Money committed to fund upgrades to highways 6, 39

In 2013, the province announced plans to twin highways 6 and 39 between Regina and the U.S. border, but no timetable was provided at the time.

In the 2015-16 budget, Saskatchewan spent $1.2 million in pre-construction planning with the intention that project be a 110km/h twinned highway between the U.S. border and Regina.

Despite there being a longstanding commitment to fund the project, this is the first round of spending that will lead to shovels being put in the ground.

Marge Young, a longtime advocate to have Highway 39 twinned, told the Leader-Post in 2015, “There are people who, I’m serious, are terribly afraid to be on that highway because it is so dangerous.”

The bulk of funding for the project is coming out of the federal government’s National Trade Corridors Fund, which overall is a pot of $2 billion that will be spent over 11 years and is aimed at investing in strategic projects. Sixteen sets of passing lanes will be added to the highest traffic areas of highways 6 and 39 between Regina and Estevan.

The project, which is being funded largely by a $53.3-million investment from the federal government, also includes twinning of short segments of the corridor south of Regina that is north of Milestone and south of Weyburn. Roughly 51 kilometres of pavement will be improved by repaving.

Regina-Wascana MP and Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale said this is a “major step forward in the transportation system in Saskatchewan.”

He said the corridor is Saskatchewan’s “largest and most significant” because it connects the U.S. border to the province’s major cities, noting it “typically carries 100,000 trucks every year and some $6 billion in trade.”

From 1988 to 2012, 76 people died on Highway 39, prompting years-long calls from the community for it to be twinned.