The Canadian province of Alberta plans has started the final twinning section of Highway 11 between the towns of Sylvan Lake and Rocky Mountain House.
At present, around 30km of the highway in central Alberta is twinned, stretching from the QEII freeway turnoff at the city of Red Deer to just west of the town of Sylvan Lake. The distance from Sylvan to Rocky is around 20km.
Highway 11 is officially named the David Thompson Highway. It runs for 318km, starting at Saskatchewan River Crossing on the scenic provincial Highway 93 – world famous for running parallel to the Rocky Mountains with extensive views of glaciers.
Meanwhile, the Canadian government is moving forward with two road projects in the Arctic which is home to around only 150,000 people but about six times the size of the US state of Texas.
The first project, the Grays Bay route, would connect the city of Yellowknife in the Northwest Territories to the Arctic Ocean in the north. It would pass near several mines before ending at the site of a proposed deepwater port.
The other project is an extension of the existing Mackenzie Valley Highway. According to the federal government, the current development phase of the route proposes to replace around 320km of the seasonal Mackenzie Valley Winter Road by extending all-season road access from the end of Highway 1 at the town of Wrigley to the towns of Tulita and Norman Wells. Phase 2 would extend the highway from Norman Wells to Inuvik on the Arctic Ocean.
