A Highway Bypass: It’s a case of be careful what you wish for. The talk of a bypass has been talked about for many years and has met with mixed reactions. The residents appear to see a bypass as a blessing that will see oversized loads; dangerous goods and the high volume of bus’ removed from Highway 15/21. People commuting to and from the plants will appreciate being able to travel at highway speed limits without numerous traffic lights and photo radar to contend with. Businesses on the other hand have expressed the concern that a bypass will result in 1) businesses moving closer to the new highway 2) people using the bypass to go around the Fort and shop in Sherwood Park or Edmonton.
Ironically, the Highway 15/21 was the original bypass which resulted in businesses slowing migrating from downtown to adjacent to the highway resulting in a struggling downtown and the demise of the Fort Mall. Proper planning back in the 60’s or early 70’s should have ensured that the two highway corridors would be protected as highways with proper service roads being put in place; sufficient room for interchanges that would allow traffic to access businesses, over or underpasses for pedestrians; then we mean we would not be having this conversation today. As we know, just about every City has had a highway run through it at one point in time or another and many of those cities, just as Fort Saskatchewan, insisted on turning the highways into urban roadways, they now have bypasses going around them and they are now just an exit sign on a new highway.
The Province is in the business of moving traffic and when municipalities turn highways into urban streets, it leaves the Province no choice but to plan for bypasses. In my opinion, as long as the Fort is going to continue to push Highways 15/21 as an Urban Street, then a bypass is required. I also believe that if we want to protect our community and businesses, we should be negotiating to have the bypass as close to the Fort as possible which may result in people still continuing to come to the Fort to do their business. If the proposed bypass is put to far away, it will only be a matter of time before businesses once again follow the traffic flows and over the course of time will again migrate to where the traffic flows are. As I said before, one must be careful what they wish for because their wish may just come true.
