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Death of twinning project will mean real deaths in the future

By Brian Zinchuk

The great twinning project is dead, for now.

            In the July 26 Estevan Mercury, it was revealed that after four years of consideration, the province is now going to put in passing lanes on Highways No.39 and No.6 from Estevan to Regina. It looks like twinning is off the table, for now.

            I lived in North Battleford during the time they twinned Highway No.16 from the Battlefords to Lloydminster, and just after the Saskatoon to Battlefords portion was completed.

            Prior to the Saskatoon portion being done, the Battlefords News-Optimist was full of fatal collisions on that stretch. Julian Sadlowski, who was mayor during my tenure with the News-Optimist, told me about the continual string of fatalities on that road. He had fought long and hard to get that highway twinned, for that very reason.

            We continually reported on fatal collisions on the Lloyd stretch as it was ever so slowly being twinned.

            But when the twinning was complete in each section, something remarkable happened. Those very regular stories of fatal collisions all but ceased to exist.

            I was there when then-Premier Lorne Calvert buried a Loonie in the last piece of pavement, completing the project. It was a good day.

            Two years ago I had an energetic discussion with a prominent Weyburn citizen who thought that a twinned highway bypassing that community would be horrible for its economy. She had a point.

            Having visited Maidstone recently, roughly 10 years after it was bypassed, I would say twinning did hurt the community, but only to a certain extent.

            It hurt the highway commercial businesses, i.e. the potty-break places. The businesses in the region that got hurt the most just might have been the mortuaries.

            But Estevan has had a two-lane truck bypass now for a few years, and I don’t think that has dramatically hurt many businesses here. Yes, many restaurants have closed, but that was because of the now three-year-long downturn in oil activity.

            And which is more important, selling bags of chips or caskets?

            Fundamentally, the decision not to twin those highways in the southeast is related to oil. The drop of a billion dollars in revenue each year because of the oil crash has meant the province must tighten its belt in all areas.

            If that means the province can add passing lanes as opposed to full-blown twinning for one-tenth to one-twentieth the cost (a guess, but I dare say a pretty good one), then the government will obviously punt on twinning.

            Manitoba has obviously taken this strategy on its very busy Highway No.10 between Brandon and Riding Mountain National Park, the province’s only national park.

            That highway, the primary route from both Brandon and Winnipeg to the part, is crazy in the summertime. In the past few years they’ve been adding passing lanes as well as repaving, something that was sorely needed. About a third of the distance has been covered, and it has absolutely made a difference.

            But most of that traffic is of pickups pulling boats and trailers, with the occasional grain semi.

            Saskatchewan Highway No.39, between Estevan and Weyburn, sees an awful lot more wide loads, tandem steer trucks, service rigs, drilling rig moves, crew trucks and more.

            Plus, the highway is the principle route from the American Midwest manufacturing base to all of Western Canada. Every day I see trucks hauling massive mining truck tires, presumably to places like Fort McMurray.

            We also see the very large components for those trucks going along this highway as well. There are daily convoys of RV shipments, school busses and boats. If it’s going to Regina, Saskatoon, Edmonton or Fort McMurray, there’s a very good chance it’s going past Estevan and Weyburn.

            Twinning isn’t perfect. Two hours after I typed the draft of this column, I got an email from the RCMP. It said, “On Tuesday July 25 at approximately 10 p.m. Warman/Martensville RCMP were dispatched to the scene of a serious, two-vehicle collision which occurred at the intersection of Highway No.16 and Township Road 384 near the community of Langham.

            “A semi-trailer unit was traveling northwest on Highway No.16 when a Ford Ranger pickup truck attempted to cross westbound on Township Road 384. The pickup was struck by the semi.

            “The 36-year-old male driver and lone occupant of the pickup truck, who is from the Saskatoon area, was declared deceased at the scene. The driver and lone occupant of the semi was uninjured.”

            Maybe two decades from now there will be four lanes between Estevan and Regina. With this current decision, it’s highly doubtful it will come any sooner than that.

            I wonder how many caskets will be filled in the meantime.