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Highways hit the agenda

Health complete, MLAs turn attention to Steen

Kevin Wilson
Northern News Services

Yellowknife (Feb 28/01) - One nickel per tonne, per kilometre, will get the roads paved, provided Joe Handley and the feds do their part.

In his opening statement to the committee of the whole, Transportation Minister Vince Steen said he was "very pleased" with the proposed $100 million in new money for highway construction.

Background

The highway construction plan proposed by Transport Minister Vince Steen will cost $100 million over the next four years. If approved, the plan will:

  • Double the pace of reconstruction on the Yellowknife Highway and Highway 8
  • Provide the Mackenzie Highway from Fort Simpson to the Highway 7 junction with a chip-sealed surface.
  • Complete the reconstruction and paving of Mackenzie Highway and the Yellowknife Highway that began in 1989.
  • Reconstruct and pave the Ingraham Trail from the Highway 3 junction to the Dettah access road.
  • The Fort Smith Highway from Hay River to Fort Smith will have an asphalt surface, as will the Fort Resolution Highway up to Fort Resolution, and the Liard Highway from the B.C. border to Fort Liard.
  • Improve selected locations along the length of Highway 8.


    • The new construction, announced in the budget, will see tolls imposed on commercial trucking in the NWT.


    Vince Steen
    Before any blacktop gets poured, the budget has to be passed and the federal government has to give NWT permission to raise its debt wall. The territory has debts amounting to $251 million of the $300 million Ottawa permits it to borrow.

    In an interview, Steen pointed out that five cents per tonne, per kilometre, is a relative bargain.

    "The mine charges nine cents a tonne on the winter road," he said.

    The minister referred questions about the debt wall to Handley.

    Most MLAs seemed generally supportive of the massive construction project, but notes of caution crept into the session.

    Yellowknife South MLA Brendan Bell, who said he was "thrilled to see the department is taking a proactive approach," still worried about the impact that a truck tolls would have on the cost of living.

    Bell warned that the NWT runs the risk of nickle and diming itself out of competitiveness.

    "The accumulated impact of these new additional levies, taxes and tolls (are) certainly going to have an effect on life in the North," he said.

    Range Lake MLA Sandy Lee praised the proposal, saying she didn't want to have to "go to the voters and say the same that that politicians have been saying for the last 20 years," namely that there wasn't enough money to fix the roads.