County of Grande Prairie councillors have thrown their support behind a proposed roundabout for the intersection of Highway 43 and Highway 733 near Bezanson.
The decision comes after Alberta Transportation requested support to upgrade the intersection, which is something County of Grande Prairie Reeve Leanne Beaupre says has been a long time coming.
“It’s one of those transportation infrastructure projects we’ve been advocating for as many years as I can remember,” she says.
“Previous councilors, and even the sitting councillor there today have heard over and over again about the safety concerns, there have been multiple fatalities over the years, and many near misses,” she adds.
Beaupre says they had a pair of options to choose from, a roundabout, which would be similar to that at Highway 43X and Range Road 63, or a full set of traffic lights, such as those in place near Mayerthorpe. She adds they’ve been working with the province many years to come up with a design that would actually accommodate the needs of the people in Bezanson as well as the other communities that would often travel through that stretch of the highway.
“Council supported the roundabout option with the understanding it was going to be larger than we see on Highway 43x, that will accommodate large traffic volumes,” she says.
“Both of them slow down the traffic so there is an opportunity to safely leave that intersection, but a roundabout doesn’t bring traffic to a complete stop.”
Beaupre says while they support the idea behind the roundabout, but are waiting to see finalized designs of the project before giving their final go ahead.