The City of Weyburn is ready for some major upgrades to their roads and highways, to help make them safer for motorists, and some of them are long overdue.
City council received the final report of the regional transportation study on Monday night, and among the 49 recommendations brought forward are plans for an external truck route, and to upgrade the intersection of Highways 13 and 39 with its extreme angles.
The truck route is an idea that needs to be accelerated as it pertains to the traffic of heavy trucks on Highway 13, or First Avenue as it goes through the city. Of concern is the large elementary school being built on Fifth Street, just north of the intersection with First Avenue.
When completed and opened by September of 2021, there will be upwards of 600 of elementary-aged children going to school there, and located alongside the Weyburn Recreation and Culture Centre, not to mention the Leisure Centre, there is going to be a definite impact on the traffic volumes in this area.
As Coun. Winston Bailey commented, “I don’t want to be sitting here four years from now having this discussion again.”
The intersection of Highways 13 and 39 has long been a problem for Weyburn motorists, and there have been many collisions there over the years because of the extreme angle of the roads. There have been repeated calls for something to be done there, and to this point nothing has been done.
Before there is another bad accident at that intersection, the recommendations in this traffic study need to be given serious consideration, especially by the Ministry of Highways and Transportation, as this is an intersection of two primary highways.
One of the recommendations put forward the idea of a round-about, which has typically been used in large urban cities — but considering the high volume of traffic and its location, this could work, particularly if truck traffic was sent to an external truck route. Otherwise, a round-about might be awkward for large trucks to navigate, depending which direction they were heading.
There were a number of other areas that need looking at, including how to mitigate the traffic flows for the as-yet unannounced location of Weyburn’s new hospital, and other intersections such as Government Road and 16th Street where they meet Highway 39.
The good news is, development and growth are ongoing in Weyburn, and these improvements are just part of the growing pains. The municipal and provincial governments need to cooperate and coordinate solutions to help make our roads safer for the future.
