A tragic head-on collision this past Friday on Highway 63 between Edmonton and Fort McMurray, near Wandering River, killed seven people, including two children and one woman who was six months pregnant. Two survivors include a little boy who lost his mother, father and brother, and the husband of the woman expecting his first child.
The highway, with only single-lane traffic for more than 200 kilometres, has been nicknamed the Highway of Death and has seen 1,000 crashes between 2001 and 2005, killing 25 people and injuring 257 others. It connects Edmonton to Fort McMurray and the Athabasca oilsands and sees increasing traffic each year.
The Alberta government gave into public pressure in 2006 and announced plans to twin 240 kilometres of the road and as of October 2009, 16 kilometres have been finished.
With seven lives added to the growing tally of people who have died because of the dangerous conditions on this road, it's hard to understand how fixing this situation is not higher up on the provincial priority list.
People across the country have been signing an online petition (change.org/petitions/alberta-goverment-twin-alberta-s-highway-63) in an attempt to pressure the government into keeping their promise to twin the highway before more lives are lost, and at press deadline nearly 9,000 have already signed it, only three days after the tragedy.
The petition is filled with comments from those who live in Fort McMurray now or have lived there in the past, who have lost friends and family on the highway.
Twinning Highway 63 is more than an election promise, more than an announcement that can be shelved when times get tough and the budget doesn't show the numbers we would like. It's something that needs to be done, that should have been done years ago.
