Four lanes for Highway 16?

The Premier while appearing on a Prince George public access program, threw out a few trial balloons for the North. One will be received quite well by Northerners, as Gordon Campbell said that before he leaves office he would like to see a Cancer clinic located in Prince George, a plan designed to bring cancer care closer to those that live in the Northern regions of the province.

From there he moved on to the always popular topic of roads in British Columbia, identifying the bottle neck of Kicking Horse pass as his first priority when it comes to improving highways through the province.

But of interest to Northern BC residents would be his wish to see both Highway 97 and Highway 16 turned into twinned highways, high capacity routes that reduce the dangerous passing zones and will allow more traffic to flow through the interior of the province from North to South.

For North Coast residents a word of caution, he didn’t actually say if he felt that the western reaches of Highway 16 would require the extra lanes, perhaps just limited to the approaches to Prince George, but it would be a welcome thing further west on some of the stretches of the highway where locals take a deep breath before they pull out to pass.

Thinking ahead to further development of the Fairview Container Port, the overflow of containers for the dedicated train runs would probably move by road, twinning the highway through to Prince George would go a great way towards improving delivery times across the province.

It’s only speculation and of course whenever politicians make suggestions one has to take them with a grain of salt, but the improving economic climate expected in the Northwest in the next few years might actually lead to some concrete investment in the local highway situation.

Something that would be a welcome change for the better as far as northwest travellers are concerned.