It's taken a few years to do, but the long awaited connector road between 2 Avenue and 20 Street N.E. in High River has finally opened.

The road, which by-passes the Hamptons, opened a little over a week ago.

Essentially it's gravel and oil right now, and not a true road, but as Mayor Craig Snodgrass says it does eliminate the wear and tear on Hampshire Way.

"It just takes all that traffic out of there, so the residents aren't living on a Deerfoot Trail kind of thing," he says. "And it's been bad over the last year and a half since the flood, the amount of traffic going through there."

Snodgrass says paving it is a priority, but they have to get some other ducks in a row first.

"There's a few things going on with the whole Hamptons development and negotiations between the developer and the Province and the Town of High River. Things aren't proceeding quite as quickly as I'd like them to, but there's a process to this stuff as well."

Snodgrass says he'd like to see the road paved sooner rather than later, but he can't put a date on when that will happen yet.

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