Twinning Highway 39 took a step forward last week, with the start of the pre-design phase sending crews out along the highway between Estevan and Bienfait to begin collecting a wealth of information.
It has been clear from the beginning that the first section of Highway 39 and 6 to get the four-lane treatment would be the eight-kilometre stretch between Estevan and Bienfait. The province announced its intentions to add lanes to that part of the highway before a secondary announcement was made declaring the entire stretch of road from the international border at North Portal to Regina a priority for expansion.
This predesign phase will involve surveying, geotechnical investigation and environmental assessments, all important information that will be used to determine the best way and best place to build the extra lanes of the highway.
Mark Rathwell, senior communications consultant with the Ministry of Highways and Infrastructure, said, "There are lots of little pieces that flow out of those things, but those are the all-encompassing terms for everything that's going on."
The predesign work is about helping the ministry understand and better find what the exact layout of the road should be.
"(It's so) we understand the base the road is going to be built on. It gives us the information we need to move into the detailed design work," said Rathwell.
"This will highlight for us, anything that may exist in the ground that we need to be aware of, you know, matter that isn't suitable for road building. It will help us better understand all of those things, the exact layout of the utilities, and anything like that that if you're not prepared, could cause an issue during construction."
Earlier this year, the ministry unveiled preliminary drawings outlining several options for where the new lanes will be, either north or south of the existing highway. How those lanes will connect with the Highway 39 entrance on the east side of Estevan and the intersection with Highway 18 heading toward Bienfait will become clearer following this next phase of the project.
What the ministry is calling the preferred plan would see the new lanes be constructed to the south of the current highway, though that is subject to change and this predesign stage should be the final determining factor in where the added pavement should go.
After this stage wraps up sometime this fall, the detailed design phase will be done over the winter.
"(The detailed design) will better refine the exact shape, the exact route, things like the cost because this is a project that will be tendered out once we have the detailed design work," added Rathwell.
"It helps to identify those issues. Most of this work goes through several phases. You start with a location study where you look at aerial photography of the area. You research the utilities. This is about starting to put the nuts and bolts into the plan and identifying anything that may come up that will need to be considered before the detailed design, things like intersections and how the roadway meets existing roads and access points," said Rathwell.
He said the schedule was for crews to begin on Aug. 26, but the rain may have impacted the work and put it back a few days.
"You'll see some workers on the side of the road and in the ditches, whatever side of the road the new lane is supposed to go on. You'll see some trucks drilling and doing surveying work. It shouldn't really be an impact on traffic, or a minimal impact on traffic," said Rathwell.
While there is no defined timeline for how long this phase of the project will be, Rathwell said it should be complete some time this fall.
"There's not a hard end date for this work as of yet. Part of it is what they see in their initial work, if it requires them to do further investigation. It's going to wrap up this fall and move into the detailed design work over the winter."
Following the detailed design work when the plans are finalized, a tender will be issued for the construction phase.
