TUKTOYAKTUK
Now that the federal finance minister has officially included $200 million in federal funding for the estimated $299 million all-weather highway from Inuvik-to-Tuktoyaktuk, it is time for the people of the Beaufort Delta to get to work building Canada's first road to the Arctic coast.
So, how exactly is the Department of Transportation (DOT) planning to build a 127-km all-season road from Inuvik through frozen wetlands to Tuktoyaktuk?
The first rule for building a road on permafrost is to not dig into the ground, explained Jim Stevens, director of the Mackenzie Valley Highway for the DOT.
"The permafrost provides the stability for the road. If you have a frozen, hard surface, nothing is going to cave in or collapse," he said.
The highway alignment will be built on top of the frozen tundra and the bulk of construction will occur during winter months to preserve the permafrost under the roadway as much as possible.
First, snow will be plowed away from the path of the future highway and the ground will be left exposed for a few weeks to freeze as much as possible, said Stevens. Next, workers will lay a 12 metre-wide layer of geotextile fabric - not unlike the fabric gardeners use to keep weeds from out of their summer plots. Trucks will then haul in what Stevens calls "the granular material," which is different than gravel but is still a crushed rock product. The granular material will be dumped on top of the geotextile fabric and then shaped by bulldozers and packed down.
The road will be built up in this way in layers, with each section being given at least one summer season to thaw and settle before the top layer is added, said Stevens.
The height of the road embankment will vary, averaging about 1.6 metres in height, he said. Where permafrost is present directly under the roadway, the embankment will be higher, and in the areas where there is little or no permafrost, the embankment will be shorter.
The road to the Beaufort Sea will be built to full-highway standards and will be 8.5 metres wide, making it able to accommodate heavy trucks, said Stevens. Current estimates suggest the road will be used by about 150 vehicles per day, however it is being built to be able to accommodate potential future off-shore industrial activity, he said.
There will also be between eight and 11 bridges built along the route, said Stevens.
The largest, most expensive of these bridges will be the Hans Creek Bridge, which will be a multi-span bridge costing between $8 and $10 million.
"Hans Creek is not a large creek, but it occupies a large flood plane that can be about 600 metres wide," said Stevens.
The most expensive part of the construction project will be hauling the estimated 5.8 million cubic metres of rock material from where it is quarried to the road site, said Stevens. The hauling of material alone will account for "well over 50 or 60 per cent" of the costs, he said.
To date, the DOT has spent about $12 million to scout out the roadway, study the ground underneath and determine where the gravel quarries will be.
This money is not included in the total estimated cost of the highway, Transportation Minister David Ramsay told News/North in an interview shortly after the legislative assembly approved funding for the project.
The department will use the $5 million in additional funding from the territory this winter to complete geotechnical investigations looking for more sites to source granular material along the roadway to shorten haul distances, said Stevens.
In the southern part of the territory, the average haul distance for granular material for highways is about 14 km. Stevens is hoping for a nine-km haul distance for the Inuvik-Tuk highway to save on hauling costs.
Currently, the road's design is about 85 per cent complete, which drew criticism from Yellowknife MLAs when funding for the highway was being debated.
"After we've got the geotechnical investigations done, we'll firm up the design," said Stevens, adding the department will have the complete design later this year, well in advance of next year's construction season, which is expected to begin around Feb. 1, 2014.
Construction of the highway is expected to last four years, putting the estimated date of completion in the spring of 2018.
This year, work is being done to widen and strengthen the Source 177 road south from Tuk, and work to upgrade Old Navy Road in Inuvik will begin "later this year," said Stevens.
In all, the department is confident in its plans for building the highway, said Stevens while acknowledging conditions in the Delta would likely prove challenging.
When asked if the design accounted for melting permafrost due to global warming, Stevens said it had, and pointed to "over-engineered" culverts as an example of how the road would hold up to warmer summers.
"We're pretty confident in the design. Who knows what the temperature is going to be in 10 years, but we've done a lot of modelling based on Environment Canada data and, I guess, our predictions are as good as the next person's," he said. "We're focused on doing a good job and getting the project delivered on budget."
Fact file
highway project by the numbers
* Estimated cost: $299 million
* Federal funding: $200 million
* Territorial funding: Remainder (the legislative assembly has approved $65 million in spending to date)
* Other costs not included in estimate: $12 million already spent to find gravel sources along the route
* Length of highway: 127 km
* Width: 8.5 metres
* Average height: 1.6 metres
* Number of bridges: Eight to 11
* Estimated amount of crushed rock: 5.8 million cubic metres
* Projected start date of construction: Feb. 1, 2014
* Projected end date of construction: June, 2018
Source: GNWT Department of Transportation
