The twinning priority for the province is to complete Highway 11, between Saskatoon and Prince Albert, before other projects are announced.
The province budgeted for $63 million for Gateway Corridors, including the completion of Highway 11 twinning; and the start of twinning and passing lane strategy.
Jim Reiter, minister for Highways and Transportation, detailed highway infrastructure information on Thursday. He was the keynote speaker at the Sask. Party spring banquet for the Weyburn-Big Muddy constituency, held at McKenna Hall.
"Particular interest is to highways that have a lot of traffic," said Reiter. "So in this budget we announced that we are going to do a passing lane project on Highway 10, from Balgonie to Fort Qu'Appelle. There are some areas in the province where passing lanes can help alleviate a lot of congestion."
"In other areas of the province I think you will see passing lanes used in conjunction with twinning," added Reiter.
"Generally speaking from other jurisdictions, passing lanes have proven themselves over and over," said Reiter. "Twinning on a busy highway on average decreases accidents by 35 per cent, passing lanes decrease accidents by 25 per cent and we can do passing lanes for the same length and same distance for about 15 per cent of the cost of twinning."
By implementing a passing lane program, Reiter said "you can get projects out of the gate quicker, you can do a lot more kilometres of highway, and make a lot more of them safer."
Reiter added that the Highway 11 project should be completed this year. "We have accelerated that greatly by four years; it was projected to be finished by 2016."
"We wanted to start other projects because there is still a lot of work to be done," said Reiter. He added that more announcements regarding capital projects will be released in a couple of months.
Highway infrastructure increased by 4.5 per cent in the provincial budget, approved by the Government of Saskatchewan on Thursday. "Highways are a huge priority for our government; we recognize that we have an export-based economy and highways are a huge part of our infrastructure that we need."
The spending for highways in the 2012 provincial budget was $581.5 million, with a commitment to spend $2.2 billion over four years on highways and transportation infrastructure.
"Saskatchewan is turning into a huge economic story for the entire country," said Reiter. "We inherited a massive infrastructure deficit, and most notable was highways. Highways will continue to be a major priority for our government."
"We done a lot to improve highways, and drivers will see 1,200 kilometres of highways improve this year," said Reiter. "But we recognize that we have a long way to go, and you can't turn around 16 years of neglect in just four years."
Many highways and roads were also damaged last year because of flooding. "It was absolutely an issue and we recognize that, cabinet authorized more funding (for affected areas) and we got a lot of work done," said Reiter. The provincial budget included $207.8 million for repair and replacement of highway surfaces, including 320 km of repaving; and had $18.0 million for repair and replacement of highways, bridges and culverts related to the 2011 flooding.
"We still have flooding work to do this year and it did set us back," noted Reiter.
