Oil-sands development in Alberta is creating some issues in how to get oversized trucking loads of oil-extraction equipment from suppliers in Asia to Western Canada on the wrong side of the Continental Divide. The easiest route so far is to ship the items to Portland, barge them upriver to Lewiston, Idaho, then take them by wide-load truck through Montana and on to Alberta.
The problem that is being encountered is that the non-expressway highways in Montana need to have the roadways redone so that the big modules don’t run into too-narrow shoulders or low-hanging power lines. People who aren’t fans of big trucks or the ecological side-effects of oil-sands development aren’t thrilled with the idea of the “high and wide” corridor, but a steady flow of trucks through the area will mean more economic activity in a rural area that could use the help; thus, government officials in Montana are supportive and most of the calls on the issue have been from locals wanting to watch the big loads come through.
Such efforts might make life in those areas a bit less expensive, since an increase in freight traffic might give freight carriers more options to get more mundane cargo into Big Sky country. One normally doesn’t think of getting to Idaho by sea, but the Columbia and Snake rivers make that possible. Such developments might get other cargos heading to a fast-growing Alberta to go to Portland rather than Vancouver, BC, which will help US trucking transport firms.