Penhold town council has taken issue with an Alberta Transportation request for the Highway 42/Waskasoo Avenue intersection over safety and traffic standards concerns.
The intersection project was entered into the council agenda as a project cost estimate for about $500,000, based on a Tagish Engineering Type Two intersection design.
“There are more sides to this issue to consider,” said Mayor Dennis Cooper during council's regular meeting on March 10. “It seems that we are being forced to build a six-lane intersection on Highway 42 to accommodate the upcoming Melcor subdivision. I would call it development by blackmail.”
The present Type Two design allows for a flared entrance/exit into and out of the Waskasoo intersection and to the north quarter soon to be developed by Melcor. Costing is estimated to be $500,000 without any tenders going out.
A Type Five intersection offers a through lane, and two turning lanes per direction of travel for a total of six lanes, for an estimated cost of $1.2 million.
“When we developed the 100-lot subdivision last year Alberta Transport made a strong request for us to upgrade the intersection to allow the subdivision to go ahead even before we considered the school building,” said Rick Binnendyk, Penhold's chief administrative officer. “The Melcor quarter will necessitate a Type Five intersection.”
He noted that with the new school opening soon, and this controversy developing, discussions with Alberta Transport were to be ongoing.
“We took the position that the school drove the necessity of the intersection, and they are taking the position that the Melcor project is,” added Binnendyk. “From our perspective, this is a huge difference.”
Discussion turned to an apparent oversight by Tagish Engineering.
“I don't think Alberta Transport was looking at the big picture,” said Coun. Mike Yargeau. “This decision and recommendation does not serve the future of Penhold once we build out the Melcor quarter.”
Councillors were quick to pick up on another important concern.
“There is the issue of lighting at the intersection,” said Coun. Julia King. “The estimate does not include cost of lighting and we cannot make any decision without that.”
Child safety was also raised by council as well as the issue of sidewalks or walking paths connected to town trails leading to the school from the Melcor quarter.
“We are concerned about the safety of our children walking to and returning home from the school,” said Cooper. “If we are going to spend money on an intersection, we have to ensure that.”
Options were put forward by council to move students safely through the intersection, such as a pedestrian overpass, a tunnel and a crosswalk.
“If we consider the overpass or the pedestrian tunnel there is the matter of a significant cost for the project, not to mention we cannot tunnel as there are water lines buried there,” said Binnendyk. “The only option may be to create a crosswalk which again, creates safety issues.”
The topic of reduced speed limits and signal lights was raised if a crosswalk were to be added. This was to be discussed with Alberta Transport.
The provincial government did not immediately return calls for comment on the situation.
“As we are starting this intersection process, we have to get ahead of the challenge of moving children and families safely across Highway 42,” said Cooper. “We will be entering into discussions with Alberta Transport as soon as we can.”
