Saskatchewan will spend a record amount fixing its roads and highways this year.
In the March 31 budget, the government announced that 950 kilometres of highway will be improved this year, including 800 km of thin membrane surface roads.
The highways and transportation budget is $311.7 million, up from $250 million last year.
That is good news, said Sinclair Harrison, president of the Saskat-
chewan Association of Rural Municipalities.
However, he was looking for more help to fix grid roads, too.
“When you’ve got a rural road network that is made up of highways and rural municipal roads, if you put all your resources into fixing one but not the other, our system deteriorates.”
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Harrison said fixing 800 km of thin membrane road that carries a lot of heavy grain traffic is a long way from the total amount that needs to be fixed.
He suggested the province should make the worst ones the priority.
“But we won’t be critical of which ones they fix,” he said.
Brent Warner, president of the Road Builders and Heavy Construction Association of Saskatchewan, said his industry was encouraged by the announcement of additional spending.
“We would like to see a breakdown of the numbers and see that every dollar is spent effectively and every dollar is going to the road, so to speak.”
Warner also said the federal government should take note of the province’s initiative.
“We acknowledge there’s some federal money in the prairie grain roads program, but as far as the national highway, there’s none.”
The province had earlier announced it would twin the Trans-Canada Highway on the west side of the province by 2004, four years early.
Harrison also said the $106 million coming from Ottawa over five years for grain roads should be split equally between the province and municipalities.
In Alberta, federal funding went to municipalities, while in Manitoba it was split between municipalities and highways, he said.
“(Saskatchewan) Highways and SUMA (Saskatchewan Urban Municipalities Association) took the position that 70 percent should go into highways and 30 percent for rural municipalities,” he said.
“That agreement hasn’t been finalized but the government has chosen to say it’s going to be 70 percent and that’s what they put in their budget.”
He said the province is taking credit for federal money.
Last week’s budget also included more money for more employees.
Highways minister Pat Atkinson defended the decision to add 90 staff to her department.
“We hired additional staff to fix the potholes and make the surfaces dust free,” she said, adding that the roads will be safer.
