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October 27, 2017 8:36 pm

Improvements Coming to 16 West

Wednesday, October 26, 2016 @ 5:53 AM

Prince George B.C.- The Provincial Ministry of Transportation has announced some  improvements to highway 16  from Prince George to Prince Rupert.

The  Federal Government  is providing just over $16 million  while BC is  contributing  just over $21.5 million to  make improvements along the roadway including  five  additional passing lanes and an upgrade to the junction of Highways 16 and 37 in Terrace.

The new passing lanes will be located:

* Cluculz Lake Hill, about 40km west of Prince George.

* Broman Lake near Burns Lake

* Tyhee Lake, east of Telkwa between Houston and Smithers

* Toboggan Lake near Smithers and

* Rainbow Hill, 30 kilometres east of Prince Rupert;

In a separate project,  the  plans have been finalized  to  remove the last level rail crossing  between Prince Rupert and the Alberta  border.   The  project will  see the installation of an overpass at the mile 28 rail crossing west of Terrace.   With long trains hauling  containers to and from the Prince Rupert Port, vehicular traffic can be stopped at the crossing for extended periods.    The project  has  a cost of  $37 million with  the Federal government contributing $17.5 million and the Province carrying  nearly $19.5 million.

The project  calls for the realignment of about 2kms of highway 16.   It is expected construction of the rail crossing will start in the spring of  2017  and be complete  in 2019.

Comments

Gee, must be an election year!

    Gee! with all the upgrades that have happened over the past 4 years, one would think every year is an election year!

We can certainly appreciate the passing lanes between here and Prince Rupert, and of course the overpass at Terrace. I notice there is no mention of CN Rail picking up any of the cost for the over pass. Considering that they make millions if not billions in profit every year, one would think that they would kick in a few millions.

    Hey Pal you got it!!
    Cheers

And the big winner is ….. CNR. They will no longer have to service the crossing . The wigwags come out . The speed restriction wil be lifted . Over time this gift that CNR has been given will provide them with millions of saved dollars . Incredible !

    You just have to laugh at how incredibly idiotic our society really is .

      They are called sheeple for a reason.

I’m sitting here chortling to myself…I consider myself centrist politically..probably centre right when it comes to fiscal matters and centre left when it comes to social matters.I would suspect that the majority of Canada’s population resides somewhere near the centre where I do.
On this site I get to see the 2 extremes, and neither is very attractive to most of us in the centre. The extreme right actually believes that Government should not spend any money, and the extreme left believes that Government should provide all things to all people regardless of cost to the taxpayer.
Even when we can all agree that something is in fact needed, the right are always bemoaning the cost, and the left are always looking for a way to extract that cost from businesses that might in some way benefit.
In this case CNR might well benefit from the overpass being built, but how many lives, will be saved, and how many serious injuries will be avoided by the creation of these passing lanes and construction of the overpass??
Are we now going to take a page out of Trump’s book and promise to build it, and make CNR pay for it??
Not freaking likely!

Corporations want and in most cases get all the rights of a person . Does this make them more of a member of the public where they operate or less of a member of our society ? Either way they benefit from our society on many different levels and as such there should be no argument as to whether or not they should pay their fair share of improving ours/their society .

One could argue that corporations pay their fare share to improve society in more than one way.
1) The obvious one is that they and their shareholders pay taxes to the three levels of government
2) They create employment that supports families, and those employees in turn also pay taxes to all three levels of government
I would argue that improving our society falls to those that are actually responsible for it, and that is you, and I the taxpayer, along with our elected governments!

NyteHawwk.

When you speak of the number of lives saved, and the number of serious injuries avoided can you be more specific. In other words, in the last 100 years how many lives, and how many serious injuries actually happened at this crossing. I suspect you have no idea.

The safety issue is used to build the crossing however I would suggest that the real reason is that people do not like to have to wait for the trains to clear the crossing.

I can understand why CN Rail would not want to put out any money for this overpass, because they must avoid setting a precedent. Precedents for national corporations, especially Railways can cost a lot of money.

That’s why people who suggest that the CN relocate its yard outside of the City of Prince George, are just blowing smoke. CN will not be relocating anywhere in Canada unless they do so on their own volition.

Cluculz lake hill isn’t an area that needs an extension to the current passing lane. Trucks have no issues maintaining their speed up to the start of the current passing lane. An extension of the 3 lane at the top of Josephine and the Mud is required. Why is the speed limit at the Mapes Rd construction site being left at 70KMH? There is nothing different done to the hwy at this time than when the limit was 100KMH. Remove the 70KMH limit please. Mind you the gestapo are raking in the dough with speeding tickets out there lately.

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