The construction of double lanes for Highway 39 east of Estevan is on schedule, and some additional components of the project are wrapping up.
The overpass above the new coal haul road for the Westmoreland Coal Company opened up on Thursday. The overpass is located just southeast of the portion of Highway 39 that is being twinned, and so single-lane traffic passes through in each direction on the o0verpass.
While the new overpass was being constructed, a detour was in place to the north for about nine months. Michael Smith, who is the project manager for the twinning of Highway 39 east of Estevan, said they didn’t have issues with the detour during construction of the overpass, and they haven’t had issues since the overpass opened.
As for the twinning project itself, Smith said it remains on schedule to be opened before the end of the construction season in late October or early November. Approximately 10 kilometres of highway will be twinned from an area east of Estevan to a location southeast of the junction of Highways 39 and 18.
The newly realigned junction of Highways 39 and 18 was slated to open on Tuesday. Smith said there will be a small detour for Highway 18 so that some work could be completed on the lanes.
“Also, they will be diverting traffic onto the new lanes of the twinned section (of Highway 39) so that they can reconstruct the old lanes,” said Smith.
The Ministry of Highways and Infrastructure wanted to have the lanes near the junction completed first so that traffic could be safely diverted.
“We needed to divert traffic onto the new lanes so that we could reconstruct the existing lanes,” said Smith.
The working on that portion of the existing lanes of Highway 39 should be completed in a couple of months, Smith said.
A number of kilometres of the newly-constructed lanes have been paved, and they are working on paving in a number of sections.
“There are a bunch of lifts (of asphalt) that we have to put on, and not all the lifts are on in the certain areas,” said Smith.
In September, the old Highway 39 overpass for the coal haul road, located between Estevan and the junction with Highways 39 and 18, is slated to be decommissioned. The existing bridge will be removed, the grade of the highway will be lowered and the lanes will be reconstructed to match the new lanes. It will be the final component of the twinning project.
