‘Uncertainty is a killer’: Alberta businesses worried over potential Hwy 3 changes

Some residents of Seven Persons are feeling left in the dark as the twinning of their section of Highway 3 looms.

Seven Persons is a hamlet in southern Alberta within Cypress County, located southwest of the city of Medicine Hat.

In November 2022, the Government of Alberta announced an eight-phase plan to twin the road after advocates had been pushing for the expansion for decades.

The first phase of eight, from Taber to Burdette, is set to start construction in the spring.

Phase five, which included 28 kilometres east of Bow Island to east of Seven Persons, is expected to undergo detailed engineering design starting this summer.

“Our biggest concern is that some of the routes that they’re looking at are actually bypassing some of our communities, (and) chopping up some of our valuable agricultural land,” explained Cypress County Coun. Dustin Vossler.

For Nathan Penner, who manages the hamlet’s longstanding store Premium Sausage, the potential diversion of the current highway could mean a hit for business with a large number of customers shopping as a pit-stop.

He wants to see the road twinned where it is to help ensure their 33-years of success can continue.

A map from the Alberta government shows unofficial plans and the option of an “added designation” just north of the community.

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“The recently proposed plan that we have seen does kind of cut us right out of the picture,” Penner said.

“What that would mean is just basically Seven Persons would never be a stop. It would just be a place you could see as you travel by.”

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Kimberly and Laurie Sibbald are in a similar boat. Their observatory is located across the existing highway from Premium Sausage.

“Putting it north of us would be putting it right on our observatory,” Kimberly said. “We’d have light pollution, we’d have problems with traffic.”

“We want to further (our business). We want to keep going,” added Laurie. “The uncertainty is a killer.”

When it comes to getting clarity, Vossler said Friday they have had an initial consultation with the province.

“We’re working on getting a meeting with the minister of transportation to actually sit down and have this discussion, so we’re going to continue down that avenue,” he said.

“Everybody’s for it, they just want to know the location, where it’s going to go,” added Coun. Shane Hok.

Global News reached out to the province for comment on the consultation but did not receive a response by time of publication.

Bill Chapman, president of the Highway 3 Twinning Development Association, said a recent financial study found the project as a whole will have a positive affect.

“The GDP, the return is going to be fantastic, about $1.3 billion to the province, and so with that we know that for every dollar the province injects into this project there will be a three dollar return in economic development,” Chapman said.

“We are here for advocacy — we are not here to mediate or to negotiate on behalf of the government or on behalf on landowners. That is not our role,” he added.

“Our role is simply to get this project done and we are really pleased with the support that we do have.”