As a farmer who uses (Highway) 2A to move farm equipment, I also have concerns with the concrete medians, which I believe many other farmers do too.
With these new concrete medians, it is impossible to move some of our equipment now such as combines, air drills, high clearance sprayers and swathers.
Although Alberta Transportation says the road is wide enough, had they considered the fact it is a highway, and that Olds is a major agricultural hub with three large farm equipment dealers located in the town?
I did notice several pieces of farm equipment going to the World Plowing Championship having extreme difficulty and literally driving over the median to pass through that area.
With the spruce and elm trees leaning over the road on the west side, even trucks with large trailers behind them are being scratched and damaged by these trees.
On the east side of 2A you have light poles located right next to the curb not allowing any room for a larger load to pass.
Olds College constantly gets the local equipment dealers to supply them with equipment to use for students' studies; it's kind of odd that an agricultural-based college would also agree to have limited access for the equipment they need.
No doubt other businesses, such as the auction mart and companies located in the south Olds industrial park have issues with these medians not allowing their traffic to safely pass through.
With travel restricted on 2A for farm equipment now, I guess the best alternative is to use 49 (Avenue) as a bypass of 2A.
A question for Alberta Transportation is why could they not have painted lines to achieve the same goal as concrete medians?
Therefore allowing free flow of all traffic on 2A.
Jeff Nielsen,
Mountain View County
