Trans-Canada Twinning complete through Banff National Park
Posted Jun 13, 2014 11:23 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
It’s finally complete.
The 82 kilometers of the Trans-Canada Highway has been twinned through Banff National Park.
The third-and final-phase was finished from Castle Junction to the British Columbia border on the heels of a $317-million investment from the Government of Canada over the last decade.
Blake Richards, Member of Parliament for Wild Rose says there are many benefits to people driving through the park.
“Public safety in terms of travel that goes through the park, it helps improve wildlife mortality on the highway and then obviously helps to improve that flow of goods and service on a very crucial national highway so it’s something that is a very significant accomplishment,” he explains. “That involved about a $317-million investment over the last decade through three different government of Canada initiative, one was the Asia/Pacific Gateway initiative, the Gateways and Border Crossings fund and of course Canada’s Economic Action Plan was a part of it as well.”
The upgraded highway is projected to result in about an 80% reduction of fatal vehicle collisions for people.
The span of highway through the National Park has more wildlife crossings than any other highway in the world of that length.
The crossings and animal exclusion fences have reduced wildlife-vehicle collisions by over 80%.
