Construction on the long-awaited Cardiff Corner interchange is unlikely to start this year, as the province has run into delays with land acquisitions and environmental permits.
Alberta Transportation confirmed on Wednesday that the interchange project is unlikely to get started this year and increasingly unlikely to be finished in 2013 as originally planned.
“Some of the land issues and some of the permit issues didn’t get resolved as quickly as we hoped,” said department spokesperson Trent Bancarz. “It is just a matter where the situation changed.”
Morinville and Sturgeon county councillors have both been calling for an interchange at the busy intersection for years. Construction of the project was announced last summer and some preliminary work has been done. At the announcement last year the province said a contract would likely be handed out this spring, with completion in 2013. That time frame is now unlikely.
“It depends on when we can get started on it. If we get a next year start that may be still achievable, but definitely if it is the year after you are probably looking at 2014,” said Bancarz.
The project is still a priority for the province, Bancarz said, but the land issues and permits can only move so fast.
“We are definitely committed to doing it and it is on the three-year program.”
Morinville mayor Lloyd Bertschi said he is disappointed, but he is not blaming the province for the delay.
“As long as it is still on the capital plan to move ahead, I mean if you can’t acquire the land you can’t acquire the land,” he said. “You can’t blame them for that.”
