"We Campaigned Against it."

Tuesday, 31 October 2017 08:17

Libs kill $200 million Alaska Highway twinning project

The Yukon Liberals are killing a $200 million project which would see the Alaska Highway between the intersection of the South Klondike Highway (Carcross cutoff) to the North Klondike Highway (Mayo Road) twinned, because they campaigned against it during the election. “We did not feel that, going through the election campaign there was a lot of public support for this project, that was done to increase speeds and conduit’s through the highway. This government, the Liberals did not support this project, so we've instructed the department not to proceed with it.” Stated Highways and Public Works Minister Richard Mostyn (Whitehorse West) Monday.

The plan announced in 2015 under the former Yukon Party government would see improvements to intersections and passing lanes, to increase traffic flow coming into Whitehorse. The plan was met with blowback from landowners and businesses along the Alaska Highway. Mostyn later quantified his department abandoning the project, claiming the concerns from Yukoners as not enough buy-in. “There wasn't a lot of public buy-in about what this project was. There wasn't a lot of support for a $200 million twinning project the middle of town.”

Some work to add a passing lane did occur before the project was shut down, as a small portion of the Highway near the Mount Sima intersection and the Pioneer RV Park was completed. Despite a consultation process, which included a territory-wide mail out to residents and businesses of a summary of the plan, public open houses and public feedback period, Mostyn says more consultation is needed. “If you speak to Hillcrest or to Valleyview or Takhini, we've got a Toyota dealership going up on the highway now, all this growth is happening along the highway, and we feel as a government, we're going to have to talk to users of the highway to see what they want.” “If you talk to Hillcrest, it's a community road with speeds of 60km/p, they want to have crosswalks and all this infrastructure. But the highway is still a corridor for goods and services. We have to have a discussion as a community, what this corridor is to the community.”

Yet Mostyn conceded that work within the corridor needed to happen, which is what the plan addresses. “There's work that needs to be done in this corridor. We've got problems at Robert Service Way and the Alaska Highway, that's a problem area. There's areas around Hillcrest. Hillcrest is a high traffic area, we have to do work there. Valleyview is another one, Two Mile Hill. There's a lot of intersection work. The corridor has grown up without a lot of oversight. You have people coming on to the highway in areas that are dangerous, and that is what we've fixed at the South Klondike Highway.” “We are going to look at fixing those intersections with an eye for safety and to benefit the users of the highway in those area's.”

(Dan Jones, Whitehorse Oct. 30, 2017)