Westlock County is continuing to push for a $2 million project that would see turning lanes installed on Highway 44 near the municipality’s industrial park.
Currently, traffic accessing the site — on Highway 44 — about a kilometre south of Westlock — is required to turn onto and turn off the road in a 100 km/h zone, with no turning lanes.
Council is seeking the changes to enable further development in the estate and to improve safety for motorists after a report recommended stopping growth until access is improved.
“What we’re trying to achieve is to be able to work with the province to get them to at least remove the freeze on development because we have three companies who have explored going into the park,” said county CAO Peter Kelly.
There are two separate options on the table, the installation of turning lanes or a reduced speed limit through the area.
The former is a long-term solution, the latter a quick fix that would enable development to restart.
Alberta Transportation is responsible for the highway and believes that if the county wants turning lanes installed they should pay for them in full.
The department considers the county to be a developer of the land and treats it like any other private enterprise.
“Because it’s a development, we don’t expect Albertans to be paying for a developer’s upgrades,” said Michael Botros, regional director for north central region at Alberta Transport.
The issue turns on the idea that the park, and not the highway itself, generates increased traffic in the area and is the county’s responsibility. The cost of installing turning lanes is approximately $2 million.
“These costs have to be borne by the developer, in this case, the county,” Botros said.
But county reeve Bud Massey rejects the idea that the county is just another developer.
“I’m surprised. I would have hoped being two governmental bodies, we would be working more cooperatively,” he said.
“If we raise our taxes one-per-cent, we capture about $100,000. If we had to finance, through our tax dollars, those change lanes that would be a 20 per cent tax increase,” said Massey.
The county needs to sell more lots to raise funds for the improvements but it can’t sell more until the ban on further development is lifted.
In the interim there is scope to reduce the speed limit in the area from 100 km/h to 70 km/h, which would essentially extend the 70 km/h zone from the corporate limits of Westlock by about a kilometre.
Yet that too comes with issues of its own. Botros believes that extending the 70 km/h zone will raise issues with driver compliance and that the location of the estate within a rural area lacks the indicators Albertans use to manage their speed.
“The visual cue to anybody driving on the highway is ‘I should be able to do 100 km/h’,” Botros said. “We know that the Town of Westlock is a couple of miles away, so there are no visual cues that drivers would need to slow down.”
The county’s industrial park is about a kilometre south of the town’s corporate limits and the current 70 km/h zone starts and finishes just south of there.
Alberta Transportation is currently conducting a review on the speed limit on Highway 44 at the site of the park, but is unwilling to say when the report would be completed.
Councillors recently raised the issue in a recent meeting with transportation minister Wayne Drysdale.
“We’ve been working with the department of transportation and it’s now been moved to the ministers level, so we’ve had some very good conversations in the past and we’re looking forward to resolving the issue,” Massey said.
“I’m hopeful, that with the minister’s involvement, we’ll move forward in a positive way,” he said.
The county wants development restarted in the industrial park to help economic growth in the county.
“We’re have been attempting to work with the provincial government to say that if we reduce the speed limit that would be a modification that would allow us to continue the development in the park,” Massey said.
“It would have economic stimuli for the community, perhaps create jobs and create an additional tax base.”
