Intersection safety addressed by joint councils

By Greg Price
Vauxhall Advance
gprice@tabertimes.com

The M.D. of Taber and Town of Taber have been lobbying the provincial government and Alberta Transportation for several years looking to improve the safety at the intersection of Highway 3 and Highway 864.

Both councils were updated on that endeavour in its joint council meeting at the administration building in late June.

“According to Alberta Transportation specifications and traffic counts, the intersection at that time did not warrant traffic signal lights. With continuing lobbying with the Town of Taber and M.D. of Taber, Alberta Transportation finally agreed to a three-way partnership to add the signal lights,” said Craig Pittman, public works superintendent for the M.D. of Taber.
“The agreement was signed by all three parties for the construction costs.”

Alberta Transportation made inquiries into the operation and maintenance costs of the lights on which the M.D. responded that those costs in the future should be made by Alberta Transportation itself, given they own the infrastructure.

“At this point, we haven’t heard back on that,” said Pittman.

There was an estimated cost originally of $750,000 for the lights project, in which a total tender cost came in at $748,098.47, for a split share of $246,032.82 each, which included engineering and contingency.

To save on tendering costs, Alberta Transportation allowed the M.D. to include the four street lights at the intersection of Highway 3 and Range Road 17-1 into the original tender for the traffic signal lights. The original estimate for the street lights was $120,000 and the tender price came in at $98,084.83 (paid for only by the M.D.), giving a savings by tendering with another project. The total cost to the M.D. one-third portion of the traffic signal lights and the intersection lighting was $344,117.35.

The M.D. of Taber will be responsible to maintain and operate the lights at the Highway 3/Range Road 17-1 intersection.

Meeting chairman and Deputy Reeve, Merrill Harris, inquired about the timeline of the project.
“It is going to construction in 2018, later this summer,” said Pittman.

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