An interchange at the Cardiff corner has been identified as a priority project in the region in hopes of drawing provincial grant money.
Barrhead-Morinville-Westlock MLA Glenn van Dijken said he submitted the project to Alberta Infrastructure late last month in response to a Jan. 22 request from Minister Brian Mason for “shovel-ready” projects.
“I did make a submission along with our caucus, and that interchange was part of that submission,” he said. “That’s based on high-turning volumes, the fact that traffic lights are really essentially slowing down and interfering with the free flow on Highway 2.”
He explained the request from the minister was essentially to identify projects that were a high priority and were more or less ready to go. The request came with a one-week timeline and van Dijken explained he submitted his requests that day.
“It was rather disappointing we had to deal with such a short timeline. We would have liked to be able to contact and have meetings with our municipal councils, but we’re still working on doing some more of that.”
Nonetheless, from consultations over the summer he said he had an idea of which projects were priorities within the riding. He added the Cardiff corner project was included in a list of what he submitted individually, and was also included in a list of projects submitted by the Wildrose caucus.
The Cardiff corner project, an interchange at the corner of Highway 2 and Cardiff Road at the south end of Morinville, has been identified as a priority for years.
The Gazette reported in February 2010 the corner was on the provincial radar, with options being studied to help alleviate some of the traffic-safety concerns there – the Morinville RCMP identified it at the time as a “trouble spot,” with several fatalities and serious-injury collisions taking place.
In June 2011, the Progressive Conservative government of the day announced the interchange would be built by late 2013. The project was stalled by budget constraints, and a set of traffic lights was announced in November as temporary fix, to be in place for five to seven years until the interchange could be built.
The project was not included in the three-year capital plan for the 2015 budget.
Mason was unavailable for an interview but Aileen Machell, a spokesperson for the Infrastructure and Transportation ministries, said an interchange was identified as the ideal solution to the safety issues at the intersection, followed by the traffic signals that are in place now.
Machell said she couldn’t speak to specifics in the 2016 capital plan, which “will be unveiled in the early weeks of the upcoming legislative session.”
The interchange itself is estimated to cost $45 million.
For Morinville Mayor Lisa Holmes and town council, the project is still very high on the priority list. She said while the traffic signals have worked to address the traffic safety problem in the short-term, they are only a temporary fix.
“The more traffic we continue to get, and the larger Morinville grows, the more we’re going to need to have a permanent solution,” she said. “We have continued to advocate for that permanent solution every opportunity we get.”
She said the other top road infrastructure priority in the town is upgrading Highway 642, which will continue to be a concern as the town approaches 10,000 residents and discussions about becoming a city begin. A traffic plan approved by the province identifies the need for roundabouts at several key intersections along the highway.
“If they’re going to do that, it needs to be a priority that they fund it,” she said.
For Sturgeon County Mayor Tom Flynn, the Cardiff corner interchange is still a priority, but is secondary to other needs within the county.
“They put in a set of lights, and actually the lights have worked quite a bit better than anticipated,” he said. “It has alleviated the problem, for the most part, at the volume of traffic we have right now, so we’re reasonably happy with those for the short term.”
He said he hopes to see infrastructure dollars go toward projects in the county’s northeast near industrial developments, such as Highway 643 east of Gibbons and the intersection of highways 37 and 825.
