Bonnyville wants in the loop on Highway 28 plans; Cyr feels new value map under-represents region

This map is being built by the Alberta government to show the value of commodities that are transported on it. The red lines represent hundreds of millions of dollars. The thicker the line — the more money that’s transported.

With the anticipation of Highway 28 construction happening some time in the future, some concern is being raised about the lack of community, as well as the downplaying of economic value the roadway is being displayed with.

MLA Scott Cyr dropped into last Tuesday’s Bonnyville town council meeting to answer questions.

Councillor Byron Johnson alluded to Highway 28 going to tender without plans in the tender, nor the opportunity for the Town to provide input.

This stems from a Northern Alberta Mayors and Reeves meeting where Transportation Minister Devin Dreeshen first discussed plans.

“The concern for us here in the Town of Bonnyville is that we have not been asked our input on Highway 28, whether Highway 28 going through the town or leading up to the town, right?” said Mayor Elisa Brosseau on The Morning After. 

“I believe the minister’s response to Councillor Johnson was that we were going to get back to us within a week. It was already a week, and we hadn’t heard anything. And so that was the just information that was passed along to MLA Cyr, was that we were told they were going to get a hold of us. They haven’t. Can you help us advocate to ensure that we’re at the table?”  

So far, just the original money for the engineering and structural plans have been pledged by the province.

Bonnyville and Cold Lake pressed the province hard following the 2024 Budget, that no longterm dollars had been set aside in the next three year capital budget.

Cyr had also previously said that the engineers may suggest changes to the highway path, not ruling out moving the highway path from directly into Bonnyville on Main Street, to a whole new bypass.

Plus, there is a concern with a draft of a new commodities map from Alberta Transportation and Economic Corridors. This map shows the value of the traffic on Alberta roadways and Cyr was not pleased to see what he thinks is under-representation on the map.

He wants help from the municipalities to get this message out there.

“When it comes to the criteria, what we’re looking at there is travel over 80 kilometers. We have a ton of travel here under 80 kilometers, but we do see a lot of that is actually putting commodities into pipelines,” Cyr told council at the meeting.

“We’re not tracking pipelines right now. I think that is an important thing, that a lot of value or revenues are coming out of our constituency, when it comes to commodity flow, if you will. It may not be going on the highways, but it is going through pipelines.”