Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy met with Yukon Premier Ranj Pillai in Whitehorse, Yukon last week; the two leaders inked an agreement to work on a memorandum of understanding on the Alaska Highway, which is badly gutted with frost heaves throughout its section from Whitehorse to the U.S. border near Tok. The frost heaves between Burwash Landing and the border are so bad they send vehicles with unsuspecting drivers airborne, breaking axles and busting exhaust pipes.
Dunleavy said Alaska is going to help with the cost of the highway repairs and also work to get some U.S. federal money to smooth out the frost heaves, since Americans are the primary users of the highway, as they drive from the Lower 48 to Alaska with either freight for Alaskans or vacation maps.
Dunleavy said talks went well and will continue between the two leaders, including working on a transportation corridor agreement and food security cooperation. It was his first trip to the Yukon.
“The Alaska Highway is the only road link between Alaska and the Lower 48, and the vast majority of traffic on the Canadian portion of the road is American,” Governor Dunleavy said. “By working cooperatively with our neighbors in the Yukon, we can help ensure that people traveling to or from Alaska on the road are able to do more safely with fewer road hazards.”
The MOU outlines an agreement between the Alaska Department of Transportation and Public Facilities and the Yukon Department of Highways and Public Works to repair and improve a section of the Alaska Highway damaged by melting permafrost. The project will be included in Alaska’s 2024-2027 Statewide Transportation Improvement Program, which is currently a point of dispute with the Biden Administration.
Meanwhile, over in Ottawa, Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault said last week that the Canadian federal government will stop investing in new road infrastructure, and instead work on getting people out of their cars and into “active transportation” like bicycles and walking, and into public transportation.
Guilbeault said existing road network in Canada “is perfectly adequate to respond to the needs we have.” The Trudeau government is putting an end to road expansion, he said. Instead, the government will use federal funds on projects to adapt to climate change and fight climate change, Guilbeault said.
“There will be no more envelopes from the federal government to enlarge the road network,” Guilbeault said, as reported by the Montreal Gazette. “We can very well achieve our goals of economic, social and human development without more enlargement of the road network.”
Guilbeault tried to step out of the pothole of his own creation on Wednesday, saying that what he meant to say was no new roads would be built in Canada, but that existing roads would be funded for maintenance.
Yukon is the most western part of Canada and is the smallest Canadian province and the second least populated. At 186,272 square miles and 44,975 people, it is rich in minerals and depends on the Port of Skagway to export its ore. It is the fastest-growing province in Canada.
The Alaska Highway was built mostly by Americans during World War II. It enters the Yukon near Watson Lake, and stretches 550 miles further to the Alaska border at mile 1,903.
