Dreeshen unveils major transportation changes in exclusive AGM interview
Minister Devin Dreeshen exclusively revealed to True North at the UCP annual general meeting that new laws, safety measures, and highway changes are on the way.
Alberta’s United Conservative Party government is rolling out major transportation reforms, with Minister Devin Dreeshen exclusively revealing to True North at the UCP annual general meeting that new laws, safety measures, and highway changes are on the way.
Dreeshen said UCP members responded positively to the government’s transportation agenda throughout the weekend.
“Lots of people are really excited about just the common-sense policies that this government has,” he said about the recurring themes of people approaching him at the AGM.
The transportation minister said he was working on developing a better provincial transportation network for everything from semi-trucks to bike lanes.
He revealed that legislation is forthcoming in the new year to ensure city councils can no longer restrict the flow of traffic in their municipalities by removing lanes for bike lanes, as they have in recent years.
“We have over 400,000 new drivers in Alberta in the last six years alone,” he said. “That’s why we need to be adding more lanes, not subtracting lanes like we’ve seen some councils do in the province.”
He also celebrated the province having recently shut down 13 fraudulent and unsafe trucking operations provincewide, noting that further enforcement would follow.
Dreeshen was caught wearing his 120 km/h button at the AGM, which he was handing out to attendees. The pins were promoting an ongoing survey where Albertans could vote on increasing the speed limit to 120 km/h on divided highways and banning semi-trucks from the far-left lane on highways with three or more lanes per direction.
He revealed the most recent survey results to True North, saying that a whopping 96 per cent of the approximate 60,000 respondents supported restricting commercial trucks from the far-left lane. As for the speed limit increase, Dreeshen said support “hovered around the low 70s.”
He said any increase to 120 kilometres per hour would begin as a pilot project.
“We want to be able to collect more information on what exactly the traffic patterns are.”
Beyond speed limits, Dreeshen said public concerns about truck safety remain the number-one issue raised with him.
“Truck safety is the number one thing that we’ve been hearing. Whether it’s our provincial bridges being hit by semis on the ring road, there’s been a whole bunch of incidents on Highway 2, as well as just bad driving from semi trucks,” said Dreeshen. “It wasn’t the way it always was in Alberta. Truckers were always the best drivers on the road. And there are obviously amazing truckers in Alberta, and I thank them for obviously the work that they do, but I think these bad actors are giving them a bad name—a black eye—and we want to make sure we can clean out the industry.”
The extensive survey remains active, and Albertans can take it until December 12.