Remember the old Sesame Street song One of These Things Doesn’t Belong Here?
Apparently, the people who administrate Alberta’s Department of Highways, Alberta Transportation – whatever they like to be called – did not get the message.
Next year, we’re told, Highway 2 through High Prairie is getting rehabilitated. It’s a fancy way of saying repaved, or mill and overlay.
It’s about time! Drivers must be sick and tired of dodging potholes despite the best efforts of local crews to repair them. The condition of the highway is embarrassing. Every MLA in Alberta should be forced to drive this disgrace for a road. If this existed in the streets leading to the Alberta Legislature, repairs would receive top priority, but since Premier Danielle Smith does not have to drive this goat path she can focus on more important matters like reducing the cost of living.
Come to think of it, a smart goat would avoid this treacherous disaster and cut a new trail!
When you didn’t think it could get worse, it did. Now we are told the curbs and gutters will not be done, only “between the curbs” as Town of High Prairie CAO David Joy puts it.
In what world could someone logically decide curbs and gutters would not be included in a major road project? It is a natural fit to do them at the same time. Doing the projects together would save time and money but the government bean counters in Edmonton seem to have little interest or logic in saving money. Our taxes are proof of that. Logic and accountability in Edmonton mix like vinegar and milk. Everything goes sour quickly and you get a rather stinky smell!
This writer was so naïve (nice way of saying stupid!) he did not believe this was true. He placed a call to the Town of McLennan, which recently had its highway through town repaved. Sure enough, the Town McLennan was saddled with the bill. No doubt Edmonton smiled when they got the cheque!
McLennan was not laughing.
And shame on me for assuming common sense would prevail!
As the old Sesame Street song goes, “Now it’s time to play our game!”
High Prairie town council is rolling the dice. It says it will lobby to have the government pay the bill. It never hurts to ask, because if you do not ask, we all know what the answer will be. Rolling the dice in this game and hoping to win will be like trying to roll a total of 13 on a standard set of dice.
The provincial government paying! Like, that is going to happen. If McLennan found out, the squealing would be louder than a pig stuck in fence in the local hog farm and rightly so.
Perhaps the absurdity of this policy has existed for decades. If it has, shame on the government for not changing it. A stupid policy is a stupid policy. Just because the first lemming runs over a cliff and drowns does not mean the next one should! And the next! And the next!
Rather, admit a mistaken move on. Give the lemmings a life-jacket!
Dear drivers, we will have to put up with this nonsense for another year. Thanks to our loving government, many tourists’ last impression of High Prairie will be hitting that last big pothole at the end of town. Perhaps even a repair bill at the local shop. Good for business, bad for image.
But as long as the provincial government continues to chime along by singing One of These Things Doesn’t Belong Here there is little hope. There is apparently no match regarding roads, curbs and gutters as far as they are concerned.
Truly pathetic!
Chris Clegg