If they make it past Salmon Valley they will be OK. Somebody will have to plow the roads to there, though.

You want a business case??!! Its kicking you in the face right now!!! Look at Edmonton - city of over a million with all kinds of industry. Then look at PG - struggling to stay over 60thou in a one-horse logging town - all because we have crummy access to the resource-rich north. Albertans on the other side of the line are soaking up all kinds of work that could be done here.

I agree Gamblor it is a no brainer. I don't know if the City has ever approached government about hwy 97. Those goofy railway underpasses should have gone before 4- laning. Pine Pass, well what can be said about that little trail. Oh I forgot we are past hope.

That's a good one reasonableman, but too right, as of this morning, still no YRB plow truck on secondary roads out where we live, and they did not have a major school bus route plowed in time yesterday.
You'd think I would be used to it by now..

metalman.

Last summer, I went south of Edson to take a short cut through to Red Deer. Their secondary roads are in better shape than our main highways 97 and 16. They put their money where it gets the best return.

Make it four lanes from Prince George to the Coq connector, 6 hrs to Vancouver.

Prince George, Bypass Quesnel, bypass williams Lake, Run over 100mile house, than take the cutoff and right over Little fort and on to the Coq. I really do not think it will cost much more than a billion dollars.

You would be surprised at the cost
The first section of thzat fancy sea to sky was $800 million for 800 meters
Even bigger bucks for new highways
But hey lets build it

6 hours to Vancouver? Even with 4 lanes all the way and 120kph as highest speed you are talking 8 hours. Needs a 4 lane section to Merrit to shorten the route.

$1 million per metre?

I got a $5 million 50 square metre condo bachelor apartment to sell in downtown PG.

6 hrs at 120 km/hr is 720 km.... hmmmm should be able to straigten out 30 km of road.

800m for $800 million. Yep. But did you see where they have to hang up the highway from to build that stretch. There is a lot more space and cheap fill in the interior to build our road. The rule of thumb for new super highway is a million dollars per lane per km. Thus to build 350km of 4 lane should be about 1.7 billion dollars plus the cost of bridges, so add a billion dollars. 2.7 billion dollars to complete this is well worth it.

What this will do is open up the interior. Cost of moving goods will cheaper and faster. Sure we may wonder what we are going to move today, but 60 years ago, we were not even connect with PGE. Pacific Great Eastern, or better known as Prince George Eventually. If we are going to become the best place in the world. then build the infrastructure.

The Cariboo Connector is a good idea, but connect it to the Coq. Cache creek will be left out. but heck its just a dump anyway.

We live in woodville, we counted on that forever, and nobody wants wood. Now we find ourselves without a plan.

When I low bedded equipment up to the mines in the North East I didn't like those slow to 30 'S' corners in the Pine Pass, because there is not enough room for two vehicles and you can never see if anything is coming in the other direction factoring in trailer off track and such. Some one will be killed there one day. The only reason why it hasn't happened is the traffic is so low the odds haven't added up yet.

A new bridge at Salmon Valley existing highway should never be built IMO. Too much erosion and doesn't fit with potential crown land for a future industrial park outside the city air-shed and the highway infrastructure that will be needed to facilitate that. It would be building a bridge that could have went into a new bridge where it fits with a new by-pass road further down river.

I would suggest the clean air people get their voice in on this matter and bring to the table the health costs associated with industrial pollution in the city airshed and the economics of new highway infrastructure (ring road) to facilitate better located industrial parks for future industrial expansion.

If we want clean air in PG this is the crack in the door that needs to be plowed through. The location of infrastructure decides where industry locates... and industry that pollutes should be influenced before it is built if at all possible IMO.

A PG ring road would cut off an hour in the trip from Dawson Creek to Quesnel. A benefit for both of those communities and beyond.

agreed. It should be illegal for any city to put stoplights on any major highway through town. Its just a cash grab. If people need gas or a hotel, they'll pull off, if not you're just wasting everybody's time.

Too build this four lane highway and this is my negative view of the project. I think that with four lanes south there would be a negative growth for PG. Not only would it be faster to get out of this overtaxed place but we would also be able to do more shopping south of us.

Many years ago when I came to PG to work on construction I decided to go home for Easter. I left PG after work and started south on #97. South of Williams lake the highway runs through open ranch country and at dusk I shall never for get seeing the head lights across this open land streaming south like a a snake.

Imagine what it would look like four lanes going south?

Cheers

The retailers along 97 and 16 west do not want all that money bypassing their stores on any "ring road" !!

Why do you think they're twinning the Fraser river bridge, instead of putting the new bridge where it should be, namely extending Boundary road across the Fraser, and out to Haldi road and 16 west? This bridge would provide a bypass for all west south and east traffic, that has no need nor desire to duke it out with traffic in the city, PLUS provide a dangerous goods route for industrial traffic to keep it out of the city, for all but goods coming from and going to the north. "Course, that would keep a lot of traffic from passing in front of all these high profile businesses day after day, and we can't have that can we.

If you're going to carp about all that congestion at the existing Fraser bridge each morning and around 4-5 pm, well I'm suggesting this problem could have been solved for a couple thousand bucks, instead of 50 million !! Once the scale is gone, and all that left turn traffic into the scale stops snarling up the flow because of the light, then all you'd have to do is take down that light, and put a stop sign at the side street between the scale and what was Canco, (don't know what its called now). Thusly, since 50% of the traffic going to and from the industrial site would now be using the new Boundary bridge to get to and from work, and all the traffic that depended on the light to let them in front of the line-up at the bridge, now is ging south to the intersection at Finning, and taking their place at the END of the line, (if there ever is a line that long now), traffic would flow like silk over that two-lane bridge with no impediments except the lights at 97-16 !! A big portion of the traffic crossing this bridge and heading west, would also be splitting off at the north-west end of the bridge, and taking Ferry ave. too, furthur alleviating congestion at the 97-16 intersection in peak times.

Yeah, yeah, I know -- we're FOUR laning the Cariboo Connector, and this bridge will have to be four-laned to complete that, but its gonna be a long-long time before we can drive on four lanes all the way to Vancouver folks, and we need that ring road right now, -- today -- before we need a four lane bridge to the Casino, and Wal-Mart, IMO.

I think the rush was on to get this bridge approved before a lot of us discovered some of the problems it was supposed to solve magically went away with the moving of the scale to Red Rock, -- but then again, who am I to dare to question these megalithic descisions ?


palomino