The state of Estevan's roads have been an issue for years, but all hell pretty much broke loose in 2013.
After a winter that included a series of freezing and thawing cycles, many of the streets that were barely hanging on became virtually impassable in the spring.
The worst of the worst was the stretch of Highway 47 that runs through the city. Starting from Wellock Road and running to the CPR tracks and down Sixth Street, the road surface was a collection of massive potholes, ruts and craters. At one point the situation became so bad that the City of Estevan was forced to lower the speed limit to 40 km/h and one lane of traffic.
The City had been hoping to wait until 2014 before they repaired Highway 47, but it became clear early in the spring there was little chance of the road lasting through the summer, let alone another winter.
Initially, the plan called for what the City described as a "shave and pave" where they would hire a contractor to simply remove the asphalt and put a new layer down. As things progressed and the provincial government agreed to pay for roughly half the costs, the project grew into a full-on rebuild from Wellock to the tracks, that also included work on watermains and storm sewers in the area.
The project wasn't cheap - the price tag is believed to be well over $2 million - and the work took about three months to complete, the final result is a wider, much smoother driving surface that should last for 20 years.
Of course, the work isn't quite done. The City had initially committed to repairing the southern portion of Highway 47. Those plans are now up in the air as council continues to deal with a ballooning debt that will force them to keep spending to a minimum for at least a couple of years.
Fortunately for the City, and more so drivers, this winter has been much gentler on the roads. Still, it's clear that the City has a great deal of work ahead of it, not only in 2014, but well into the future.
