Details are sketchy, but a 10 year, $5 billion plan to improve Saskatchewan roads, railways and airports is meeting with approval.
Premier Lorne Calvert and highways minister Eldon Lautermilch announced the spending March 6 as a way to enhance economic
activity in the province.
The government now budgets $350 million a year for transportation and plans to increase it by $150 million annually. Further details are expected in the March 22 provincial budget.
The strategy focuses on six areas: international gateways and corridors; urban connectors; rural economic corridors; northern economic infrastructure; First Nations access roads and regional short-line railways and airports.
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Saskatchewan Association of Rural Municipalities president David Marit said the strategy appears to complement SARM’s work on its Clearing the Path initiative, which is designed to facilitate development.
Municipalities have been looking at factors such as which roads should carry primary weights, and Marit said those factors will be part of the province’s strategy.
The government wants heavy traffic moved to primary weight grid roads from thin membrane surface highways.
The province has promised to compensate RMs for the extra wear on grid roads, and Marit said SARM must make sure it keeps its promise. RMs need to spend $1,000 per kilometre per year for maintenance and construction to ensure these roads can carry the additional weight, he added.
“We are concerned about the dollar figure,” Marit said. “Our members were very adamant.”
The plan to move heavy traffic to adjacent grid roads won’t work everywhere.
Morgan Powell, chair of the South West Transportation Planning Council, said there is no adjacent road along Highway 32, the route between Leader and Swift Current that gained notoriety last year when community members bared all in a calendar to draw attention to the highway’s poor condition.
Powell said a portion of the highway has since been fixed, but ongoing maintenance will need to be a priority.
Increased government spending on roads is a good idea, Powell said, but he acknowledged not all roads can be fixed at once.
“We might have to provide some information to the government about the economics in our district,” he said.
The plan also calls for construction and restoration of 3,000 km of strategic highway which, when added to the existing 9,400 km of primary weight capacity, will form a rural economic corridor that includes nearly half the provincial highway system.
The idea is to fill gaps in the road system, particularly in the oil and gas fields, southern agricultural area and the forestry belt.
“The potential exists to achieve true integration between the municipal road network and the provincial transportation system for the first time ever in this province’s history,” Lautermilch said.
All this activity, combined with that in other provinces, means labour is a concern. Lautermilch said the construction sector wanted a long-term plan so that it could be ready for road projects and Powell and Marit said 10 years should be enough.
However, Marit said SARM will keep a close eye on costs.
“Even in the last couple of years the cost of moving dirt has doubled.”
Jim Short, chair of the Road Builders and Heavy Construction Association of Saskatchewan, said association members are committed to the province’s economic expansion.
“We want to see details of the plan to best gauge how as an industry we can assist in moving the plan forward,” he said.
The government strategy includes completing the twinning of Highway 11 between Saskatoon and Prince Albert and increasing capital investments in short-line railways and regional airports.
“We have carefully looked at where economic activity is taking place and where there are significant shortfalls in the transportation network to support this activity,” Calvert said.
