twin Highway 1A from the top of the hill at GlenEagles to just past the communities of Heartland and Heritage Hills.
This commitment also included a new intersection at Highways 22 and 1A that would manage the congestion there. In 2012, the province cancelled those plans.
Last year, council was invited to a meeting with then-MLA Ron Casey. Councillors Gaynor Levisky, Tara McFadden and I, along with Mayor Ivan Brooker, attended this meeting and expressed our disappointment with the province and re-emphasized the importance of the intersection at 1A and 22.
Since that meeting, council and administration have been working diligently, and Alberta Transportation is now reviewing a revised plan for potential approval. It is essential that this intersection be included in the province’s three-year plan. My hope is that our new MLA, Cameron Westhead, puts his full support behind this project and gets it put back on the books.
This will be a true test of our new MLA and his capabilities to represent the community. This is no longer a ‘nice to have,’ this is ‘critical.’
I encourage all of you to email Cameron at [email protected] and help stress the importance of this project.
If you have any questions about this project, or any other, please don’t hesitate to visit the town website at cochrane.ca. You can also visit my website at jefftoews.ca, as I update my blog on a regular basis.
Have a safe and enjoyable summer.
