EDMONTON - A major south Edmonton’s interchange that’s a key part of work to make the city a distribution hub is finally being built six years after it was originally announced.
The structure at Highway 2 and 41st Avenue southwest, the city border, is being put up primarily to serve the new CP Rail intermodal yard planned for the east side of the road, transportation general manager Bob Boutilier says.
But it will also improve access to the subdivisions springing up in the west, now reached mainly from Ellerslie Road and Anthony Henday Drive, he said Tuesday.
“There aren’t many ways to get out of there … This is going to provide great relief to the development traffic on that side of the road.”
The project was first made public in 2007, when the federal government pledged $75 million to what was then a $150-million scheme to improve trade corridors.
But work was delayed due to changes in priorities, timelines and design details, as well as decisions about whether to realign and widen Highway 2 at the same time, Boutilier said.
The updated interchange is now expected to cost $205 million. The federal contribution remains the same, with the city paying $72.5 million and the province putting in the remaining $57.5 million.
The exact price won’t be known until bids are submitted in spring 2013 on the project, which is being handled by the city and slated for completion in 2015.
There are no plans to widen the highway. The interchange is far enough south that it won’t require moving the tourist information office and oil derrick.
One feature the city will add is a tunnel under 41st Avenue so wildlife can safely cross around Blackmud Creek.
Although 41st Avenue is now a dirt road, it will be paved and widened, eventually linking to nearby 111th Street and to the industrial and residential buildings expected to spring up around the train yard, Boutilier said.
“If that interchange wasn’t there, the question would be: would CP want to put in an intermodal yard?” Boutilier said.
“It’s hundreds of millions of dollars they’re going to invest in that area because it’s not just replicating what’s downtown. They’re going to expand their business.”
Earth moving has started on the first phase of the intermodal yard for an auto-handling compound, Canadian Pacific spokesman Kevin Hrysak wrote in an email.
He couldn’t provide further details, saying an announcement will come at the end of next week.
Information posted on the company’s website indicates the facility will take up about 100 hectares along 41st Avenue southwest between the highway and 101st Street.
The railway plans to move its intermodal service, which transfers freight containers between trains and trucks, out of the yard near 99th Street and 39th Avenue.
Port Alberta board chairman Daryl Procinsky is happy the interchange is finally moving ahead.
“It had been stalled for six years and we were the ones that brought all the parties together before we lost federal funding for it. It’s absolutely crucial.”
Procinsky, whose organization wants to make Edmonton a North American transportation and logistical hub, expects distribution, storage, manufacturing and other businesses will spring up around the new intermodal yard.
“Whether it’s moving goods, manufacturing goods, delivering products from here, or delivering raw materials to here to manufacture products, transportation is absolutely crucial,” he said.
“Edmonton has this opportunity to be the most nimble logistics centre that serves the U.S., Eastern Canada or Asia.”
The Edmonton Journal