A strongly worded letter from Lac La Biche County Council about poor highway maintenance in the region has resulted in a planned meeting with Alberta Transportation officials.
The letter, sent in December, questioned the road conditions on area highways during the winter months-even going so far as to question whether a lack of timely maintenance played a role in the deaths of three people in highway crashes in late November.
“Poor road conditions may have contributed to the deaths of three Lac La Biche area residents over three days on Highways 881 and 36,” the letter reads. “Whether it is due to limited resources or funding, Carillion Canada continuously fails to clear provincial highways within our County to acceptable standards.”
Carillion is the company contracted to plow, grade and sand the highways in Lac La Biche County. Mayor Omer Moghrabi says the purpose of Council’ s letter isn’ t to heap blame on Carillion, but rather to highlight a problem that’ s been generating concern for some time now.
“I don’ t think you resolve anything by always blaming somebody,” he said. “You find out what the problems are and you work towards solving them.”
The mayor says that, for years, roads outside of the Lac La Biche area are better maintained in the wintertime. Because it’ s a long-standing issue, he and the other local politicians mean to get to the bottom of it.
“It’ s something that’ s plagued this County for years,” he said. “There could be a lot of factors that affect it but we want to know what they are. Is it equipment? Is it manpower? There’ s a lot of questions that we’ re going to ask.”
The second half of the letter is a plea for resources to be better distributed in the region, saying the sheer amount of highways to be maintained doesn’ t leave much room for efficiency or timeliness in Carillion’ s operations.
“Currently (with the exception of a satellite stockpile on Highway 55-east near Beaver River) the entire County is serviced out of Lac La Biche,” it reads. “The current setup results in one-way haul distances of between 45 to 90 kilometres for sanding with the same 45 to 90 kilometres return trip to reload.”
The letter suggests maintaining stockpiles at other points along the highways to reduce sanding times and also asks for “enhanced manpower and equipment” to “improve the current standard of safety being experienced.”
Moghrabi says he’ ll be meeting with Alberta Transportation representatives in the coming weeks.
Council’ s letter was addressed to Premier Jim Prentice but also sent to the Ministers of Transportation and Municipal Affairs.
The POST contacted Prentice and Transportation Minister Wayne Drysdale’ s offices to request comments, but spokespeople in both departments weren’ t able to confirm for certain that Council’ s letter had been received and read.
