Northeast bridge plan spiked
The potatoes are safe and the farmers are ecstatic.
Alberta officially backed away Friday from a contentious river bridge project that threatened to take out either a popular northeast market garden or many of their neighbours.
That had Janelle Herbert of Riverbend Gardens shocked and relieved.
“That’s crazy. I feel like it’s surreal,” said Herbert, who’s been fighting this bridge project since the public learned about it in about 2011.
“Now we can invest without this uncertainty,” said her husband, Aaron Herbert. They supply a variety of vegetables to eight farmers’ markets in Edmonton and the surrounding area, plus many local restaurants.
The contentious river bridge was planned as a new connection between Edmonton and Fort Saskatchewan, north of Anthony Henday Drive. But it’s been replaced by a new heavy haul bridge near Redwater.
“I think that’s the optimal solution,” said Alberta Transportation Minister Brian Mason in an interview. “The best location for a heavy haul bridge would not be in the middle of an urban area.”
Mason delivered the news after announcing the alternative $90 million Vinca Bridge to energy industry executives and regional mayors.
It will serve overweight traffic
The best location for a heavy haul bridge would not be in the middle of an urban area.
travelling from the manufacturing shops of south Edmonton and Nisku to the oilsands of Fort McMurray, cutting out the nearly 200-km detour trucks currently take to the Duvernay Bridge near Two Hills.
Mason said this new bridge means heavy-haul capacity is no longer needed in northeast Edmonton.
The northeast bridge was also supposed to ease congestion for commuters to Alberta’s Industrial Heartland, but the previously announced $200-million to $300-million effort to twin the Fort Saskatchewan crossing of the North Saskatchewan River at Highway 15 is a better solution there, the province said.
It should be under construction starting in 2019 and includes other highway improvements in the area.
This change in direction comes in the middle of a $1.4-million joint planning study for the northeast Edmonton bridge. Officials were at least trying to pin down the location to provide certainty for concerned residents because if it missed Riverbend Gardens in the Horse Hill area, it would have taken out other farms and acreages.
Alberta Transportation, Edmonton, Fort Saskatchewan, Strathcona County and Sturgeon County were all involved.
Mason said he sent a letter to the mayors of each municipality Friday to give them the news.
Ward 4 Coun. Aaron Paquette said many residents will be relieved. At each open house, they worried about impacts to the ecology of the river system, traditional use of that area by First Nations communities and the decrease in property values caused simply by uncertainty.
The new Vinca Bridge “accomplishes everything we needed,” he said.
Paquette said he intends to make a motion early next week to have Edmonton contact its partners and cancel the rest of the jointplanning exercise.