The route of the Yorkton West Truck Route Bypass is currently being planned, and the proposals put forward by the Ministry of Highways and Infrastructure have all had one thing in common, they currently use Queen Street as part of the alignment.
The city is concerned with the proposed development, because of what it could mean for the future growth of the city. Gord Shaw, Director of Planning and Engineering for the City of Yorkton, says that while using Queen Street will be cheaper than other routes, the city is concerned about how it will affect growth.
"We do anticipate having future developments south of Queen Street that will likely be residential, so we're likely going to have a number of north-south cross connections across Queen street. So, it won't become a true truck route. For a truck route, you want free-flowing traffic that can maintain a constant speed," Shaw says.
One of the main concerns is that the developments currently in the area and the ones planned would likely be residential, and routing a truck route through a residential area would bring with it safety concerns. Shaw also notes that in the event of growth, traffic signals would need to be placed at some of the major intersections, which would impede traffic flow on a route which would be meant to be free flowing.
The city would like to see options which use a connection further south than Queen street, in order to better accommodate planned growth.
Councillor Chris Wyatt supports the recommendation, though he suggests that the city look at ways in which its resources could be used to mitigate the costs of a more southerly route. He says that they do not want to be looked upon as having a "not in our back yard" mentality.
Councillor Ross Fisher believes that planning to go south of Queen street is something which will need to happen if the city continues growing.
"We see too many cities with perimeter roads that are in the middle of the city because nobody expected that kind of growth. If we see anything like the growth we've seen in the past few years in the next few years, we will have to go past Queen street in the very foreseeable future. We're already planning for that to take place," Fisher says.
Council authorized the administration to communicate to the ministry of highways the concerns about the proposed routes and how using Queen street for the bypass would affect future growth of the city.
