The Hamilton Boulevard extension will have a roundabout, a parking lot, traffic lights and lanes for dump trucks.

Jeff Boehmer, program manager for the extension project, said in an interview earlier this week the planned extension and all its features should be ready by the fall of 2008.

'We're going to do clearing and grubbing this fall,' he said.

'We have to blast some rock (this winter) just adjacent to the rock gardens. We hope to have people going down it by September or October next year.'

Boehmer said the project, which will connect the Alaska Highway to the Copper Ridge subdivision and has a construction cost cap of $15 million, will change the way traffic moves.

'We've planned a roundabout. It will be about twice the size of the one on Hamilton Boulevard in front of Elijah Smith Elementary School,' he said.

Hamilton Boulevard from the Alaska Highway to the roundabout just below the Lobird mobile home park will be four lanes, he said. From the roundabout to Copper Ridge, it will be two lanes.

'The trucks, that's definitely why it's four lanes.'

The roundabout will allow motorists to access McLean Lake, Copper Ridge, Lobird and the Alaska Highway.

The existing Lobird Road from the Alaska Highway to the location of the roundabout will be decommissioned.

Boehmer said the intersection of the Alaska Highway and Hamilton Boulevard will also be less confusing as it will have traffic lights and the Hi Country RV Park and Yukon Gardens will directly access the new road.

Boehmer said there will also be a parking lot put in for the rock gardens, an area used for climbing, to make the area easier to access.

'It's good for these people because it legitimizes what they are doing.'

The budget permitting, the government may also install an underpass near Copper Ridge so people using the trails for purposes such as snowmobiling can get by the extension without having to go up onto the road.

The underpass, if built, would be twice as long as the one at Mt. McIntyre.

Boehmer said the road itself would have a three per cent grade, which is fairly flat, and would make it easy to drive and cycle on.

Two Mile Hill, he added as a comparison, is a nine per cent grade.

Skeeter Miller-Wright, of the McLean Lake Residents' Association, said members of his community are welcoming the project.

'Generally, from the residents I've spoken to, they're quite happy with the overall impact it will have on the area.

'Getting rid of Lobird Road and shifting it further north ... it's an improvement over the current situation. There will be less traffic, less noise and less dust,' Miller-Wright said.

'Residents can make further use of the area without being worried about big dump trucks.'

Leah Davy-Ryckman, of the Copper Ridge Community Association, said she believes residents of her community are also looking forward to an extended Hamilton Boulevard.

'I think the residents of Copper Ridge would be welcome to the idea of having the extension for lots of different reasons. For safety reasons, I think it's a good idea.

'As a resident of Copper Ridge, I think it is something that is desperately needed.'

Lorne Metropolit, the owner of Yukon Gardens, also hails the extension.

'It sounds good to me. I do so much landscaping in Copper Ridge. I have to take an hour to get there; with this shortcut coming by me, it's a plus.

'A lot of my customers are saying the same thing.'

He said the only downside of the project as he sees it could be from the dump trucks coming from the McLean Lake quarry area making noise when they're braking toward the intersection.

The vast Granger-Logan-Copper Ridge residential area began to be developed from wilderness in the mid-1980s.

Prior to then, today's Hamilton Boulevard was simply a short stretch of road starting at the Alaska Highway and dead-ending just past the turnoff to the former Whitehorse Cross Country Ski Chalet (now the Mt. McIntyre Recreation Centre).