Before construction to convert the Yellowhead Trail into a freeway can start, businesses already along the corridor will have to make room.
The seven-year infrastructure project, slated to begin in 2020, will eliminate six intersections and add two interchanges in Edmonton.
“We are building service roads on the north side of Yellowhead, so we will be eliminating access to the centre,” explained Kris Lima, director of the city’s Yellowhead Trail portfolio.
But first, 15 businesses at 142 Street and Yellowhead Trail will have to relocate.
Art Wear, an embroidery shop owned by Brad Foster, is one of them.
He’s not sure when the business can move: “If we have to move, I’d like it to be sooner than later.”
The City of Edmonton, which expropriated the land, is now his landlord, and Foster is locked into a lease until 2020.
Foster said the city didn’t clarify dates at a meeting on Wednesday.
“They didn’t say if it would be potentially January, February, March, April, May, June, July—that’s a whole year.”
Lima said the city has some of the timeline in place: “Some of the businesses may have to move as early as 2020, with the remainder in 2021.”
The project will cost about $1 billion.
Lima said the city was committed to it because “it’ll greatly improve the daily commute of tens of thousands of Edmontonians.”
Nearly 80,000 vehicles drive on the Yellowhead Trail every day.
With files from Sarah Plowman
