Yellowknife (Feb 15/06) - The plan to link Kam Lake Road to Highway 3 has popped up again and that has at least one trucking company anxious for the project to get out of idle and into gear.

The idea of trucks using a road that doesn't go directly through the downtown core is a good one, said Jim Faunders, service centre manager at Grimshaw Trucking.

"For sure, it would cut us out from going through town," he said.

By not having to drive through the city, Faunders said Grimshaw could save time and in trucking that means saving money. Part of the city plan for years, the proposed road would run from the west side of the airport to the Kam Lake industrial park.

The ground the route would traverse is part of the land that Municipal and Community Affairs Minister Michael McLeod recently recommended should go to the city for development.

If the project does go ahead it will most certainly mean more industrial property will open up, said Mayor Gord Van Tighem. The city is interested in putting the industrial road in, he said but it needs ways to finance the $5 million-$10 million cost of building.

"In order to build a road there has to be money," he said. "The way that we raise money for roads is usually through the sale of the adjacent land."

The Yellowknives Dene, which is still involved in land claim negotiations as part of the Akaitcho First Nation with the federal government, can potentially block the building plan.

"If the Dene feel that the land transfer is not to their best benefit, they can potentially intervene," he said.

Representatives of the Yellowknives Dene were unavailable for comment at presstime.