Prince George leaders are joining the call for a major overhaul of Highway 97 through Quesnel. Other northern communities may soon follow.

In a financial world where construction costs only ever go up, and in a northern economic world where commercial transport trucks and tourist traffic are only expected to grow in the years ahead through northern B.C., the northern capital sees the value in the long desired Quesnel North-South Interconnector project.

Quesnel’s council table asked their Prince George counterparts to provide a statement of support for the expensive but, they believe, practical route revamp that would breathe long new life into the Quesnel River Bridge, the overhead crossing of the rail lines, and take traffic (especially important for trucks and other large rigs) away from Quesnel’s downtown core. The bridge and overhead are both near the end of their life and need replacing anyway, so, according to Quesnel City Hall, why not replace them good and properly, as has been the carefully analyzed goal for some time.

The request was officially received in the public agenda package at the Prince George meeting of mayor and council on Aug. 28.

“This project has been on hold by the Province due to other local and provincial road priorities which took precedence over the Interconnector,” said mayor Ron Paull in the statement to Prince George leaders. The interconnector is a bypass-type project which will provide significant benefits to the region and anyone travelling or shipping goods either north or south on Highway 97 through Quesnel.”

Some of the broader benefits of the project outlined by Quesnel’s advocates were:

• Improvement in safety due to dangerous goods and other heavy traffic being moved away from downtown and the hospital.

• Most heavy truck traffic will be gone from downtown Quesnel, reducing downtown traffic congestion, and improving safety outcomes. Seven traffic lights would be bypassed. Pedestrian/vehicular interactions would be minimized.

• Travel time improvements through Quesnel. The traffic bottlenecks in downtown Quesnel would be bypassed.

• The lack of alternative routes, combined with the age and deterioration of the infrastructure make this a high-risk section of Highway 97…The traffic backs up very quickly in the event of a temporary bridge shutdown.

“The goal of Quesnel City Council is to get this project back into the Provincial capital project queue, as it has already undergone the feasibility phases and the business case analysis,” said Paull. “The plan for the interconnector completely rethinks the traffic flows in downtown Quesnel.”

The letter was received by Prince George mayor and council but was not discussed during the public meeting. The Observer learned afterwards via mayor Simon Yu that a letter of support was indeed going to be provided to hopefully jumpstart the rehabilitation of this northern B.C. pressure point on the highway.

“Our letter went out to all municipalities and Regional Districts north of 100 Mile House,” Paull told The Observer. “We are receiving positive feedback. The next part of our letter writing campaign will be to trucking companies, charter bus companies, Northern Health (Northern Connections bus), Prince Rupert Port Authority, major industries such as mills and mines, First Nations and Highway 97 users and stakeholders in general. We are compiling all feedback and letters of support into a professionally prepared compendium that I’ll be personally presenting to the Minister of Highways, and hopefully the Premier, early in the new year.”

For an animated video rendering of what the new route would look like, based on years of preliminary assessment and feasibility studies, go to the online version of this story.

infrastructureQuesnel