Your membership dollars at work (August 01, 2000)

CHAIR’S REPORT

If you drive on Canada’s national highway system for business or pleasure, you know that there is a growing problem. Statistics show that in your lifetime (i.e. over an 80 year period), some 20,000,000 Canadians will be involved in motor vehicle accidents and 300,000 will be killed. You don’t have to drive a lot to know that undivided two-lane highways are more dangerous to travellers than four lane divided highways and that intersections as opposed to interchanges increase the risk of fatal accidents.

The United States has understood this message and is investing U.S. $217 billion over the next six years to revitalize its inter-urban and highway trade corridors. By comparison, our federal government is investing only $150 million per year in our National Highway System. That is $5 per capita per year being invested here compared to the $130 per capita per year being invested under the U.S. renewal program.

The solution is clear. ACEC is speaking out to remind the federal government that there is a direct relationship between a healthy environment, a strong economy and the confidence of Canadians that they can get from point A to point B efficiently and safely along our National Highway System.

I am asking for your help in joining this national campaign by writing to your elected officials in Ottawa and in your provincial capitals to reinforce the message that strong infrastructure is of crucial importance to the public’s health and safety and a cornerstone of our quality of life. Act now to strengthen our politicians’ resolve to do more than offer “band aid” solutions to Canada’s $17 billion national highway deficit.

Let’s start by committing to convert all the Trans Canada Highway to a four lane divided highway before this decade is over. That means twinning vast stretches of our national highway system in B.C., Saskatchewan, Ontario and the Atlantic provinces.

DAVE CHALCROFT, P.ENG., CHAIR

ASSOCIATION OF CONSULTING ENGINEERS OF CANADA