Marit is president of the Saskatchewan Association of Rural Municipalities.
The Clearing the Path (CTP) project was initiated in 2004 by the Saskatchewan Association of Rural Municipalities.
SARM, with support from the Saskatchewan Urban Municipalities Association, devised a committee made up of municipal reeves, mayors and councillors to determine what municipalities could do to better the business climate in rural areas.
After an extensive review and interviews with more than 20 businesses and provincial government representatives, the CTP committee came up with a list of 11 recommendations in March 2005.
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These recommendations outlined initiatives that municipalities could undertake to encourage and support economic development in rural areas.
All the recommendations are in the CTP final report at www.clearingthepath.ca.
One of the issues identified was that there was a lack of transportation facilities in rural areas to accommodate the heavy haul primary weights that are a reality of conducting business today.
It is often difficult for businesses to establish in rural areas because they require access to a primary weight road network to transport bulk materials and ship products to market.
The CTP committee recommended that a municipal primary weight corridor system be developed to address this impediment. Due to high transportation costs, businesses in communities without primary weight access are at a severe competitive disadvantage. Efficient transportation infrastructure is a key element in economic development and the overall success of rural communities.
The main objective of this project is to create an integrated transportation system in Saskatchewan by identifying sections of municipal roads that can provide strategic primary weight linkages to the primary weight highway system.
This leads to reduced transportation costs and productivity gains for all of Saskatchewan’s economic sectors and increases economic development opportunities in rural Saskatchewan.
On Sept.17, 2007, the CTP Primary Weight Corridor System was officially opened. The program is a partnership between SARM, SUMA and the province of Saskatchewan whereby the ministry of highways and infrastructure provides $10 million per year to assist municipalities with the additional maintenance and construction costs of the system.
The determination of the roads to be included in the system was challenging. The CTP transportation subcommittee held extensive consultations with municipalities to determine which municipal roads would be the most appropriate to carry primary weights and which would provide the most strategic links to the current system of primary weight roads.
To date 5,000 kilometres of municipal roads have been implemented on the CTP corridor system and a further 1,850 km have been identified and are awaiting approval by municipalities.
Once municipalities have given their approval, we will have a system of roads totalling approximately 6,850 km, with a further 150 km to be added later, for a grand total of 7,000 km.
The purpose of the corridor system is two-fold. First, corridor roads can be used to take traffic off secondary weight highways, thus preserving the highway for lighter traffic.
Secondly, these municipal corridors will provide primary weight access to areas that didn’t have access before by building strategic links to complement the current primary weight system.
For example, in southwestern Saskatchewan there are no plans to upgrade provincial highways and this area has little access to primary weight roads. In cases where the highway network is insufficient, with no plans for future upgrades, a strategic municipal primary weight network is an affordable alternative.
Implementing and funding such a municipal corridor system has been a win for rural businesses, for municipalities in rural areas and for government because it is one big step toward clearing the path for more development in this province.
The CTP corridor will complement the existing highway system and provide primary weight roads to communities now without such access.
