INNISFAIL - After hearing repeated public complaints over the past five years, the town may soon move to finally fix the troublesome intersection at 53rd Avenue and 56th Street.
"It is very bad, and personally I have witnessed trucks and campers coming into the (Anthony Henday) campground with their back end of their trailers dragging on the asphalt," said Mayor Jim Romane last week while pointing out the intersection has long had serious drainage issues. "We know that, the engineers know that. It is falling apart because of the lack of drainage and the pooling."
Romane brought up the issue during council's regular meeting on May 28. The mayor said although the intersection issue did not make the list of priorities for either the past council and new council, he implored administration, despite its current heavy workload, to prepare a report for remedial action later this year.
"It's time. It was an intersection that was designed 10 or 15 years ago when there was no housing development back there," said Romane. "It was an intersection to accommodate the campground and a few acreages and that is it but now we have some 200 homes back in there, and it is servicing the campground and the ski hill. It just has become a busy little intersection and it is sub-standard."
Although the cost to fix the intersection is not in the town's 2018 budget, Romane suggested the town could save a little bit of money from some of the other contracts that are on the books, like the 49A Avenue project that came in under budget. While recognizing staff is currently hard at work with an ambitious Strategic Plan agenda, Romane is convinced there is already enough background engineering research on the intersection that it should not be an onerous task for staff to have the file reopened, move forward and have the necessary work done this year.
"It is all contracted work. We are not looking at using our own people for any of the construction work. It will be a tendered project," said Romane.
Council was expected to be presented with a follow-up report from administration at its regular meeting on June 11. It was expected the report would detail options, costs and timelines to have the intersection finally fixed later this year.
