Coalition praises ministry efforts to improve Highway 3 as major project shuts down for winter

PENTICTON – Creation of the Highway 3 Mayors and Chairs Coalition is paying off with major safety improvements to the southern B.C. route.

As work on the $16 million realignment of Highway 3 between Sunday Creek and Sunday Summit shuts down for winter, Coalition chair and Castlegar mayor Lawrence Chernoff is praising the efforts of the Ministry of Transportation. He says great progress has been made in moving forward on improvements along Highway 3.

“It’s been a tremendous partnership between the Coalition and the Ministry. I can’t say enough about what the Ministry has done to further the coalition’s aims,” he says.

The Coalition sees improvements to Highway 3 as a critical part of economic development along the Highway 3 corridor.

Chernoff says the partnership, which began seven years ago, has really taken off in the past three years. He says all communities along Highway 3 from Hope to the Alberta border are seeing efforts made to improve the highway.

“It’s not only the big projects like the current work on Sunday Summit, it’s the small $1 million, $2 million jobs that are also still getting done. I can honestly say a lot of this wouldn’t have happened without the lobbying efforts of the coalition,” Chernoff says.

Ministry of Transportation spokesperson Kate Trotter says the Sunday Summit to Sunday Creek project is on schedule for completion by the fall of 2016.

Work completed to date includes excavating and grading of the realignment portion of the project and the installation of large culverts to assist with drainage.

Trotter says contractor Emil Anderson Construction is currently shutting down major project work for the winter. She says drivers will continue to use the original highway with no speed restrictions in the project zone over the winter.

The next construction phase, due to begin in spring 2016, includes tying in the newly aligned portion of the highway and final grading and paving.

To contact the reporter for this story, email Steve Arstad at sarstad@infonews.ca or call 250-488-3065. To contact the editor, email mjones@infonews.ca or call 250-718-2724.