Twinned highway vital issue for Fort Mac.

Fort Mcmurra y – It is one of Alberta’s most vital highways, a 240-kilometre stretch connecting the booming oilsands with the rest of the province.

It is also known as one of the province’s deadliest roads, on which long, single-file lines of semi-trailers, trucks and cars breed impatience and risktaking.

The fate of Highway 63 has become a major issue in the provincial election, particularly for Fort Mcmurray drivers who have little other choice of route to get anywhere.

Plans to fully twin the road have been in the works for years, but progress has been slow, a point the local Wildrose candidates have been using to attack the Progressive Conservatives.

“It’s a No. 1 priority. It’s critical. How many more lives must be lost before we widen that highway?” asked Fort Mcmurray-conklin candidate Doug Faulkner, who served as the area’s mayor from 1997 to 2004.

“It’s impossible to guarantee that if you are driving from Fort Mcmurray to Edmonton that you will not meet a very dangerous situation.

“People going too fast, pulling out to try to pass, not enough passing lanes. We need it done.”

Faulkner called the Tory government “atrocious” at responding to the issue, saying he and fellow Fort Mcmurray Wildrose candidate Guy Boutilier would push to make it a bigger priority should their party win the election.

PC nominee Mike Allen, a city councillor, agreed the twinning needs to be accelerated.

“Quite frankly, it’s a bit of an embarrassment how long it is taking,” he said. “It’s a real sore point. We need residents to feel safe when they go on that highway.”

He said Fort Mcmurray residents have learned which days of the week are best to use Highway 63. Thursdays, Fridays and Sundays tend to be the bad days due to the volume of traffic, including a high number of large trucks.

“There are situations where you’re coming up a hill, someone is trying to pass a truck on the other side,” Allen said.

“You can have four trucks in a row, six trucks in a row, you could have a situation of 30 to 40 vehicles in a line and someone gets impatient. That’s why we have so many collisions.”

From 2006 to 2010, the collision rate on the highway from Fort Mcmurray south to the junction with Highway 55 was 81.87 collisions per 100 million vehicle kilometres. That represents a decrease from the previous five-year period, a trend Allen believes is due to provincial actions such as increasing the presence of sheriffs, adding more passing lanes and widening shoulders.

The collision rate is below provincial average for similar roads, though Allen said this is somewhat misleading because it doesn’t take into account the type of truck traffic on the road and the seriousness of collisions.

Volume on the road was estimated at about 3,500 vehicles per day in 2008, a number that has grown due to the rapid expansion of the oilsands.

During a visit to Fort McMurray last week, Conservative Leader Alison Redford promised that twinning the road would be an infrastructure priority for her government.

About 19 kilometres south of the town has already been twinned, while the province hopes to have another 36-kilometre section north of Wandering River paved by fall 2013.

That leaves some 185 kilometres still to be twinned, a project expected to take years and cost at least $1 billion, of which Ottawa has pledged $150 million.

Allen said he knows the frustrations, but also recognizes the challenges. Among these, construction must take place outside of caribou mating season, as the activity can make the animals more susceptible to predators.

This short season also makes it difficult to get contractors to bid on the project, and there are terrain difficulties as much of the land is heavily forested or lies on muskeg.

As for the Wildrose promises, Allen noted the lack of progress on the highway has taken place under Boutilier’s watch.

Boutilier has been the area’s MLA since 1997, most of that time as a Tory before switching to the Wildrose in 2010.