The Juniper East emergency access road proposal has doubled in costs to $800,000 according to the City’s Development, Engineering and Sustainability Director.

Marvin Kwiatkowski says the original $400,000 estimate came about after preliminary work following the lightning caused fire on Canada Day. Residents have been pushing for secondary access roads as the evacuation of Juniper Ridge led to gridlock on Highland Road.

“They did a quick walkaround but of course that was when the fires were still happening throughout the region so getting staff or consultants out there to do design and survey work did not happen,” he said. “So we came up with a pretty rough and dirty estimate, $400,000.”

“We’ve since done a bunch of design work, turning templates, making sure vehicles pulling trailers can get out of the subdivision in an emergency situation. That is what we did and how we came up with the new estimate.”

The Juniper East emergency access road will run from the east end of Kicking Horse Drive through an existing strata where a public right-of-way has been in place since 2009. It will then head through 450 metres of City land and a private gravel pit before heading back onto City property and connecting into the Orchards Walk Development at Grand Boulevard.

“We find that [the new] estimate beefed up things like the base, sub-base materials,” Kwiatkowski said. “We are looking to use recycled asphalt pavement for the surface, [with] I believe about 8,500 cubic meters of fill material that we would obtain from the adjacent gravel pit. We are also working on a right of way agreement through that private gravel pit.”

He also told Council that the province has also approved work within a watercourse as the project will have to cross a large gully and a stream.

Councillors, for their part, voted unanimously in favour of using $400,000 from the City’s Working Capital Reserve to complete the project, which Kwiatkowski says should happen by this spring, before the 2022 wildfire season.

“There is significant interest in the project,” he said. “There was a strong appetite to try to get the project last fall, but we are hearing from the community that if any more development proceeds, they do want that emergency access road completed ASAP.”

“We’re also [hearing] of some rumblings they would like a permanent access as well. Our mandate at this point in time is emergency access, and to try to get the best bang for the dollar and get it done at a reasonable cost and in a reasonable timeframe.”