Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to follow up on my Member’s statement earlier today. I have a very simple question for the Minister of Transportation. I’m sure he anticipates it.
Will he in fact finally address the Highway No. 3 issue between Niven access road and downtown Yellowknife for the safety of our residents during the life of this Assembly? Mahsi.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Minister of Transportation, Mr. Beaulieu.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Back in 2011 there was a Public Transit Fund that was given to the city to try to resolve the issue of the crossing at Niven Lake. After carefully examining the project – they were looking at an underpass, actually – after carefully examining that and having some difficulty with getting some land on the Niven Lake side of the road, it was determined to be unfeasible and the money was spent on another transit project within the city. Thank you.
I didn’t hear an answer to my question there, but I haven’t been totally unsuccessful. Over the seven-plus years I’ve been working on this, we got traffic slowed down a little with the new speed limit and we actually got some streetlights. So there’s been a little progress there, which I appreciated. This is over the course of many Transportation Ministers.
Heroes do not grow on trees. I ask the Minister, would he like to be a hero? Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, I apologize for not answering the question the first time. We have been looking for a solution. It’s a very difficult situation. The thing is that we have to get the people from the Niven side of the road to this side of the road, on this side of the Assembly at some point before they get to the rock cliff on which the Explorer sits, because at that point there’s no more room on that side of the road. So at any time you get walking traffic, people who are walking across the road, which was fairly high speed traffic right up to here – it was 60 kilometres – so the signs were moved to the other side of Niven and the speed was decreased to 45 all the way to the other side of Niven to slow the traffic down. Like the Member said, lights and traffic seem to be as far as we’ve been able to come.
Any time we are encouraging individuals to walk across – it’s not officially a highway, it’s a Yellowknife access road, actually – at any of those speeds, especially in the wintertime and the way they’re facing the traffic, or with their back to the traffic, it becomes difficult. It’s just not a simple solution. We don’t think that putting up flashing yellow lights actually makes it any safer for the pedestrians who are accessing that to come to the city. Our suggestion is that they use an alternative route to get to the city. Thank you.
I realize this is not an easy issue, but I also recognize that there’s been darn little done in the seven-plus years and people are unsafe. So, the opposite of a hero is somebody who fails to act and is responsible for accidents, where people get injured or killed. We already know that not far down the line this has happened already.
Is the Minister willing to accept that responsibility without doing anything? He’s got the experts. I’m throwing ideas out there. That’s fine. If my ideas don’t work, come up with one.
Will the Minister come up with a good interim solution and put things in place to get this done as soon as possible? Mahsi.
Like I indicated, there’s no easy solution. Even if we were to build an underpass, again, that would be fine for individuals returning to Niven because they would be facing traffic and then going under the underpass to get home to their proper side or the Niven side of the road. But that doesn’t solve the issue of the people coming to the city because their backs will be to the traffic. Then, as most people know, the highway becomes sort of a three lane as you turn into the Legislative Assembly and the museum. So, again, that’s a little bit of an unsafe area for pedestrians to be walking.
At this point, I realize that pedestrians are being vigilant to ensure their own safety, and I’m saying that we are looking at the possibility of putting up the flashing lights and the crossing, but we’re not sure that that is the safest thing to do. So, we will continue to look at it and try to come up with a solution. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Bromley.
I don’t know what to say, Mr. Speaker. What is it going to take? We have a brand new hotel going in this summer; we have the Explorer Hotel being expanded; we have the increasing size of Niven as more and more development takes place there. Somebody is going to get hurt.
When will the Minister fix this situation and protect our people? Thank you.
The solution most likely lies outside the jurisdiction of the Minister of Transportation; however, we will meet with the city. We will talk to our MACA counterparts. If there’s going to be a new hotel built in there, maybe there’s a solution where there could be a trail coming off this end of the Niven Lake development, coming into the area near the Explorer. That’s the only solution.
Any time you start having traffic on a road that has fast-moving vehicles, it is an unsafe situation. It would be similar to just having people walk on the road down Franklin as opposed to walking on the sidewalk. So, what I’m saying is unless we’re able to find room to build a sidewalk on the other side, which would be probably pretty expensive, considering the rock face at Explorer, we would most likely find a solution between ourselves, MACA and the city, which will probably mean a trail. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Member for Inuvik Boot Lake, Mr. Moses.
