Hwy 3 twinning design a major threat: landowners

Southern Alberta Newspapers Image Courtesy of the Government of Alberta.

By Zoe Mason
Southern Alberta Newspapers

A group of southern Alberta landowners say the design for twinning Highway 3 is threatening their livelihoods, and the government’s public engagement has failed to take their suggestions into account.

Plans are currently underway to twin the 36 kilometre stretch of Highway 3 between Whitla and Medicine Hat upon completion of the 46 kilometres of twinned highway between Taber and Burdett later this year. 

The Highway 3 Resident and Landowner Coalition is concerned the proposal for twinning the next planned stretch of Highway 3 will disrupt access from farms to the highway and incur substantial costs for neighbouring agricultural operations.

With too few at-grade intersections, the coalition says impacted landowners will be required to build service roads across their own property on their own dime, disrupting operations and spoiling irrigated plots and pastures.

“The coalition is not against the twinning,” says Brian Palichuk, a landowner and livestock producer with the coalition. “What we are against is how they’re treating access.”

The proposed design considers Highway 3 a freeway, which imposes restrictions on access that preclude direct property access from the farm gate to the roadway. The coalition is asking the Ministry of Transportation to classify it as a highway instead, which would loosen restrictions on at-grade intersections and other access points.

Palichuk says landowners would be expected to foot the bill for constructing their own roads across their properties to access the nearest range road. They would also have to forfeit productive agricultural land to build those roads.

“We all use every inch of the property we have to make things efficient. So when you come across and start to alter the access and change a bunch of things, you change every operation that’s currently along Highway 3,” he said.

“It’s a huge impact to all of us that are located directly on the highway.”

More than 160 people attended the meeting that produced the coalition just over a month ago. More than 100 of them signed a petition submitted to the legislature asking the Ministry of Transportation to consider concerns.

NDP MLA and shadow minister of transportation Lorne Dach raised the petition in the legislature on April 21.

“The petition asked for practical measures, including preserving functional farmland and residential access where safety allows, incorporating agricultural median crossings where required, and considering alternative engineered solutions,” he said.

Dach also accused Cypress-Medicine Hat MLA Justin Wright of abruptly cancelling a meeting with the coalition.

Wright says that meeting was not cancelled, but postponed until after the two info sessions in Medicine Hat and Seven Persons in late April. 

Wright says he has brought all stakeholder concerns to come his way to the Ministry of Transportation.

But Palichuk says the coalition feels as though their concerns have been falling on deaf ears.

He says the ministry has failed to provide supporting evidence that demonstrates why the roadway should be designated as a freeway. The majority of similarly trafficked roadways across the province are designated highway.

The Ministry of Transportation did not respond to a request for comment from Southern Alberta Newspapers.

Initial info sessions related to the twinning were held in September 2024, and Wright says the project design has been updated to reflect the feedback received back then.

The design presented at the April 27 info session includes four at-grade intersections. Palichuk says it isn’t enough.

While safety is a commonly cited reason to crack down on intersections, Palichuk says the ministry has failed to produce any studies to illustrate that point. In fact, the coalition is concerned that stifling roadway access will obstruct emergency services.

“There’s safety issues involved. When it comes to ambulances, fire trucks, it just adds extra kilometres that are not required. It’s not reasonable at all.”

Palichuk says he thinks the province needs to go back to the drawing board. While the coalition is happy to compromise, he says there needs to be better communication between stakeholders and government to make that happen.

He said the April 27 info session was more of a presentation of facts than an invitation for discourse.

Wright’s rescheduled meeting with the coalition is set for May 8. He says he knows stakeholders still have unanswered questions, and he will continue to mediate discussions between the appropriate ministries and his constituents.

Wright says everyone is on the same side about benefits of the twinning project.

“It’s going to open up additional, safer routes to get our goods to market,” Wright says. “It’s going to be an avenue through which we are going to see some pretty substantial infrastructure investments into this region. I spent quite a bit of time at Treasury Board advocating to make sure it was in this budget.”

“This is huge for our region, and it’s going to bring some real positives into the space.”

Highway 3 is the last highway in Alberta recognized as part of the national highway system that has not been twinned.

The Alberta Chambers of Commerce calls it a key interprovincial and international corridor route. It also endorses classifying it as highway rather than freeway.