By Andrea KlassenKamloops This Week
Another two sections of the Trans-Canada Highway are in line for widening over the next seven years.
Ministers from the provincial and federal governments announced they will spent $469 million — about $222 million of which will come from Ottawa — to realign and expand Highway 1 through Kicking Horse Canyon and to four-lane a section of highway 20 kilometres west of Golden between Donald and Forde Station Road.
Ottawa will kick in more than $215 million for the Kicking Horse project through its New Building Canada fund, while B.C. will match that amount and add an additional $19.6 million to the table. The much less-expensive Donald to Forde Station section will see the federal government contribute more than $7 million in infrastructure funds, with B.C. adding another $11.8 million.
Federal Minister of Infrastructure and Communities Amarjeet Sohi said the projects will create jobs and improve the lives of drivers.
“Every minute Canadians are on the road is a minute they could be spending with family and friends or building a business or being healthy and active,” he said, adding the federal Liberal government also thinks the project can contribute to its emissions-reduction goals by reducing traffic congestion and getting cars off the road faster.
Kamloops-South Thompson MLA and Minister of Transportation Todd Stone noted the Kicking Horse project, which is worth about $110 million per kilometre of highway, is likely one of the most-expensive reconstructions of its kind in Canada, due to its complexity.
The highway through the area is “extremely compressed,” Stone said, with a rock face on one side and a steep drop into the canyon on the other.
“There’s a tremendous amount of blasting that’s required and the technical challenges really come into play in terms of do you tunnel, do you cantilever out — it’s a significantly challenging stretch of highway from a geography perspective,” he said.
Stone said the cost is worthwhile because the canyon is also significantly more treacherous, with three times the average collision and fatality rate.
“We are saving lives when we make these investments,” he said.
Improvements on the Donald to Forde Station stretch are expected to begin this year, with completion in 2018. The Kicking Horse project will begin in 2019 and will take about five years, Stone said.
Once the two projects are completed, as well as other improvements already announced in the corridor, Stone said the province will have four-laned about one-third of the highway between Kamloops and the Alberta border.
