Juno News - December 23, 2025EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW： Dreeshen lays out Alberta’s transportation reset for 2026
Episode Stats
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Summary
In this episode, I sit down with Transportation Minister Shannon Dushin to talk about the past year, the upcoming year, and what's in store for the new year. We talk about bike lanes, lane reductions, and speed limits in Alberta's big cities, as well as the trucking industry.
Transcript
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So, Minister Dushin, thanks for joining me today.
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It's a great pleasure to get a year-end interview with you,
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especially considering how active the Transportation Ministry was this year
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I was curious, Minister, we've seen a lot of major debates this year
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about bike lanes, lane reductions, and speed limits in Alberta's big cities.
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So do you believe that municipalities are catching on,
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or is the province preparing further legislation to set clearer standards
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Yeah, well, first off, I'd just like to thank you, Isaac,
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and obviously year-end, getting close to Christmas.
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And I think with the municipal elections that happened in Alberta,
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I think there's a lot better conversations going on
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when it regards to bike lanes and obviously speed limit increases.
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We did a survey across the province that actually wraps up on December 12th.
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We've had over 60,000 respondents already talk about rural divided highways
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And the preliminary results showed really strong support across the province
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And regarding bike lanes, I've had really good conversations
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with Mayor Farkas in Calgary about looking at the outrageous bike lanes
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They're congesting certain roads and having negative impacts for adjacent roads,
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and they're just not being used by cyclists in the city.
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So I think there's a lot of good movement on both of those fronts in 2026.
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And I guess just taking it a step further on bike lanes,
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given how much we've reported on them at True North,
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obviously several municipalities, as you mentioned,
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have reduced vehicle lanes or added bike lanes and other measures,
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affecting traffic without broad public support.
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there was a clear majority support in opposition.
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Well, we've seen over 400,000 new drivers in Alberta in the last six years.
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And something that we are going to be looking at in the new year
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of introducing legislation and to be regarding bike lanes
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Obviously, to your argument, where you live might have went by your house
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that the municipalities aren't having that local impact consultation.
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well, they in a previous budget had talked about X amount of dollars
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So I hope that that is a process that changes municipally.
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But we are looking as a province to have legislation
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and that you can just do proper city planning going forward.
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obviously Alberta cracked down on questionable class one driving schools.
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And so what further reforms are coming to ensure
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commercial trucking training is safe, credible and consistent?
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And hats off to my department for going in and auditing
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the truck driving training schools and trucking companies.
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We shut down 13 trucking companies that were fraudulent
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So that, I think, is a good start to try to rebuild confidence
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that if you are a truck driver and you get into an accident
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of having that accident not show up on your driver's abstract.
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so that if a truck driver, say, runs into a provincial bridge,
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so they know the type of driver that's getting behind their wheel.
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And are you planning any further changes to the trucking industry
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or do you feel that you've kind of done what needed to be done?
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We are looking at stricter penalties and fines,
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something that we're working with other ministries in the new year.
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It could be part of our Traffic Safety Act changes
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to clamp down further on the trucking industry.
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And we're also looking at jurisdictions around North America,
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what they're doing to make sure that their roads are safer.
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And again, truckers, they're amazing drivers out there
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and they used to be the best drivers on the road.
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But, and there are still great truck drivers out there,
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but it's these bad ones that are giving the industry a bad look.
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Yeah, and you mentioned briefly the recent survey that you did,
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So is there anything you'd want to highlight from that survey?
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And more specifically, do you have any future surveys planned
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and what would they address or potentially change?
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There's still time to go out and do the survey.
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about 60,000 Albertans had signed on one of the larger surveys
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And over 70% supported or supportive of 120 on rural divided highways
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as well as extreme support for having a dedicated passing lane.
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So if there's three lanes or more, having trucks, large trucks,
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So it's good to see that Albertans are obviously validating this type of work
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and giving Alberta drivers what they expect and want out on the roads.
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Yeah, did you have any future surveys planned and address?
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We don't sit on our hands here in transportation economic corridors.
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We're always trying to improve the driving experience for Albertans.
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And I think with the possibility of changes to the Traffic Safety Act,
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there'll be a lot of measures that just improve the driving experience
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I'm curious whether any environmental approvals, emission mandates,
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or other regulations have slowed or complicated
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any transportation projects this year or even going forward.
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When you look at Highway 686 in northern Alberta,
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we have proposed and worked with the three First Nations
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just west of Fort McMurray to extend Highway 686 essentially all the way
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to Grand Prairie to Peerless Trout Lake and cross to the west.
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And the Federal Impact Assessment Act, Bill C-69 from the federal government,
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that road would have had to gone through that malaise of approvals
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So it's good to see that the federal government is stepping down.
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Premier Smith's done an amazing job to have the federal liberal government
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almost erase the entire Trudeau decade of nine bad laws.
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And the Federal Impact Assessment Act is one of them.
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So we think that project now, obviously, with that being gone,
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is something that we can see construction on real soon.
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And obviously, this legislative session is just wrapping up.
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But looking at forthcoming legislations in the future sessions,
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are there any or what are the most key transportation-related bills
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Well, the Transportation Safety Act hasn't been changed in quite some time.
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So we're doing lots of draft work to introduce something,
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But obviously, we're doing budget deliberations as well.
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Our budget is going to come in the end of February.
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So pretty much right now until February is budget time, budget deliberations,
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going through Treasury Board, trying to make sure that all departments
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have the right capital funding as well as operating funding.
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And in transportation, that results into plows out in the winter
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to new bridges and roads that Albertans can see and enjoy
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So there's a lot of work leading up to the budget.
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And in the next legislative session, that will start in February.
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And looking back on this year, Minister, I'm curious what maybe
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the single biggest transportation challenge was
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and whether that changed your approach in any way heading into the new year.
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Well, I think the biggest challenge was keeping track of all the projects.
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And that's everything from roads to bridges to water infrastructure
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So there was a tremendous amount of construction all across the province.
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And making sure that we have a close eye to make sure that the engineering is done
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in the proper time, the construction was on time and on budget.
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But, you know, like I said before, hats off to the department and my team
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to make sure that we could get all these construction projects done.
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And I guess if you had one clear message for Albertans going into the new year,
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It would be that, obviously, this government is investing in Alberta,
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not just in urban centres with the large LRT projects
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and the possibility, obviously, of a new passenger rail system.
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The passenger rail plan is going to be out in the new year
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of how LRTs in Edmonton and Calgary can connect to one another
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and have the private sector build that infrastructure.
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But to know that rural Alberta is something that we obviously care about.
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The resource wealth in Alberta, the $15 billion in royalties
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that we collect as a province, comes from rural Alberta.
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But that then means we have to be investing in rural Alberta
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to make sure that we can get those products to market,
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as well as make sure that the people that live in rural Alberta
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have a safe road network to live, play, and make sure that their families are safe.
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So that, I think, is the big challenge going into 2026,
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is make sure that we can keep up with the growth,
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as well as expand and get ready for an Alberta everybody can be proud of.
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Yeah, and speaking quickly on LRT projects, Minister,
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it feels like we haven't talked about the green line in a few months,
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which is kind of funny considering how much or how big it was in the news a few months ago.
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and if the province is maybe going to support the next phases of the green line
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and anything else about, I guess, LRT transportation province-wide.
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All the politics of the green line when Nahid Nenshi, now the NDP leader,
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when he was mayor, he had this big grandiose plan,
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but then obviously couldn't design it or get it built.
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And it was just years and years and years of failure from Nahid Nenshi when he was mayor.
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And it took this government to actually look at the project,
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and to actually get shelves in the ground and to get it built.
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I think there's about a half a dozen contracts out right now.
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The green line is actually being built finally after 10 years of delay.
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That's probably why it's not in the media enough anymore,
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because obviously there's good news on the green line
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and this government working with the city of Calgary
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I haven't asked or covered that you'd like to say?
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No, I just say, you know, overall, it's, you know,
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the capital plan is always a tricky part of the budget
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because obviously with a huge population, population surge,
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we're seeing new schools being built at record numbers,
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obviously investments in healthcare and new hospital towers.
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So those are obviously big, expensive capital projects
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So it's always a bit of an arm wrestle and treasure board
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But that's, that's something that we'll be hammering out