The road, also known as the Crowsnest Highway, is often billed as one of Canada’s most significant agri-food corridors
The pledge to twin a portion of Alberta’s Highway 3 between Taber and Burdett starting this year was made with plenty of fanfare by two Alberta premiers over the past three years.
However, that commitment, part of a more than decade-old push to twin the stretch of highway between Medicine Hat and Lethbridge, has quietly fallen by the wayside.
A month following his appointment as Alberta’s minister of transportation in October 2022, Devin Dreeshen left little room for interpretation of the promise first made by then premier Jason Kenney two years earlier.
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“The first phase will see shovels in the ground this spring,” said Dreeshen at that November 2022 event featuring newly elected Premier Danielle Smith, councillors from multiple municipalities, irrigators and farmers packed into a Medicine Hat pivot dealership.
“You’ll see construction on that Taber to Burdett highway starting this spring,” Dreeshen said during the event.
He also said three firms had been short-listed to bid on the project, following a request for proposals.
The spring deadline has now come and gone and Dreeshen has confirmed to The Western Producer the timeline has been delayed.
“There have been utility relocations, there’s been land purchases — acreages and land needed along that 46-kilometre stretch — that have been acquired now and also environmental work, which has been done by the department so far,” he said.
Dreeshen cited issues with the bid process for the construction and the three firms interested in building the stretch of highway.
“We were hoping to have them up and running and have their shovels in the ground by this construction season but some of them needed additional time to put in a legitimate bid,” the minister told the Producer. “And we are going to select one by the end of September — Sept. 26 we’ll be able to announce the proponent that’s actually going to do the road building.”
The initial estimate for the Taber to Burdett twinning phase in 2020 was pegged at $150 million.
“The most important thing I tell people in that region is the completion date is 2025,” Dreeshen said, adding that has not changed.
Former premier Jason Kenney initially announced the project in July 2020.
Premier Smith characterized the project as the “number one issue” she heard from constituents during her byelection campaign to secure her seat as Brooks-Medicine Hat MLA in early November 2022.
Smith said at the time of the November 2022 project reannouncement that she was seeking an accelerated timetable for infrastructure projects that enhance Alberta’s economic corridors.
“That’s especially important here in southern Alberta, home to so much of our agri-food and manufacturing sector,” she said.
The stretch of highway between Medicine Hat and Taber has increasingly become a safety issue as personal and commercial traffic often competes with combines, sprayers and cattle liners, as well as trucks carrying potatoes, sugar beets and greenhouse produce to customers, processors and feedlots.
That safety issue has been repeatedly highlighted by Kenney, Smith and Dreeshen along with area proponents of the twinning project.
One of those main proponents, Bill Chapman, president of the Highway 3 Twinning Development Association, said he has concerns about the latest delay.
“The goalposts seem to keep moving from three years ago when the first announcement came out,” he said.
Chapman said he is confident the twinning project will be done following commitments from Smith, Dreeshen and former minister of agriculture and current finance minister Nate Horner, as well as the inclusion of the project in the provincial budget.
“We just don’t know when,” he said.
Traffic along the highway is expected to increase in coming years with an announcement that almost $1 billion will be invested in irrigation expansion in the region. Also, McCain Foods plans to invest $600 million to enlarge its Coaldale potato processing facility near Lethbridge.
There are 215 kilometres of Highway 3, also known as the Crowsnest Highway, that have yet to be twinned. Construction is estimated at $1 billion over 10 years, to be built in eight phases.
The next two phases following the Taber to Burdett stretch are expected to be a Coleman bypass near the B.C. border and Seven Persons to Medicine Hat twinning.
