With winter on the horizon, major projects for the Ministry of Highways and Infrastructure are wrapping up. That includes a number of passing lane projects that have become Saskatchewan’s go-to method of improving highway capacity without twinning, and at a much lower cost.
Minister of Highways and Infrastructure Greg Ottenbreit spoke about the various projects by phone on Nov. 3.
Since the initial pilot project was done several years ago on Highway 10 between Balgonie and Fort Qu’Appelle, Saskatchewan has gone whole hog into passing lane development as a way to improve highway safety. Along the way, large portions of roadway have been repaved at the same time.
Some of the stretches between the new sets of passing lanes that weren’t repaved this year may be done in the future, if warranted, according to Ottenbreit. But other areas do not require repaving at this time. He noted some areas will see improvements to intersections.
“The sections that need it are definitely going to be redone,” he said of repaving.
Highway 39 between Milestone and Estevan is not complete, and there’s a reason for that. It’s a multiyear project, Ottenbreit said, noting, “That isn't slated to be done until the end of next year.”
As of Oct. 26, there were still portions of that stretch that had substantial drop-offs on the side. “They'll make things as safe as they possibly can,” Ottenbreit said.
The entire project, which started in 2018, encompasses 11 sets of passing lanes from Regina to Estevan. Two of those sets were done on Highway 6 south of Regina and were completed in 2018.
He said the Highway 39 project has five sets of passing lanes between Estevan and Weyburn.
“Two were opened, on 39, between Estevan and Weyburn. And those are already complete. The whole project is a $78 million safety project that includes five sets, or 10 lanes in total, between McTaggart and Milestone, and about 25 kilometres of paving.”
“Two of the four sets have opened north of Weyburn on Highway 39, and the contractors are working on both of those other projects during this week of the warm weather. And then, once construction does cease for the season, there shouldn’t be any reductions in speed. They might not have the project completed, but they’ll make sure it’s safe for the winter.”
During the latter years of the oil boom, before the province’s revenue crashed by a billion dollars per years as a result of substantially lower oil prices, the Ministry of Highways and Transport was well into the planning of twinning Highway 39 from Regina to Bienfait. Up until that point, the province had embarked on significant twinning projects on Highways 1, 16 and 11 in the previous two decades.
The plan for Highway 39 was changed to passing lanes.
Ottenbreit said, “I know there was anticipation of possibly twinning that project. But when you look at the actual traffic flows, it doesn’t really warrant a full twining of that project. When that was talked about, the twinning, we really hadn’t done any passing lane projects yet, so when we started doing the first pilot project, between Fort Qu’Appelle and Regina, and then started rolling out some other ones, the safety was exemplary, and depending on the traffic flows, the passing lanes were more than adequate,” he said
Ottenbreit added some twinning was done near Regina.
The cost of passing lanes versus twinning is roughly 25 per cent, he noted. It is done within the normal roadway easement, so you don’t have the land acquisition problems or environmental impact.
