68 | Business World Magazine |
October 2013
through the city center and intersects with
Hwy 12, both are vital corridors of trans-
portation. As a town, Lacombe had often
battled with Provincial authorities about
the need to upgrade this roadway, a de-
cades-long affair that involved its com-
peting with other communities who had
their own respective infrastructural needs
and wants in terms of securing funding
from Provincial coffers. Lacombe was
more or less impacted by whatever deter-
minations were made by the Province. In
earning designation as a city, there was a
contingency in that Lacombe would have
to assume responsibility for the work (and
the costs) involving Highway 2A, but that
is exactly what they did. Lacombe actual-
ly assumed 17% of the costs involved, but
total management responsibility for what
Mayor Christie calls “the single largest
project that has ever taken place in La-
combe.” To put that in perspective, from
a two-lane town road, Hwy 2A has been
transformed to include four kilometers of
four-lane highway with the complement
of turning lanes and network of side-
walks for pedestrians, essentially provid-
ing an attractive, accessible thoroughfare
