What will the roads surrounding Yorkton look like in the future? The city is looking to answer that question, with a Yorkton Regional Transportation Study, done in cooperation with the Ministry of Highways, City of Yorkton, RM of Wallace and RM of Orkney. An open house hosted at the Gallagher Centre saw a big crowd come to see what the plans are and have their input into the process.
Monique Kealey, Senior Transportation Engineer with Associated Engineering (Sask) Ltd. says that the study is designed to see what the city needs to take into account in order to handle expected growth in the next twenty years. The study will be looking at how roadways will have to be developed in order to meet the needs of the city.
“For example, if people feel that highway 16 through the city is something they don’t want to continue to have, they might say let’s build a new highway 16. Where should it be then? Should it be a freeway style bypass or should it be more of an industrial road that gives good access to adjacent properties? To create a dialog and get the opinions of local businesses and residents on what transportation systems and roadways are needed for future growth.”
Doing the planning now is critical, because without a clear transportation in place it could be a case where the land needed for future transportation development could wind up getting used.
“What you don’t want is to have development use up all the land, without having a plan and organizing all the space to know where the road is going to go, because we need to protect the land from being developed.”
It’s encouraging that the city and the local RMs are working together on the study, Kealey says, and it’s a necessary step because the RMs will be affected by any plans and need to have their concerns at the table,
“It’s fabulous that everyone wants to work together. It’s really critical to have a common vision because typically roads like this are serving everyone. There’s highway traffic that’s going through the city and not benefitting anyone locally, there’s a lot of Yorkton-destined traffic and the RMs also use the city centre as a service centre so they’re doing a lot of traffic back and forth to Yorkton. Realistically, any new highways, if that’s what is needed, might need to go through the RMs so it’s important for the RMs to participate, and say hey, there is this or that environmental reserve or other land feature that we want you to work around, or we have our own growth plans.”
Dale Rhinas, Reeve of the RM of Orkney, says any plans for a bypass to deal with increased truck traffic are going to affect the RM of Orkney heavily, so they’re glad to see community members have a strong interest in whatever road plans will be developed.
Bob Maloney, Yorkton Mayor, views it as an opportunity to get everyone together to see what the status is on the traffic in the city. He notes that in the city’s own studies, they were surprised by the level of traffic going through, and believes it’s just going to increase, especially truck traffic.
“It’s hundreds of trucks a day, and that kind of movement wears and tears at your highway structure. It’s important to rebuild that, to have routes around the city, and try when you can to separate trucks from smaller traffic.”
The hope is also to get the province to see just how much traffic is going through the city and how serious both the city and RMs are about working on transportation in the city and work on the local roads and highways.
Sid Wonitowy, councillor for the RM of Wallace, says it’s clear there’s a need to accommodate the increasing truck traffic going through the city. He says that developing a bypass would be good for the city and good for the trucks.
“It’s pretty important to get your transportation routes in place so they are going to meet the needs of industry that is going to invest, either outside in the RMs or in the city. For those trucks, getting goods transported in and out, it’s pretty important to have a good transportation system.”
Wonitowy also believes that having the city and surrounding area on board is going to lead to the best plan for any proposed bypass.
“I think that’s a great thing that we’re working together on it. Everyone puts their heads together and somewhere in there we will find a solution to this problem.”
