City highway expanding

Ron Seymour Kelowna Courier:
Highway 97 through Kelowna will be widened to six lanes in a $14.6-million road-improvement project to be announced today. The federal and provincial governments are contributing $10.5 million, while the city is providing $4.1 million. The project involves the addition of a third westbound lane between Highway 33 and Gordon Drive, repaving of the route, landscaping improvements and new sidewalks. “This is something that we‘ve been waiting to see for a long time,” Kelowna-Lake Country MP Ron Cannan said Wednesday. “We want to move traffic as efficiently as possible through the city.” When work is completed in the fall of 2009, it‘s expected that the curb lanes in each direction will be designated as HOV, or high-occupancy vehicle lanes. That means they could be used only by vehicles carrying at least two people, and by transit buses, emergency vehicles and possibly commercial truckers.

“The six-laning of Highway 97 is a huge step forward, and having the HOV lanes may encourage more people to carpool,” said Kelowna Coun. Norm Letnick. “Ultimately, my vision is to see a second lake crossing and a real highway that skirts the city, with grade-separated interchanges rather than intersections,” following the route of the planned Central Okanagan Bypass, Letnick said. In the meantime, he said, it‘s important to focus on improving traffic flow on Highway 97, and six-laning the route through the city will help to achieve that goal. Plans for widening Highway 97 to six lanes were first presented to council in October 2006, with a projected completion date of early 2008. Delays apparently occurred in some of the necessary property acquisition. As well, designation of the highway as part of the national highway system opened the door to some federal funding for upgrading projects, Cannan said. Details of the project will be formally presented at a press conference set for 9 a.m. at the Parkinson Recreation Centre.
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Que., Ottawa announce $4 billion infrastructure deal CBC News

Quebec will receive $4 billion for infrastructure projects under a new agreement signed with the federal government Wednesday afternoon. Federal Transport Minister Lawrence Cannon and Heritage Minister Josée Verner signed the agreement with Quebec government officials in Quebec City days ahead of a probable federal election. The Conservative government has been busy in the past few days making a series of new spending announcements totalling millions of dollars But Cannon denied the infrastructure money has anything to do with Canadians heading to the polls.