Quesnel City Council has unanimously approved spending 25 thousand dollars to drive home the point that the Highway 97 interconnector project will benefit the entire province.
A consultant will be hired to prepare a list of those benefits to try and get the province to come up with the money for the project.
Councillor Laurey-Anne Roodenburg had a specific request.
“My wish or hope is that when it comes time to pick the consultant that they have an expertise that has a northern lens to it. I know we can’t pick who applies for these jobs but I really hope that they have a northern lens that understands the importance of that transportation corridor.”
Councillor Mitch Vik, speaking at this week’s meeting, talked about another potential reason why it makes sense provincially.
“In light of our neighbours to the south and their changing attitudes towards tariffs and so on, there is going to be a tremendous shift pivot in inter provincial cooperation and the better our infrastructure is to connect the north with other provincial jurisdictions the better situated everyone is in this province.”
In addition to the provincial pitch, Mayor Ron Paull also talked about the local benefits.
“Air quality downtown, noise downtown, dangerous goods going through our downtown and particularly in front of many residential complexes and the hospital and the medical clinics and so on. Pedestrian safety, real estate values. In other words if we can get the heavy industrial traffic off of Front Street and basically reclaim Front Street as our own, and I understand there will be a cost to that because we’re going to be responsible for maintaining that, but I think it would be money well spent. And with the Interconnector it will open up development and we’ll see some of the shuttered buildings on Front Street become more viable so I encourage Council to vote in favour of this one.”
The cost estimate back in 2020 was around 320 million dollars.
The project includes the replacement of two bridges…the Quesnel River Bridge and the Railway Bridge.
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