We’re getting a clearer picture of how Highways 39 and 6 will look in a few years.
You can’t blame local residents for being frustrated.
The federal government announced last week that it would contribute $53.3 million towards the construction of passing lanes and double lanes on the highways over the next few years. It will also support resurfacing the roads and some intersection upgrades, although the location of those upgrades weren’t disclosed.
Sixteen sets of passing lanes will be constructed. The first two sets, on Highway 6 south of Regina, will be built this year.
Remaining sets will be coming in the next few years.
And there will be twinning south of Regina, between Milestone and Corinne, and south of Weyburn.
There won’t be double lanes northwest of the city, to the dismay of many local residents. It would be nice to have double lanes from the junction of the truck bypass to Hitchcock.
And there are unanswered questions regarding the project. Perhaps the biggest is timing. It’s supposed to take five years to complete.
Does that mean we won’t see passing lanes down here for another few years? If construction starts in Regina, and it works its way down here, then we will be at the bottom of the completion list.
If the passing lanes start at Regina and Estevan, and work their way to the middle, then the construction of the first passing lanes locally will occur sooner. And it means the last of the passing lanes would be constructed around McTaggart.
We’ll take passing lanes when they’re built, but we want twinning. Passing lanes might be an effective system for highways such as No. 10 from Regina to Yorkton, or Highway 5 from Saskatoon to Humboldt. But Highways 39 and 6 are a different story due to the heavy truck traffic that exists in this trade corridor.
Semi-trailer units make up a significant portion of the vehicular traffic on Highway 39. Work trucks for the oil and gas sector and other industries also account for a significant amount of traffic on the highway.
If activity levels in the oil and gas sector return to their pre-2015 levels, then we’ll see even more traffic on these two highways.
With 16 sets of passing lanes between Estevan and Regina, and three stretches with double lanes, we should see passing lanes every 10 kilometres or so.
But will they alleviate the traffic bottlenecks that we encounter on a regular basis that can be eight, 10 or even 12 vehicles in length? Probably not.
You’re likely to see vehicles in the left-hand passing lane who have no business being there. And once the passing lane is finished, you’ll still have too many motorists trying to make aggressive passes.
Passing lanes will make a difference, they won’t make the difference that some would have you believe.
