REGINA - Winter must officially be over, because everywhere you look in Regina, it’s construction season.
Roadways, water, wastewater and drainage infrastructure work is under way starting this week in Regina, which is seeing $113 million in capital projects get under way this season.
“We are committed to investing in infrastructure for the residents today and into the future,” said Kim Onrait, Executive Director of Citizen Services, at a news conference in Regina City Hall on Friday.
“And it’s all necessary to keep our city moving, and to ensure critical infrastructure is ready to deliver services our residents expect.”
Projects this year include the following:
The 11th Ave., revitalization project, a four year $8 million project in downtown Regina aimed at revitalizing the city centre. It includes upgrades to roadways, streetscape, Sidewalks, underground infrastructure, lighting, traffic signals, pedestrian, improvements, and new transit shelters.
“We are working closely with our utility companies, SaskPower, SaskTel to really coordinate the work that they need done, that the city needs done, so we lessen the impact on not only businesses but travelers, visitors, pedestrians that come to our city or live in our city.”
Other road renewal projects now under way are on South Lewvan Drive, on Albert Street and McCarthy Blvd., and also the cast iron pipe project on Broad Street to renew a large water main.
The City’s annual dedicated funding for residential road renewal is over $16 million to improve 18 kms of residential roads in 2023.
“City departments put a lot of thought into our construction programs to be efficient, coordinating plans, and balancing resources, budgets, and priorities. Projects are carefully reviewed to determine the schedule for the season. We combined projects, wherever it makes sense to reduce impact on residents and drivers.”
The road construction work is already apparent to motorists trying to navigate through downtown and on Lewvan Drive, with bottlenecks and slow-moving traffic happening during the rush hour.
Onrait acknowledged that there will be inconveniences for drivers due to the amount of construction going on, but noted Regina has a short construction season.
“If we were to go to the West Coast, it probably has in the neighbourhood for sure of 10 good months of construction season. In Regina, we have winter, and we have construction season. So we have a very short window to do a maximum amount of work… Congestion is definitely going to happen. We are always reviewing it. If there’s a plan laid out and the plan is not working, our teams are very flexible in how they will deal with that, but there is a lot of thought in time and effort put in prior to.”
The City is reminding drivers to slow down in construction zones to keep people safe. Drivers are urged to plan their routes in advance, and to visit the Road Report at the city’s website to find out about traffic restrictions in place.
