Producers living along Highway 3 in southern Alberta are pressing to have the entire route twinned.
Highway 3, or the Crowsnest Highway, which in Alberta runs about 320 kilometres from Medicine Hat to the British Columbia border, cuts through one of the highest yielding agricultural regions in the country. It is partially twinned but some sections remain single lane in both directions.
The Highway 3 Twinning Development Association (H3TDA) has advocated that the entire route be expanded to four lanes to keep up with the increased agri-processing growth in the region.
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The junction of Highway 3 and the Trans-Canada Highway is near Western Canada’s largest greenhouse production area, cuts through irrigated high-value farms producing corn, sugar beets and spuds and lies along the heart of southern Alberta’s cattle country along with dryland crops.
A total of 65 specialty crops grown across nearly a million acres serving more than 120 processors are just some of the reasons H3TDA says the twinning of the entire highway is necessary.
Traffic along the highway is expected to grow along with an aggressive strategy to expand irrigation in southern Alberta.
Bill Chapman, president of H3TDA, said the 2020 announcement of an additional 45 kilometres of the highway to be twinned north of Taber was welcomed, but a clear strategic plan to complete the entire stretch of road is needed.
“It’s imperative to our whole economy,” said Chapman, adding the project has the support of regional MPs, MLAs and municipalities.
Chapman said his organization is advocating for four priority stretches of the highway that require twinning to add to the sections leading into and out of Lethbridge: Medicine Hat to Seven Persons, Seven Persons to Burdett, Pincher Station to Bellevue and Fort MacLeod.
“Those stretches can be done reasonably quickly or without too much work in the sense that (Alberta Transportation’s) already done all the functional planning studies, they are procuring land as we speak and of course those would be areas almost shovel ready,” said Chapman.
But there are challenges in completing the work even if government funding for the project can be provided.
While Kenney announced $150 million in funding in July 2020 for the 45 km stretch of highway between Taber and Burdett, physical work on the road has yet to begin.
The high value of the irrigated land that sandwiches most of the highway has made acquiring the land needed for the road longer than anticipated, said Chapman.
Despite the hiccups, Chapman said he’s hoping to see work started in 2022 on that section.
But the issues with that single section also serves as an example of why a long-term budget strategy is needed to see the highway fully twinned rather than through a piecemeal approach.
With a billion dollars earmarked for irrigation expansion in southern Alberta that will put more than 200,000 acres under a pivot, a co-ordinated plan will be needed, said Chapman.
“The Alberta government is really working hard to make this southern Alberta corridor the agriculture capital of Canada so there is lots of appetite to move that forward,” he said.
The long-term vision of the highway is to see the B.C. portion, which runs from the Alberta border to Hope, B.C., twinned, which will provide an additional transportation corridor for produce from the B.C. Interior.
Chapman said the recent forest fires, avalanches and floods that have ravaged areas around the Trans-Canada Highway have demonstrated that upgrades to Highway 3 through southern B.C. may become critical.
Chapman encouraged those interested in seeing Highway 3 twinned to sign the H3TDA petition posted on the organization’s website at Twin3.ca.
