A long journey, any journey, starts with the first step, and for municipalities in the Soo Line Highway Corridor Association, the first real step towards reality was taken by a meeting with the premier.

The highway association is looking seriously at twinning Highway 6 and 39 from Regina, southeast through Weyburn and Estevan down to North Portal, where the road hooks up in North Dakota and goes down to Minot, where it then meets up with the Interstate highway system.

Due to its strategic location, this highway is heavily used, and the use is ever-increasing given its connection with North Dakota and the Midwest. The Soo Line railroad has long been used for this very purpose, extending from Moose Jaw, parallel with Highway 39 all the way into the U.S. and east to Chicago.

Thus it was of utmost importance that a meeting was held with Premier Lorne Calvert to show him not only what the need is, but what the benefits are, when this important north-south route is twinned. The benefits are not just economic, but will help increase tourism and safety, which the premier afterwards said was a top priority for all highways.

Studies are fairly clear that head-on collisions drop quite significantly when a busy highway is twinned, and as use by large trucks increases, this will become ever more important. A recent accident near Lang involving two semis and two large flat-bed trucks is an illustration of the safety consideration needed for this highway.

Tourism is one of this province's fastest-growing industries that involves many businesses, and creates many jobs; its importance is increasing to the overall economy, and is important to those communities that are on or near the Soo Line Highway corridor.

The dollars expended to twin the highway - pegged initially at somewhere around $250 million, in today's figures - over a period of up to 15 years would be repaid first in the lives saved by a safer route, and by the increased economic activity made possible through tourism and for trade into the area, and from this area down into the western and mid-western United States, through their Interstate system.

When you hook it up with the north-south highway that is even now being twinned up to Prince Albert, this then would ultimately provide for a route from Prince Albert right through to the U.S.

As interim chairman Dylan Clarke of the highway association said, this means the benefits are not just for the communities like Weyburn that are along Highway 39, but ultimately this benefits a large part of the province, and her economy.

This is known as a win-win situation, and it would do the government well to pursue this idea, hooking up with their counterparts in North Dakota to ensure it's twinned up to the border on their side; this could in fact be the realization of the dream raised by proponents of the Can-Am Highway, using Highway 35 as the route - only this one will likely prove to be the superior way to go. - Greg Nikkel