Alberta Transportation has committed to looking at changes for the intersection of Highway 7 and 16 Street.

Delilah Miller, Deputy Reeve for the M.D. of Foothills had the opportunity to meet with Alberta Transportation at the most recent Alberta Association of Municipal Districts and Counties convention, again lobbying for changes to the intersection.

According to Miller Alberta Transportation were fully aware of the dangerous intersection, and also knew of an accident as recent as the night before.

She says they had a serious conversation about short term solutions to the issue.

"This intersection is bordering our annexation land with Okotoks so I had suggested that we lower the speed limit in the interim to 80 km/h," she explains. "That is in keeping with what is on the outskirts of Okotoks at Highway 7 currently, so it wouldn't be a big transition for people to slow down going through there until they figure out a solution."

As for a long term solution Miller says they went over a few options, the most viable being traffic lights.

"We talked about traffic circles but according to Alberta Transportation that is more expensive and we didn't feel that that was really going to solve the problem in the long term. It was suggested that perhaps we could do a cost share with Okotoks, the M.D. of Foothills and Alberta Transportation to put in a set of lights there."

Miller says traffic lights would likely resolve most issues, comparing it to the intersection of Highway 7 and Jct. 783, better known as the dump road.

"Until we managed to get lights in on that intersection we had many bad accidents there, so we know that the lights did solve a lot of the issues."

She also suggested twinning Highway 7 to accommodate increased traffic on the highway.

Alberta Transportation will research the issue and get back to the M.D. in the next few months.

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