Chief Delphi - Twin Highway 8 West of Calgary

Now that some time has passed since the unfortunate accidents referenced in the original post, I wanted to delicately raise a few points about this kind of grassroots effort. Some of this advice better addressed to the author, not to you, but I think the last point is worth discussing here.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Petition Background (Preamble)

Within 3 days, July 31st 2012 and August 2nd 2012, there has been 2 young men who have passed away due to accidents that have occurred on highway 8. Dustin Peers, who was 18 years of age and Chase Hudye, who was also 18 years of age.

These young men still had their whole life ahead of them and now due to an accident that could've been prevented, they don't get the chance. To prevent any other tragedies from occurring, please, help us twin highway 8.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Petition

We, the undersigned, ask Mayor, Naheed Nenshi, the Alberta Government Minister of Transportation, and Premier, Redford Alison, to provide highway 8 the construction it requires to become a safe road for everyone.

Firstly, the petition needs to be checked for accuracy and grammatical correctness. If one fails to put the premier's first name and last name in the right order, it reflects poorly upon the whole effort. (While fixing that, it might not hurt to name the minister of transportation too.) Poor English skills are forgivable, but the petition's author needs to recognize that shortcoming and get help with copyediting.

Next, there's the issue of clarity: the petition asks something different than what's requested in the preamble. Is twinning "the construction it requires"? Then say so in the petition, because that's what the government will receive.

And that brings me to the last point: is twinning the highway the right solution? Is it even a good solution? If you trust the professionals in the ministry of transportation, let them do their jobs. Let them decide if the considerable expense of widening the highway is justified based on a rigourous analysis. By all means, lobby the minister to make that traffic study a priority, and review their findings to make sure they're doing a thorough job, but be willing to accept that it's not always feasible to throw money at risk to make it go away—after all, I bet the government has lots of worthwhile alternative uses for the many millions of dollars that widening the highway would cost.