Transportation Ted
Clugston Mayor, Medicine Hat
Medicine Hat is seeing new activity, new growth and new energy
Our downtown is vibrant, made increasingly lively by new businesses, events and celebrations. Revitalization efforts continue to pay off, spawning re-development, increased foot traffic and a brighter, more attractive city core. City council will continue to invest in our downtown in 2015, including utility upgrades to the 400 and 500 blocks of Second Street S.E. and a revamped Downtown Development Incentive Program.
The City continues its ambitious capital development program. The Medicine Hat Regional Event Centre will open in late summer and offer a modern and comfortable environment for spectators to enjoy WHL hockey, multitude of concerts, family shows and touring acts. The expansion at the Family Leisure Centre is progressing, and when complete will feature a new fieldhouse, gymnasium, indoor track and fitness area. Council also remains committed to a new seniors centre.
Airport terminal renovation and expansion is expected to be complete in June. The City will continue to lobby for air service expansion, and work with stakeholders to demonstrate the business case to interested air carriers.
Construction of permanent flood mitigation measures in Harlow and Lions Park will proceed this summer. Our duty
as council members is to provide services to first ensure life safety, and second provide home and property protection. We will not waver from this course. Combined, our permanent and temporary mitigation measures will ensure we never again experience the level of damage caused by the 2013 flood.
Our beautiful and expansive river valley has untapped potential for recreational opportunities and tourism, both of which are economic drivers and contribute to improved quality of life for residents. The public shared their ideas with us in 2014 on how we might make better use of the river valley – expect to see progress on those ideas this year.
In January we launched the Medicine Hat Story and the new community brand. We need to tell our story in a compelling way that attracts new visitors, new business/investment and new residents. Defining a community brand will help us do so.
I invite all Medicine Hat residents to be ambassadors for our community. We have so much to be proud of, and so much to be grateful for. We are a warm, vibrant, feel-good city with the attitude and natural backdrop to match. We truly are warm at heart and in life. Let’s tell the world!
infrastructure key to a
healthy economy
T TIM KALINOWSKI
he Palliser Economic Partnership’s landmark, independent transportation study entitled “Freight Transportation System of Southeast Alberta, Assessment and Plans
for Growth” in 2014 made a detailed examination of how goods and products are moved through the region by local companies.
The report looked at the strengths and weaknesses of infrastructure that already exists in southeast Alberta to facilitate this movement, while at the same time making concrete suggestions on areas to improve upon for the future.
Walter Valentini, PEP executive director, says the efficient transport of goods and products is a fundamental principle of a healthy economy and certainly worth looking at in greater detail.
“Once you build something, you have to get it somewhere,” says Valentini. “So everything I touched upon in my mandate here came back to transportation. It was a re-occurring theme. I thought we should look into it and see how we stack up with other places. So how competitive are you as a region? How attractive are you to companies thinking of setting up in the area?”
While, overall, the report suggested there was sufficient infrastructure through highways, trucking and rail in southeast Alberta for local companies to transport their products and facilitate their future growth, the report did find that there were three main areas where opportunities exist to improve local infrastructure: Improvement on the
48 2015 REPORT ON SOUTHEAST ALBERTA
Walter Valentini, executive director of the Palliser Economic Partnership.
Canadian side of the Port of Wild Horse, greater centralization of transloading facilities and infrastructure in the region and examining further possibilities for intermodal rail transport.
The Port of Wild Horse has been a long-standing issue in southeast Alberta. Local businesses would like to see a massive upgrade in the port and surrounding highways to facilitate more industrial and commercial traffic moving through. Valentini acknowledges the federal government’s ultimate jurisdiction over the port but feels local governments and businesses have a role to play in the discussion.
“We haven’t lost sight of that,” says Valentini. “It’s a federal government decision but we also have to be vigilant in trying to influence decision makers and policy decisions. The border is an important conduit. It just doesn’t help us here in the region, it helps everybody. There is an opportunity for both Canadian and American companies to take advantage of points north of us if that border was a bit more functional for staging, distribution and warehousing for over-dimensional products.”
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