Province to fund its share of Yellowhead Trail improvement project

The Alberta government will fund its share of a 10-year, $1-billionproject to improve Yellowhead Trail, Transportation Minister Brian Mason said Tuesday.

The provincial government will provide $242 million toward the project one-third of eligible project costs starting in 2023.

"We've had to find this money, and that's why we had to do it in the future," Mason said.

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The timing of the funding won't slow Edmonton's ability to start work on the project.The city "will receive the monies from the province in the future," Mason said.

City spokesperson Cheryl Oxford said some construction could start within a few years but it could be five years for the major work to get going.

Edmonton has been seeking funding from the federal Building Canada Fund to turn a 25-kilometre section of the Yellowhead into a freeway, without the existing traffic lights and intersections that slow down traffic flow.

Costs would be shared by the city, the province and the federal government.

'I've laboured long and hard to get this'

8 years ago

Duration 0:53

Mayor Don Iveson says he's please the province will fund part of the 10-year Yellowhead Trail improvement project.

But before the project could go forward, the federal government required Alberta to commit.

"It's sometimes difficult for us when the federal government infrastructure programs require us to find new money to match, when we've already increased our infrastructure spending and have allocated it, and then to find even more on top of that is often challenging," Mason told reporters.

Later payments won't hold up project

"And so the way we are dealing with that is to move the payments into the future. It won't hold up the project.

"Edmonton, I think, will probably go ahead with it, if the federal government does come through with their share."

Mayor Don Iveson said he was pleased to hear that the province has agreed to match funds for the project.

"I'velaboured long and hard to get this not so much through Ottawa, because we've had great support there, [Infrastructure] Minister [Amarjeet]Sohi has been a real champion but it has been difficult for the province in this economic environment," Ivesonsaid.

"But I think they are persuaded, from what I can understand, by the fact that this will create 6,000 construction jobs which we badly need right now.

"We're going to secure good pricing, and it's going to mean an improvement to the trade corridors in our part of the city that rely on a smooth functioning and safe Yellowhead."

Free-flowing freeway

The project would involve converting a 25-km section of the Yellowhead within city limits in a freeway without traffic signals. The total cost, including design, land purchases and construction, would be $1 billion.

Eight intersections with signals, and more than a dozen other intersections and access points,would be eliminated.

New interchanges would be constructed at 121st Street and 127th Street. Three existing interchanges would be modified.

A new collector-distributor system would be built between 156th Street and St. Albert Trail. And a new east-west collector road would be built at 125th Avenue to connect Fort Road, 66th Street and the Yellowhead.

The Yellowheadcurrently carries between 63,000 and 81,000 vehicles a day. About 18 per cent of those vehicles are trucks.