Within the next eight months the provincial government and the Ministry of Highways and Infrastructure should be turning their attention to the question of what major highway in the province should be receiving some extra attention. At least that is the thought that is driving the Time to Twin Highway 39 & 6 committee to the next phase of their campaign to keep the heat on Highways officials regarding the need to double track the stretch of highway that links the Canadian/United States border, Estevan and Weyburn and all the communities in between with the city of Regina.
To that end, Marge Young, chairwoman of the Time to Twin group, said they are now distributing survey forms that they hope many oil field, trucking companies and other highway users will fill out and return to them.
The survey asks the drivers to recount problems they have encountered on this stretch of highway; near misses, bad pavement, problems with traffic flow, speed and volumes and so on.
Since this stretch of pavement has been the site of 23 fatal accidents in the past six years plus 250 accidents involving serious injuries, the committee has no intention of backing away from their goal.
"We're heading into a summer of campaigning, the election is in November. The twinning of Highway 11 between Saskatoon and Prince Albert is nearly completed," said Young, referring to previous statements made by Highways and Infrastructure Minister Jim Reiter that consideration for another twinning project would not be made until the Highway 11 project was pretty well completed.
That time is now.
Young and her committee members are afraid the topic might just get lost in the political rhetoric that will surround the campaign. That rhetoric will include such things as physician shortages, medical wait times, flood damages, funding for K to Grade 12 education and so on.
She is also adamant that "make-do" passing lanes constructed at intervals along the highway would not alleviate the problem of high traffic volume since the majority of the traffic on the highway consists of large semi-trailer units and massive oil field and coal company duty trucks. She said the question of who would pull over for whom when the highway is filled with aggressive drivers, is only asking for more disasters.
The two declared candidates for their respective parties in the upcoming election have placed the highway twinning topic on the top of their priority list. Incumbent Doreen Eagles of the Sask. Party said she would be "lobbying for a safer way to travel on this highway," while newly selected NDP candidate Blair Schoenfeld said, "twinning Highway 39 and 6 is the one major issue and right behind it is affordable housing and how it can be achieved in this constituency."
"With a global transportation hub now getting underway in Regina, add a few hundred more semis to our weekly traffic list," said Young. She pointed out that highway traffic in southeast Saskatchewan has turned Highway 47, heading north out of Estevan up to Stoughton into the "most dangerous highway in Saskatchewan." That, explained is probably only because a good portion of the Highway 39 drivers are turning to Highway 47 as their alternate route because 39 is already too congested and therefore too dangerous and inefficient to drive on with over 5,000 vehicles already per day.
Young said the surveys were dispensed among Estevan and area companies and drivers in early March and committee members would be picking them up within two weeks or recipients may mail them directly back to the committee through regular mail or e-mail. The committee has the intention of making the results known to Reiter and his officials during this spring's legislative session.
"We didn't want to do a petition, we heard that too often they simply don't attract the attention they perhaps should, but the surveys well, they will give the minister first-hand testimonials about the nightmares that so many people have encountered on this highway. Too many people have died on this highway already. Too many injured. This is more personal. These will be actual episodes, you know, real people with real life experiences on this highway, not just someone willing to sign a petition," she said.
With record-setting income, measured in the hundreds of millions of dollars every few months now flowing into the provincial coffers from southeast Saskatchewan oil fields, Young said it would be impossible for the current government, or any subsequent government, to claim that there would be nothing in the budget for the project.
