The Time to Twin 39 and 6 committee will continue to apply pressure where and when they feel it will do some good.
Two key members of the committee that has set its sights on having Highway 39 and Highway 6 south of Regina twinned sooner, rather than later, met with Highways and Infrastructure Minister Jim Reiter last Monday to once again drive their case home.
Marge Young and Lauralie Ireland met with Reiter as well as with George Stamatinos, assistant deputy minister and Jason Wall, chief of staff for the Saskatchewan Transportation Co. on Nov. 22.
The two women, integral members of the Time to Twin group, recently completed a series of 14-hour traffic counting vigils at two locations along Highways 39 and 47 near Estevan.
"We were told our traffic count numbers (over 3,300 vehicles) were in accordance with numbers the ministry has, or within five per cent of their tallies," said Young during a Nov. 24 interview with The Mercury.
Ireland said they came away from the one-hour meeting in Regina with "a sense of encouragement."
The two said that Reiter suggested that the message about the need to twin the stretch of highway that links the international border crossing at North Portal to the Queen City through Estevan and Weyburn has been heard loudly and clearly. He added there was probably no need to provide follow-up petitions or rallies in front of the Legislature or town hall meetings to drive the point home more emphatically.
But when the two women learned on Thursday that the Highways Ministry was moving forward quickly, thanks in large part to a petition filed by residents who live east of Regina along Highway No. 1, they might be rethinking their strategy, said Ireland.
The ministry revealed Thursday that they would begin engineering work immediately and provide functional planning for a series of ramped turnoffs on Highway 1 near White City, Pilot Butte and Balgonie that will also involve Highways 48 and 46. Work on new turn lanes and overpasses are expected to begin quickly, according to Reiter's office.
Ken Peakman, a spokesman for the Highway 1 petition group that was requesting the construction, was quoted in the Regina Leader-Post as saying he was "pleasantly surprised" by the speed with which the ministry acted when the safety concerns were outlined to them.
That makes Ireland and Young wonder out loud what is the fate of their two-year drive to have some safety elements enacted in southeast Saskatchewan?
"Do we have to have more than the 17 deaths and 140 accidents with serious injuries we had on this highway between 2004 and 2008? Is that what it takes to get a response? I sure hope not," said Ireland.
She went on to note that safety has been touted as the overwhelming need for the Highways Ministry to work quickly on the Highway 1 project, but it "should also be an overwhelming point for this part of the province too," she said the day after the interview.
While the two are determining whether or not they will pursue a petition or other routes like the White City and Balgonie communities did, they are going to continue their pro-active ways.
Young said they will probably be asking local service centres along the Highway 39/6 route to allow them to put out a survey form requesting comments and ideas from the semi-truck, bus and other heavy hauling drivers.
"We'd like to do a survey of them. If we can put the forms at the Canadian border stations, and at truck stops in Estevan, Midale, Weyburn and Milestone, we might be able to get some good ideas of how we can improve the safety on this highway," said Young.
She added that while they're waiting for a decision from the ministry regarding the application to twin the highway, there might be some additional things that could be done to help people traverse the 300 or more kilometres a little more safely. She said perhaps a more visible RCMP patrol presence to help control the speed of the vehicles or a better way to monitor trucks that are skirting the highways on the grid road systems might help.
"The oil patch is going to be busy for the next 20 years. We might have a big clean coal construction blitz happening within two years. The communities are growing and yes, we know that other communities along Highway 7 and Highway 16 are lobbying the government to have their highways twinned too, but we believe our situation here is very important," said Young.
The two women pointed out that the $300 million in expected costs associated with the twinning project represents about one good year of income going to the government from this part of the province from the oil patch alone.
"It's not like the money isn't there, or hasn't been there from this area. We'd like to see some of it coming back to us in the form of a project we really need," said Young.
Ireland said letters seeking support from rural municipal governments and town councils along the highway have been sent out. So far only the Town of Bienfait has replied.
"Mr. Reiter asked us if we thought passing lanes might be helpful as an interim measure and we told him we didn't think so since they might only lead to even more frightening situations, like five semis in a row trying to re-emerge from a limited corridor at the same time," said Young.
Two weeks ago the women had separate meetings with MLA Doreen Eagles and MP Ed Komarnicki and they said they were sympathetic to the plight and were willing to be advocates.
"Doreen seems to be very much on our side on this twinning process," said Young.
Komarnicki was also going to communicate with Chuck Strahl, the federal minister responsible for the highways files.
The women said they once again emphasized the fact there will be increased heavy truck traffic entering southeast Saskatchewan when the Regina-based transportation hub begins serious operations in 2012.
"We know the ministry has to weigh several facts such as traffic counts, economic and safety factors. We feel we made our case in terms of safety, volume and economic necessity," said Young.
"I guess the bottom line is, they've heard our story, and we didn't even have time to talk about the proposed truck route around Estevan," she said with a smile.
It is expected that a decision regarding another highway twinning project in Saskatchewan will not be made until the current twinning project linking Saskatoon with Prince Albert on Highway 11 is completed in 2012.
