When does construction start?
How does "making it two lanes instead of one" reduce the cost?

It says: "making it two lanes instead of four". Second sentence in the second paragraph.

That makes it a local collector at best rather than a bypass arterial.

If you would have read the article properly, it states that it was scaled back from 4 lanes to 2 lanes.

Yeah... they changed it after I posted, but thanks for your input.

To the snippy poster above, there was a typo in the article which has since been corrected.

I love the maps posted on 250. "They are so defining and insightful". He said, squinting.

If you are using explorer, there should be a little magnifying icon on the loweer right hand corner with a + in it. Cick on it to step through an increase in size from 100% to 125% to 150%. That should help a little bit.

"Halleluiah!” That was the response from IDL Projects when they learned the Federal and Provincial government’s have announced they will commit to the construction of L&M Road.

Speaking of typos - there's no apostrophe required for the plural form.

Boundary Road (red dashed line) will link highway 16 east to highway 97 south.


I'm stumped!! Why?? Hwy 16 East is already linked to 97 South with a shorter,straighter route.. What am I missing?? Obviously there is some land up there dying to be developed and certain people have a vested interest in that road being built by the Province and the Feds. No other reason to be real happy about that.

Big Freakin deal,What about linking 97 south to 16 west?????

We already have a connection between Highway 16 and 97. It called the Old Cariboo Highway and its green on the map. Problem is the investors dont own the land along the Old Cariboo Highway.

Solution. Build a new connector from 16 to 97 behind the Airport fronting the property that they own. This will allow them to build a light industrial park, and get industry from Danson, Carter, and BC Rail Industrial Parks to relocate at the Airport Industrial Park. In addition they could build a Hotel, Motel, Huge truck stop, etc; and a good time will be had by all. (Well almost all)

By using the Airport Runway Expansion, and the possibility of industry locating in Prince George, they were able to get this land out of the ALR in a very short period of time. Some people in that area have been trying to get land out of the ALR for over 17 years and have not been successful. (Strange)

This little venture will only cost taxpayers $22 Million dollars and the investors $6.5 Million. Seems like a good deal. (For the investors) I suspect there will be Millions more when it comes to paving, water, sewer etc; but what the hell, its only money, and we seem to have a lot of it.

Either that or we are natural born losers.

'We already have a connection between Highway 16 and 97. It called the Old Cariboo Highway and its green on the map. Problem is the investors dont own the land along the Old Cariboo Highway.'

That's what's most offensive about this 'project', and most insulting to the intelligence of Prince George taxpayers.

The developer is getting the City (and their puppets at IPG) and the province and the feds to subsidize and cheerlead what's essentially a private land bonanza.

Appropriately connected local people are going to get sick rich over this deal, which has little or no long-term benefit to the rest of us.

A few long term benefits.

1) Industry begins to move out of the bowl...cleaning up our airshed.

2) Fewer dangerous goods need to go through town, as more and more industry moves to outlying areas.

3) More room for growth for industry ( and jobs ) with better access to airport, and connects HWY 97 S & HWY 16 E with very little negative effect on existing farmland and residential areas. Basically, we're remodeling, so that the "garage" and the "living room" don't have to be so close to each other in our little "house" called Prince George. Comes at a good time too. I hope it will employ as many local labourers and contractors as possible, so we can keep as much of that 28 million in our local economy.

I'm scratching my head on this one as well. Seems like a big waste of money for a redundant road... and only two lanes to boot!

Which industries that are currently polluting our airshed going to move up to this new area? What motivation would they have to do that? If anything moves up there, it will be 'new' industry, and like the runway expansion, is a very expensive gamble that nobody can afford.

I don't think this is a good investment. I agree with most of what Palopu says on this, but would add that what PG needs is a real bi-pass road and not a double speak Boundary Road.

I think a road from Beaverly to 97-south has been PG's number one priority need for at least a couple of decades now. That road should have been done before the $10 million for the Domano intersection, and before the $28 million for the so called Boundary (redundant) Road.

Look at Domano for example... the largest intersection in Northern BC and it is a choke point. How does that make any logistical sense to anyone... no bi-pass road around it... at one time it was supposed to be Ospika, but that has been a 20-year fairy tale. So an enemy in war would simply have to bomb the Domano intersection to cut off access to a third of the province. At least with a bi-pass in place for the busiest intersection in the northern 2/3rd's of the province then the work on Domano could have been done with less impact on the transportation logistics of the region.

PG's plan is to build roads where developers with influence have land, and to build lots of stop light intersections on major through roads that are funneled into the center of the town... so as to extort highway traffic dollars to adjecent land owners at the expense of a truely effecient transportation network.

It shouldn't take more than an hour to drive across town (Hart to Beaverly) during rush hour... but it does.

PG needs a ring road and not a 'Boundary Road'. PG needs less stop lights and less industrial traffic in the heart of the city. PG needds industrial land outside of the city airshed and not more industrial lands inside of the city airshed where we already have a surplus of developable land and pollution. PG needs a upper Fraser river crossing to facilitate all industrial traffic having no need to travel through the city and to facilitate a real industrial park outside of the city limits.

The way I see it in 30-years PG could potentially be eclpsed by the likes of Vanderhoof as the major industrial center of the North. Investors will look at the cities debt that has to be maintained with tax dollars for past bad planning, air quality issues from industrial lands in a bowl, and crappy highway infrastructure. Investors will figure the cost of business is to high to locate in PG when Vanderhoof, or Burns Lake, or communityes of that ilk that can manage their debt and industrial land develeopments, and are all close enough for the kind of industry the north is likely to develop.

PG is pricing itself out of business and mixing up its priorities IMO.

Eagle one, your probably correct with the idealology of major industry looking at Vanderhoof or Burns Lake to locate. Which in the grand scheme of things is still OK. We will still reap most of the benefits from it.

It is my opinion, that the two lanes will likely become a future liability. It will not get four laned for twenty years. Look at Tyner Blvd. It still is a two laner, 17 years later.

However, its better than nothing.

The completion of Boundary Road to jump over the Fraser will likely not happen until we have over 150 thousand people living here. Of course this is the first step to building a Ring Road around Prince George.

Or should I be saying 3/4 Ring Road, Because the last 1/4 of this ring road Between hwy 16 East and Hwy 97 North will not be able to continue off of the location of the proposed Boundary Road.

It should be an interesting fifty years, watching our city trying to shed its image as an outpost.

So we are going to have some "industrial" land above the bowl; what evidence is there that industry will begin to relocate there? What incentive is there to relocate?
Of what use is a two lane road?
metalman.

When are they going to make over passes on central at 5th, 10th and 15th?

I noticed a lot of buildings in the BCR site are empty now. how is opening a new industrial area going to help with such high commercial vacancies?

Placing any industry on top of the bowl is not going to mitigate air shed pollution. If it were more than 20 km out of town it might help, but the way air is concentrated over the bowl like a vortex it would do nothing.

"We already have a connection between Highway 16 and 97."

Which works well for traffic coming from the south and going either to north 97 or east 16 or the reverse of those.

Going from 16 east to 16 west it is a long way around. Boundary only becomes a "real" bypass until a bridge is built accross the river just to the south of College Heights, seen on the map as "future phase".

As I understand it, that bridge may never get built by the province and may have to be built as a City bridge along the lines of the foothills bridge.

The 97 south to 16 west connector or bypass bridge may actually occur further south near the new weigh scale.

The industry along the airport is going to be a light industrial park similar to the Danson area around CNC and parts of the BCR as well as well as east Queensway downtown and all that "crap" along the Hart.

"When are they going to make over passes on central at 5th, 10th and 15th?"

I came here in the early 1970's and there was talk of that at that time. Don't hold your breath. They missed the opportunity to do that at 5th when they built the additional lanes to the Hart Bridge jsut as they missed the opportunity to do that now at Tyner-Domano.

As Gus says, an overpass over 5th 10th and 15th, has always been talk. They may throw it over 2nd avenue area, because the elevation works out, and relieve the trafic that way if it becomes a serious problem. Even if the city hits quarter million, I doubt you will see a Overpass.

Realistically the Boundary road will likely become the Ring road (new Bypass) of choice to avoid the congestion of the future. I can see it connecting to hwy 16 West eventually, Which is a good choice.

I would even go as far as saying that, with in twenty years, we will have a new Air Terminal Building closer to Boundary Road.

Well Palopu, there won't be much chance there'll be a "huge" hotel needed up there if you succeed in your endless efforts to convince us and the rest of the world its not a good idea to look at business opportunities in the Prince George area, especially if its in any way connected to our airport!

As for the truck stop you mention, if I were to build it, I wouldn't put it behind the airport! To catch the maximum traffic flow for that type of business you'd want to be close to the old Ritchie Bros site, or just west of it, where the new intersection of the two highways will be, to get "all" the truck traffic coming in from south and east, as well as the motorhomes, tourists, etc. that have no reason to go into the new industrial site.
This location will be furthur enhanced when boundary road becomes a bypass route with a new bridge across the Fraser, and connection to 16 west somewhere around Haldi road.

The new connector will really help get industry off the feeders into the city as well, and into their own area where the general public won't have to be greeted by sprawling industrial yards and all its blight for their first impression of this "could be" beautifull city.

We've got a lot of work to do before this happens, and its time to get on with it now, when so many of us have lost our jobs, and need the work, and there are trades people available. Two years ago you couldn't find a contractor to build something for you to "save your life". They were all busy building the big buck projects, or over in Alberta cashing in on big oil prices.

How times have changed !!

palomino