Ring road slowly nearing a deal

Step by step, the bureaucrats are making their way down the path that will lead them to completion of Calgary’s ring road.

Progress, however slow it might be, is still being made in the final tweaking needed by both sides to strike a deal between the province and Tsuu T’ina Nation.

Trent Bancarz with Alberta Infrastructure and Transportation said while nothing’s been officially signed, negotiations have gone “very well” and everyone’s working hard to make it happen.

“The negotiations are very complex in nature,” he said. “Unfortunately, they’re a bit time-consuming.”

He hopes something will be determined sometime this year, but others aren’t holding their breath.

“I think we’re a ways away yet to having a signed-off agreement,” Mayor Dave Bronconnier said, adding that final drafts have been around for a long time without much being officialized.

Jim Royer, president of the Lakeview Community Association, says he’s “cautiously optimistic.”

“We’ve heard a number of times that progress is being made … and then nothing happened,” Royer said, but added that multi-layered agreements take time.

The province announced a public/private partnership yesterday for the southwest leg of the ring road, slated to begin construction in the spring of 2010 and open in 2013.

It will also create hundreds of much-needed jobs, say both Bronconnier and Bancarz.

“I don’t know exactly how many people this would employ, but it’s certainly significant,” Bancarz said. “I think it would be in the hundreds.”

Bronconnier said he was pleased the province is investing funds into infrastructure.

“Now is not the time to be timid,” he said, adding that costs for this project are much lower than they would have been several years ago.

The project is comparable to the $630-billion cost of the northeast section, Bancarz said.

The 25-kilometre stretch will give an alternative route to the 175,000 cars that travel Deerfoot daily.