Although ideal for some residents in Lethbridge, the idea of a third river crossing being built sometime in the near future may not be realistic, according to Mayor Chris Spearman.
A fatal accident, just weeks ago, along with two reported accidents on highway three left some west side residents stuck on the south side for hours.
From it, came the thought of a third bridge being built to prevent similar circumstances in the future.
Tiffany Wetrade, west side resident, was stuck in traffic for almost two hours and believes a third river crossing in the city is necessary.
“It’s been years in the making, to be stuck in traffic for that long is absurd. We definitely need a third bridge in Lethbridge,” she said.
However, Spearman, feels that although it is something that could benefit the city, the costs are too high.
“Right now we don’t have any money allocated to it and no funding. The cost is probably a minimum of $150 million which is equivalent to a 15 per cent tax increase over a 15-year period,” he said.
Spearman claims without external help from other levels of government, it’s just not practical at this time.
“That kind of commitment by the city of Lethbridge would preclude any other capital projects,” he added.
Lethbridge’s mayor plans to continue to talk to the provincial government about the possibility of funding a third bridge, but says the province sees this as a local issue.
“At this point in time they think that a bridge built entirely in this city would be seen as a local improvement and would have to funded by local taxpayers.”
Darwin Juell, Transportation Manager of Lethbridge, says from a traffic viewpoint a third bridge can’t be justified.
“It won’t be needed for 15 to 20 years from a traffic capacity perspective.”
However, he believes it will be needed from a redundancy or a safety point of view much earlier than that.
“As the traffic volumes increase, especially over the peak hours, the traffic accidents increase,” said Juell. Also, when there is any sort of maintenance on either crossing, residents will continue to bring up the issue.”
He added, as of right now, with the west side population being just over 30,000, a third bridge may not be necessary.
However, by the time the size of the west side doubles or triples, he believes the city will have a new bridge in place.
According to Spearman, there are times when traffic is less than ideal in this city, but he believes that two river crossings are enough at this point in time.
“For about 360 days out of the year, the two bridge system works for us, there are days that we have bad weather or we have an accident and that causes congestion on one bridge or the other, but it doesn’t happen very often,” he added.
Spearman added the province has their own plan to build a bridge bypassing the north side of the city over the next 15-20 years. The bypass will cross over in Diamond City connecting to highway three in between Lethbridge and Coaldale.
