The province has secured $150 million in federal funding for long-awaited ring roads in Calgary and Edmonton, says Alberta Transportation Minister Ed Stelmach.

After speaking at the Canada West Foundation’s Building a New Dream conference on the future of transportation last week in Calgary, Stelmach told reporters the province will receive $75 million per city to build the ring roads.

Alberta will match the federal contribution in accordance with federal infrastructure funding guidelines.

The projects will likely go to tender this fall, said Stelmach.

The transportation minister said he learned of the funding in “a leak” from Ottawa.

The trucking industry has been lobbying for ring roads in Alberta’s two major cities for several years.

Ring roads, highways that circle a city’s outskirts rather than passing through its core, are considered essential to increasing the flow of freight between Calgary,

Edmonton and other north-south destinations, particularly large, lucrative U.S. markets.

The funding is great news, according to Tom Kleysen, president of Kleysen Transportation Solutions, which has truck-train distribution points in Calgary, Edmonton, Saskatoon, Winnipeg and Prince George, B.C. He said the Calgary and Edmonton ring roads will increase the flow of goods while reducing the damage that heavy trucks inflict on city streets.

Calgary’s ring road is expected to encompass 101st Street and 37th Street southwest and pass through the Tsuu T’ina Reserve. The route has posed environmental concerns because it may pass through Fish Creek Provincial Park as well as native land.

Stelmach said he and Premier Ralph Klein have met with Tsuu T’ina Chief Sanford Big Plume and they are optimistic the First Nation will allow the road to go through the reserve.

But Kleysen and other transportation industry insiders are calling for the ring road to be built on Calgary’s east side, an area dubbed the East Freeway, because the province already owns land there and the route is closer to Highway 2.

Edmonton’s ring road is expected to pass along the city’s west side and connect with the Anthony Henday Bridge.

Canada West Foundation president Roger Gibbins, whose group hosted last week’s conference, said ring roads are an important piece of Canada’s overall transportation puzzle.

“If you have to drive truck traffic through urban areas, you actually pay a very significant cost,” said Gibbins. “Trucks are very efficient when they’re at speed. They’re very inefficient when they stop and start, so you pay a price.”

But, he suggested, Calgary’s and Edmonton’s quest for ring roads also shows the need for a federal transportation spending policy.

“The ring road (in Calgary) is important,” said Gibbins. “Is it as important in the next five years as opposed to other things? That’s less clear.”

While it’s nice to see funding, said Gibbins, the provinces, municipalities and transportation industry want a more regular, predictable federal funding mechanism.

“You want to capture that enthusiasm,” said Gibbins about the federal government’s willingness to fund projects. “But you may end up having the ring road jump the queue. So that’s a concern about the nature of federal funding. It forces provinces and municipalities to take on priorities that may not be the same kind of priorities that they want to set.”