Oct. 31, NDP Leader Dwain Lingenfelter said, if elected, his government would twin the highways route between Regina and the U.S. border via Estevan, and the Balgonie-Yorkton corridor.
The Saskatchewan Party immediately jumped on them, asking how this will be paid for. I'm going to leave funding aside for today, but instead focus on whether these are good ideas or not.
On the first one, I would say yes, definitely. Risking my life on a regular basis on Highway 39, it is apparent there is a need to twin this road, especially between Estevan and Weyburn. There is a very, very large proportion of oilfield traffic on 39, big heavy, and often wide trucks. Then there's all the international traffic between Regina and the main port of entry linking Saskatchewan and Alberta to the American Midwest via North Portal. This route would be 242 kilometres long, at a reported $1.2 million per kilometre.
For quite a while now, the committee to twin Highway 39 and 6 along this route has been gathering testimonials, urging the province to move on this front, before the Estevan Mercury or Weyburn Review have to write another story about a fatal head-on collision. I've lost track of how many there have been in recent years. They have forms near the washroom in the Esso gas station just down the street from me.
The Ministry of Highways has recently proposed passing lanes along this route as a stopgap measure. That's not the answer by any means. It needs to be twinned.
The shortest route the NDP suggest twinning is the 163 kilometres from Yorkton to Balgonie. With respect to Yorkton, it definitely needs a twinned highway - but in the other direction. The most obvious route that needs twinning is the Yellowhead, from Saskatoon to the Manitoba border via Regina. Nearly all of Saskatchewan's current producing potash mines except Belle Plain are within 60 kilometres of this highway. Most of them are just off the highway. The BHP Billiton Jansen Lake mine is not far from it. They should call it the Potash Expressway. It's by far the longest project - at 329 kilometres from Saskatoon to Yorkton, and another 86 kilometres to the border.
Highway 10 between Yorkton and Balgonie is certainly a busy highway. Many moons ago I spent a lot of time on that highway. Due to the occasional curve and dip between Melville and Balgonie, it's difficult to pass safely, and often you would get a gaggle of 10 cars stacked up behind a slow one. But I highly doubt it's anywhere close to being as busy as Highway 16, or has as much truck traffic - big, long B-train trucks running from Winnipeg to Edmonton.
I have to say, I have a dog in the hunt on the Yorkton route. My parents live on Highway 16 on the edge of Yorkton, and some day I would like to develop their property commercially. The reason this property is attractive is precisely because of the high amount of truck traffic passing it.
I also don't buy the Saskatchewan Party's refrain of recent years that it is only possible to work on twinning one area at a time. It wasn't too long ago there were three twinning projects going on at once - Highway 1 east near Moosomin, Highway 1 west near Gull Lake and Highway 16 near Maidstone. Surely we can do more than just Highway 11 from Saskatoon to Prince Albert.
As we can afford it, Saskatchewan should be twinning several highways in addition to the ones listed above. Highway 7 from Saskatoon towards Calgary is another leading contender. It doesn't have to be all in five years, or even 10 years. But the time to start on some of these projects is now, one chunk at a time.
Brian Zinchuk is editor of Pipeline News. He can be reached at [email protected]
