Existing and Pending Infrastructure Projects: Potential Compatibility with the Canadian Northern Corridor
Rigorous planning of a multi-modal corridor at a national scale involves identifying current and future infrastructure needs and determining opportunities for co-location of linear infrastructure. Ensuring compatibility of such a major and complex infrastructure expansion with existing and planned p...
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| Format: | Article in Journal/Newspaper |
| Language: | English |
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University of Calgary
2022
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| Online Access: | https://doi.org/10.11575/sppp.v15i1.72528 https://doaj.org/article/05490ff29bd541739c4ccb4d62e73118 |
| Summary: | Rigorous planning of a multi-modal corridor at a national scale involves identifying current and future infrastructure needs and determining opportunities for co-location of linear infrastructure. Ensuring compatibility of such a major and complex infrastructure expansion with existing and planned projects is necessary to avoid potential redundancies, minimize environmental impact, optimize resource allocation and enable long-term, sustainable economic growth. For this purpose, this paper reviews linear infrastructure projects in Canada’s North and near-North that could potentially constitute a segment of the Canadian Northern Corridor (CNC). The CNC concept connects Canada’s Atlantic, Pacific and Arctic coasts and Hudson Bay through a linear infrastructure corridor. In accordance with the aims and scope of the CNC, this assessment covers linear infrastructure modes such as rail, road, pipeline, electrical transmission and communications infrastructure and ports and airports as supporting inter-modal infrastructure hubs and gateways to the rest of the world. The assessment reviews infrastructure projects in two categories: existing and pending. Corridor development is a lengthy, costly and complex process. Planning stages often involve a risky assessment of possible changes in economic activity, regional priorities, land use and environmental conditions (such as changing needs for climate adaptation strategies). However, there is no universal methodology for the design and development phases of corridors. On the basic requirements of planning a corridor route, Srivastava (2011) states that, “Corridor development does not create economic strength so much as it channels, focuses, and amplifies the potential for economic growth. Thus, a corridor from nowhere to nowhere through nowhere would not be very meaningful. Similarly, a corridor linking two substantive nodes but with no potential for growth in between (because of adverse geography) is also of limited interest.” Therefore, determining the regions to be served ... |
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