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Big money for Lake Country highway

As expected... the province and feds have announced funding for a major highway improvement project in Lake Country.

Members of local, provincial, and federal governments were in Reiswig Regional Park on Woods Lake on Thursday afternoon for the $77.9 million announcement.

The two-lane section of Highway 97 between Winfield and Oyama has been called a death-trap. The windy stretch of road along Woods Lake has been responsible for numerous car crashes... four fatal ones since 2005.

Kevin Falcon says, "The whole thing will be completed by 2012.  I think you'll start to see some clearing and grubbing once we get through the environmental assessment, the property acquisition, and the detailed design.  You'll see some of that stuff happening probably late 2009 or 2010."

Exactly where the bypass will link to the existing highway?  Seems that's still up in the air.  Falcon says, "I think that's part of the discussions that they're having through the public process.  We've had some public meetings.  We're going to move into the next stage, which is more detailed design, functional design, where we will discuss the real specifics of the route."

And as for the old highway, seems details still need to be ironed out about that, too.  Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day tells us, "They'll work out the details on that.  I'm not sure exactly what's going to happen with the old one, I'm kind of focused on the new one."

The province and the federal governments are teaming up to build a four lane highway west of the existing route.  The feds are providing $33.6 million through the new Building Canada Fund.  The province is bringing $44.3 million to the table.

Denise Wong - Astral Media Radio News (Kelowna)