It’s almost budget time for our council. Everything we have in our 10-year plan must be reviewed, revised and reconsidered as far as timelines, costs and commitment.
Throughout the year, you email, phone or meet us in person to tell us what you like, don’t like and how you want our Cochrane to look, how you want to move around, how you want to work here, live here and play here. The biggest complaint this year in my opinion has been our transportation/road network. So, let’s look at some key factors:
1. Highway 1A and Highway 22 intersection – This has been a concern since I moved here 22 years ago. Local traffic uses this, tourists taking the scenic route to the mountains, commuters, and general highway traffic rerouted due to construction. We can’t stop the use of this road so we must put pressure on the province to upgrade this intersection.
2. Once the 1A and 22 intersection is upgraded, we will need Highway 22 and Highway 1A built to four lanes. No point in having a fully built intersection to accommodate traffic if you can’t get the traffic to the intersection.
3. Now with the highway taken care of, we will need some internal roads widened or realigned to move traffic; possibly Fifth Avenue, River Heights Drive and James Walker Trail. So we work with developers to get the land we need (donated or bought), set construction timelines and ensure all of the major access roads can accommodate local traffic volumes.
4. To get to the commuter roads, we know we need another bridge across the river from the southeast end of Griffin Road over to the River Heights area; land to be donated or bought; construction to plan and timelines to set.
5. The current Highway 22 bridge needs to be four lanes to accommodate the four-lane highway expansion.
6. Rail crossings: over or underpass at the west end of town.
I know I have not covered everything here, but what I want is to give everyone in town an idea of the truth of what it would cost to have all of this by selecting one example.
If we want to have the bridge across the river at Griffin Road to River Heights right now, it would cost us as taxpayers a 17 per cent tax increase this year. That’s one item, one-year increase.
A rail crossing is $10-$20 million, according to Canadian Pacific Railway and they might be willing to contribute 10 per cent. This would mean another 10 per cent tax increase.
This illustration is just to help us all understand the constraints, the options and the considerations for council to make decisions in order to build a Cochrane we all want.
Development helps to pay for the largest part of all of this. However, servicing fast enough to keep up with demand seems to be a forever-moving target. We ask everyone to consider the reality of having everything we want and give input as to what the real priorities are. Besides roads, we need to upgrade our wastewater treatment option, deal with water licence and school site issues, economic development, emergency services and social support for our residences.
The truth is we can have it all, over time, well planned and financed through a variety of methods. The truth is you are the only taxpayer, so whether federal, provincial, or municipal governments pay for infrastructure, it all comes out of your pocket.
