The Editor:
The reason for a truck bypass is to take traffic away from a city.
This proposed bypass for Estevan does just the opposite. I do not think the people realize that all streets in and out of the city will be dead ended at the bypass. All traffic using Kensington Avenue will be deferred over to Highway 47. This means that Sister Roddy Road is a direct route to and from the hospital.
When did dead ending a road to a hospital become good planning? The ambulance will have to go to Highway 47 to get to the northwest quadrant of the RM. Everyone knows this highway is already congested. We are going to send our emergency traffic onto a congested highway. The school buses, if they use Kensington, will go over to Highway 47.
We have farmers who will have land on both sides of this bypass. They will have to move their machinery over to Highway 47. With that highway being the only way out of the city, the side streets to get to 13th Avenue will also be troublesome.
Now let's talk about train traffic.
On the west where the truck route will have to cross the track, again, another potential hazard. Now we have traffic trying to get on the truck route and immediately have a train track to deal with. This CPR track is the mainline into the Eastern United States. No need to expand on this.
As the city grows, this bypass will be like Circle Drive in Saskatoon. It will be in the middle of the city.
I do not have a vested interest in any land in or around the city, therefore, I have nothing to gain or lose by writing this letter.
The truck route is entirely in the wrong place.
When the public meeting was held in the leisure centre, I proposed an alternate route. It was met with a negative response.
I proposed that the route should go south and follow the train track and pick up Highway 39 at Roche Percee. This land acquisition will be a lot cheaper than the proposed route. The entrance to the business district will be a lot closer from the south than from the north. No train tracks to cross. That alone makes the traffic move faster.
My proposal sees traffic entering the bypass just east of the weigh scale and it follows the valley to Roche Percee.
To the Ministry of Highways and Infrastructure ... with so much opposition to your proposed route, maybe, just maybe, the people might be right.
Sincerely,
Vernon "Butch" McLean
Estevan
