Federal dollars pledged for Alaska Highway renovations
Plan will see intersections and turnoffs permanently closed to reduce risk of collisions
The federal government is giving up to $13.2 million to the Yukon government so it can renovate parts of the Alaska Highway and make it safer.
Some turnoffs on the highway have seen recurring problems. The intersection of the Alaska Highway and Range Road saw 14 crashes from 2010 to 2016, according to statistics from Yukon's Department of Highways and Public Works.
In January, a little further down the road, Whitehorse resident Megan Breen's vehicle was rear-ended and pushed in front of a transport truck while waiting to turn off of the Alaska Highway.
The new federal contribution, announced Friday, promises to help reroute certain roads and reduce the number of turnoffs on the Alaska Highway between Robert Service Way and Two Mile Hill Road.
Some smaller intersections and turnoffs will be permanently closed and replaced by a larger hub with a traffic light near the airport.
'I always shudder': MP
The intersection at Sumanik Drive will be closed permanently, and Range Road will be extended to direct traffic toward a new intersection with a traffic light.
The territorial government will be doing further consultations about work to access the Hillcrest neighbourhood.
Yukon MP Larry Bagnell said the changes will make the highway safer.
"I always shudder when you have to turn off when there's not a turning lane. And so I'm very excited any time that the highway is upgraded to make such safety improvements," Bagnell said.
The Yukon government said the work near Sumanik Drive will happen in July.
New Whitehorse operations building
This comes as Whitehorse prepares a new main operations building for city staff, bus services and its fleet of vehicles near the site.
Yukon Highways and Public Works Minister Richard Mostyn said the building will likely mean several hundred more vehicles entering and leaving the highway every day.
Mostyn said the new operations building was "absolutely" a factor in the territorial and federal governments' spending to extend Range Road and extend Sumanik Drive and to begin work there.
"There's a lot happening in this stretch of highway. There's the new city building, we're getting commercial development along the highway. There's talk of a quarry so it's really a dangerous, very constricted, heavily trafficked region," Mostyn said.
A press conference held in Whitehorse Friday featured federal Minister of Rural Economic Development Bernadette Jordan who is in Whitehorse to consult with various groups.
The federal funding and announcement of specific construction timelines comes after Yukon's Liberal government went back to the drawing board on a series of modifications proposed for the Alaska Highway, which had been put in motion by the previous Yukon Party government.
The project was open to public comments under the Yukon Environmental and Socio-Economic Review Board until March 7.