It’s nice to hear that Hwy. 686 is going to be paved, finally. That’s great news for the people who have been putting up with mud and dust and cracked windshields (and what have you) for many years on that route connecting Red Earth Creek and Peerless Lake.
Looking at it from a Slave Lake perspective, we can’t help thinking that if the southern section Hwy. 88 keeps falling apart at the rate it has been, and new asphalt keeps getting applied in remoter, less-busy parts of the north, the Slave Lake area will have a reputation of having the worst roads in the province.
Third World standards, here we come!
But again, good for the folks up north, for whom this has been a long time in coming.
Of course it’s no coincidence this big announcement is being made just before a provincial election. That probably goes without saying, but we’ll mention it anyway. There’s an implication (probably, but not necessarily, unspoken) that if you want this to happen, you’d better vote for us. Because an NDP government might have other priorities.
The same goes for every other promise being made these days by the Smith government.
Another good example of this sort of thing was the promise the Don Getty PC government back in 1988 or so, following the Slave Lake flood. The hospital got swamped on that occasion, and Barrhead-area MLA and Minister of the Environment Ken Kowalski visited the site and pledged a new hospital for Slave Lake. It took another 10 years or so before the government got around to doing anything about it.
The difference between then and now is that back then, the governing PCs, along with pretty much everyone else, did not believe the party could lose an election. Their campaign promises were therefore that much less reliable.
It’s a different story now.
Breaking news, Slave Lake and area does indeed have the worst roads in the province, by far. And this is certainly nothing new. I’ve lived in the neighbourhood for thirty years, the very first thing I noticed upon coming to the area in ‘94 was the horrendous roads. Nothing has changed. The province and the MD spend next to nothing on road maintenance, but boy howdy, they sure talk the talk and spread propaganda about all their hard work and efforts. Have you driven on the roads east of town in the past twenty years?? The old smith highway is nothing more than a log haul road. The MD manages for the roads for industry, not for ratepayers and residents