Safety group welcoming highway improvement announcements

A Coalition for Safer Alberta Roads official is welcoming the news that part of Highway 40 is being twinned and an interchange will be put in at Highways 43 and 43X.
 
Executive Director Debbie Hammond is glad the provincial government sees this as a priority.
 
“It is about safety and it’s about having an infrastructure that we know (is) a safe environment for drivers using the highway. That’s really our goal at the end of the day is to make sure everyone arrives home safely at the end of the day.”
 
As for criticism that more twinning work should be done right away, Hammond says 19 kilometres is a start.
 
“Highways don’t get twinned overnight. They’re not going to necessarily commit to twinning more than they know they can do. I know that they’ve done studies on those sections of the highway to validate the reasons why. There is a science behind twinning highways and certainly, one of the things that we look at is how much traffic is on a highway in a given day.”
 
Hammond says the rule of thumb to twin a highway is 10,000 vehicles a day, adding the hope is to work with the government to continue making safety improvements.
 
“I think if we can continue to work with the government on a go-forward basis, especially as traffic volumes increase and activity in the area increases, we continue to make that case as to why we need to have priority projects on the books to get the highway, the infrastructure, to where it needs to be.”
 
Hammond says having a twinned highway makes it easier to pass large convoys of bigger vehicles. It also has pullouts where drivers can take breaks and shoulders that make it safer for emergency personnel.