Tłı̨chǫ All-Season Road
Location: Highway 3, southwest of Behchokǫ̀, to the Tłı̨chǫ community of Whatì, Northwest Territories
Federal/Provincial/Municipal: Provincial/Territorial
Status: Operational
Value of Partnership: $411.8 million total project cost, including $213.8 million capital cost
Type of P3: DBFOM
Financial close: February 2019
Substantial completion: November 2021
Handback: 2046
The 96-kilometre highway, which opened to traffic in November 2021, connects the remote Tłı̨chǫ community of Whatì to the Northwest Territories’ all-weather Highway 3, located approximately 170 kilometres northwest of Yellowknife. The gravel highway replaced a seasonal winter road that was becoming increasingly difficult to construct and maintain due to climate change.
The project includes one of the first ever equity investments in a P3 project by an Indigenous government in Canada. The project also implemented an innovative climate change risk sharing mechanism. The territorial government worked with its advisers and a climate specialist to develop a “bespoke climate change risk-sharing regime” using cutting-edge modelling, enabling the partners to more efficiently price their potential exposure to this risk for long-term operations and maintenance of a road constructed above the permafrost. This climate change risk-sharing model could be used to help other projects globally.
The project was delivered on-budget and ahead of schedule, despite the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Since opening, 100 per cent of the project’s operations and maintenance labour have been undertaken by Indigenous personnel. The project uses a design-build-finance-operate-maintain (DBFOM) P3 model.
The project includes:
Maintenance for 25 years of the all-season road to the performance standards set out in the project agreement including:
Partners:
Public: Government of Northwest Territories
Private: North Star Infrastructure GP (Kiewit Canada Development Corp. and Tłı̨chǫ Government)
Awards:
