The Southeast College’s Estevan campus and the City of Estevan have teamed up on a road extension project.
Sheena Onrait, the college’s manager of marketing and communications, and city manager Jeff Ward announced more specific details on the project, which was initially reported on in last week’s edition of the Mercury.
The extension is part of a heavy equipment operator course offered at the college. Onrait believes this is the first time it has been at the college.
“We’re very, very excited that this was able to happen, and that we were able to partner with the City of Estevan to be able to build the road, and hopefully keep building on that parcel of land out there,” said Onrait.
Bourquin Road in northeast Estevan will be extended by nearly a mile as part of the project. The road will initially be gravel.
Ward noted the road extension started through discussions with Jeff Richards, the vice-president of strategic development at Southeast College. Richards approached the city and the Rural Municipality of Estevan to see if there were any projects that the heavy equipment operator program students could tackle.
“Upon this discussion, I thought of the King Street East extension that we have in the plans, but there wasn’t an immediate demand to build that road,” said Ward.
Ward spoke with the city’s roads and drainage manager Norm Mack, engineer Kiflom Weldeab and land development services manager Rob Denys about which roads would be suitable for a potential partnership. The extension of Bourquin Road was already pre-engineered and designed, so it seemed like a perfect fit for the college to create a base for a road that will be needed eventually. Richards added the equipment they have in place for the course can now be put to good use.
“We’d prefer to do something like this, where we can have a positive impact,” said Richards. “It might make life easier for somebody at city hall.” Mayor Roy Ludwig views the project as a “win-win.” The city gets a road built, and the program’s students get experience.
The college will provide the equipment, which has been rented, and the labour to build the road. Equipment will include a motor grader, a crawler tractor and a front-end loader. The city will supply any fill materials that are needed and the fuel. Each of the six students in the class will be trained on two of the three pieces of equipment. Working in teams of two, they will be trained on one piece during the first half of the course, and on the other during the second half.
A compactor will likely have to be brought in so the road matches the city’s specifications for gravel roads, which are the same as the provincial government.
Ward expects the costs for the city will be minimal.
Water and sewer mains won’t be installed as part of the project, since they are not needed at this time, and the city does not have them in the budget. They can be installed along the side of the road once they’re needed, so the road won’t have to be dug up.
“But even having an access roadway where it’s to compaction, to specs and graded to how it was designed will be a great addition for the city,” said Ward.
This is Phase 1 of the project. They are optimistic Phase 1 could be completed by the time the course wraps up at the end of the month, there is a chance they might have to work into June, or they might have to extend Phase 1 into the next time the course is offered.
It will be some time before the road can accommodate vehicles.
