Province Urged To Shift Focus To Far North Roads
Monday, September 19, 2005 at 15:11
A development official in the Athabasca region is hoping all the excitement about the road to Fort McMurray won’t put a long-awaited road network in his region on the backburner.
A road link from La Loche to Alberta’s oil sands capital was finally announced last week after years of lobbying and negotiations.
Glen Strong credits the Saskatchewan government for helping to move that project forward, but he doesn’t want the government to use it as an excuse to divert attention from the proposed all-weather road network in the Far North.
Strong is particularly concerned about calls to make Highway 155 upgrades the next priority item.
He’s been encouraged with the attention the premier has been paying to the all-weather road network proposal, and doesn’t want to see the government lose focus.
Strong says provincial officials recently told him that a construction proposal had been developed, but still needed to be approved by the cabinet.
He says if it gets that approval, it will then be forwarded to the federal government.
The two levels of government have been squabbling about how much each should pay towards the estimated $50-million cost.