A highway transportation study has confirmed what Cochranites have known for some time, but the top regional priority may not be what you expect.

Monday night, Cochrane town council was told three highway projects here are identified in the top 20 priorities in the north Calgary region, according to the North Calgary Regional Transportation Study.

It ranks the twinning of Hwy. 1A from Gleneagles to the Hwy. 22 as number three on a list of 34 projects. The traffic bottleneck at Hwy. 1A/Hwy. 22 interchange is rated number 10.

The study also confirmed Hwy. 22 from the 1A to Township Rd. 264 should be expanded to four lanes. That's good news for the town, who is now starting to push for the twinning of that section of Hwy. 22 to at least the Sunset Ridge neighbourhood. 

The need to twin Hwy. 22 from Hwy. 1A to Hwy. 1 is number 20 on the list. Widening Hwy. 1A from Hwy. 766 to Calgary’s western city limit is number 19 on the list.

"It's no secret to people who live here that we have traffic bottlenecks at a couple of key provincial jurisdiction highways," says Mayor Jeff Genung, "so for them to make the list is no surprise to Cochranites and only bodes well with us with the province and the Minister of Transportation."

No word has been received on what highway construction projects will proceed under the new provincial government. Mayor Jeff Genung says he's in touch weekly with newly-elected MLA Peter Guthrie to discuss the Hwy. 1A-22 interchange project as well as other Cochrane priorities. Guthrie has also risen in the Legislative Assembly to speak to the issue and has frequently been lobbying Transportation minister Ric McIver.

Genung says he remains cautiously confident the project will proceed. 

"They're moving ahead further with the design and will be doing some hand-digging for archeological research on the site that will take about 20 days to complete, so I'm optimistic that they are still moving forward. I think it would be bad news if they stopped everything but they're continuing work on the design. 

He says this dig is among the last items Transportation needs to complete before finalizing the design and starting construction. 

In 2016, Alberta Transportation directed the City of Calgary, City of Airdrie and Rocky View County to collectively identify transportation infrastructure priorities along the QEII in the north Calgary region. Through this process, it was determined that including the City of Chestermere and the Town of Cochrane would add value to viewing the overall transportation network in the north Calgary region. One hundred per cent of the funding was provided by the Alberta Government to complete the study.

Eighteen criteria were broken into five categories to weight the priorities. They were: regional growth/economy; performance/efficiency; user service/connectivity/choice; environmental; and financial. Only 11 points separated number two and the tenth priority on the list. Four points separated the Hwy. 1A twinning project from the interchange project.

One hundred and sixty-one projects were evaluated, including transit, corridor and interchange projects.