A reader writes;
This is 35 hwy north of Fort Qu Appelle. Its like this from the hill in Fort Quappelle all the way to the Hwy 16 junction at Elfros. There are red markers all over the place. (Believe me this picture is actually flattering and doesn’t do it justice!!!) Some of the holes (depressions) were the size, if not twice that of my truck filled with soft gravel that you dropped off the pavement and sunk into. Chunks of pavement the size of a fist were laying all over the place. The highway to Fishing Lake from Foam Lake is even better (310). The ran a grader down it to fix it up. If you run a grader down a “paved” road in the middle of May to improve it, then what does that tell you? Twelve miles from Foam Lake to Fishing Lake took me 1/2 hour to 35 minutes with boat in tow………….no kidding!!! This road is provincial responsibility not RM. (The province should adopt the tourism theme “Visit our Lakes Experience our roads)
Highway 35 is basically screwed from the US border to Nipawin. (About 15 miles of HWY 35 from US border towards Weyburn is not gravel, but dirt and rocks…..the pavement is gone!! The rest of the way to Weyburn………not good!!) What a good way to link a major centre in Southern Sask with a major centre ( Williston) in North Dakota, This highway is like a backroad into Tijuana Mexico. I guess the Americans can see what Socialism buys you as soon as they cross the border!! Roads should NEVER be left to go this far into deterioration!!! Where is all of the oil revenue going? Obviously not into roads. Oh ya …I forgot……….they are putting it into health care so that people don’t have to take their kids to Edmonton to get diagnosed with luekemia.
And another-
Five days a week every morning at 6 AM I drive from Weyburn SK to Estevan SK, and back again on Highway 39, between Midale and four KMs east of of Macoun the highway is rutty,rough, all sizes of holes in the pavement, washboardy, in total, a mess, so guess what, last week the Dept Of Highways in their wisdom, or probably the orders came from higher up, they patched virtually every hole in that 20 KM stretch of highway, the patches range from 6 to 16 in. in dia., to some long patches of up to 16 in. wide and maybe a max length of 20 feet. For two mornings I slowed down to 20 KPH and started to count the patches, I did the count on two different stretches of 1 KM each, which I figured was an average of the 20KMs, taking the total patches of the two KMs that I counted I applied that to the total 20 KMs and added them up,in that 20 KM stretch of #39 highway there are no less than 14000, (fourteen thousand) patches, and I am being very conservative about this figure.
[…]
There is another highway that leads into the province and that is highway 35 , it starts at the border crossing south of Weyburn Sask. and runs way north, from Canada Customs south of Weyburn the NDP turned 12 miles of blacktop highway, (from the Custom Office at the border to the junction of 6 and 35 at Oungre Sask) into a gravelled road, and when I say gravel, I use the tem loosely,when it rains its a total mess,sometimes impassable, when its dry dust and flying rocks is the order of the day. Aint this a wonderful scene for anyone coming into Canada,on the US side they drive on pavement that’s second to none and as soon as they cross into Canada, we offer a so called gravel road to drive on, talk about promoting and welcoming tourists, not to mention the hundreds of trucks that use these two border crossings everyday, transporting goods both ways.
Its not that the NDP doesn’t have money to fix roads, its the way they waste it,like the potato fiasco, the new air terminal in Regina for themselves to sit in, pulp mills, Sasktel with their money losing investments, on and on it goes.
Roads connecting Saskatchewan to the border seem to be targeted for neglect by the NDP – it’s why we call the last 30 miles out of the province “Calvert’s Wall”. There are reports of American tourists crossing into Saskatchewan only to turn around and go home. It’s not hard to understand why.
I think I’ve been there. Looks sooo familiar.
Loved the family drives in the country in the Volvo wagon… the rolling land lent us kids in the back a cool sense of weightlessness as the vehicle cleared the peak of a rise and began the descent down the other side. Never experienced that since leaving Sask.
However, back in the Seventies, I recall that the roads were far better than they sound today.
Much like in the Maritimes. They do suck in a lot of places, particularly in the cities.
…awww I miss the olympic sport of schollum around those gravel traps and playing chicken with semi’s doing the same coming the opposite way.
Anyone got a pix of the Pierceland corridor from Cold Lake South (Grand Centre) to Pierceland? Then from Goodsoil over to (forget the name of the small town (..river).
cheers
tom
I cannot believe WTF the NDP has done to my former home province! Who are they really, the USSR-lite?!
Union of Saskatchewan Socialist Republics?
Know what? I think Kate should be the Premier!!!
CanSent: “Much like in the Maritimes. They do suck in a lot of places, particularly in the cities.”
…what the roads or the attitudes?
Concrete evidence of NDP priorities: fully indexed pensions for civil servants instead of solid infrastructure upon which to conduct commerce.
Utopia!
Not only is it 35, a part of which I drove a week ago. It’s also bad in spots on the Yellowhead between Yorkton and Wynyard (and maybe as far as Saskatoon–I didn’t drive that part). I felt safer on grid road.
Tomax7: Both the roads and the attitudes suck over here.
I was visiting Fishing Lake this past long weekend and travelled from Foam Lake to Fishing Lake on Highway 310. WHAT A DISASTER!!! That road is very, very unsafe.
The Sask. government regularly advertises in the Calgary Herald and elsewhere to attract tourists. Well, they better hand out free wheel alignment and shock absorber replacement coupons if they expect us to come back.
P.S. Where do all the gas tax revenues go?
“Know what? I think Kate should be the Premier!!!”
So she can have all the cat owners put to death? I think not.
Sean, but yeah, think of it…Kate riding around Sask campaining in a full leather riding suit…
Awwwoowwwwwooo!
I like the leather outfit. Yep; it’s awesome!
I’m another Sask. refugee (I live in B.C. now). I grew up close to the Alta/Sask border, on the Sask side. It was always easy to tell when you were entering Alberta. Suddenly the roads were smooth and driving was actually a pleasure. Heading back was another story altogether!
It is a wonder any commerce happens in Saskatchewan to derive revenue to maintain roads. The province is business-hostile. The Court of Appeal just sent a message to the mining community loud and clear–steer clear of this province. And we will.
love two sayings of ex-Sask pats in BC:
“Mountains are nice but they sure do block the view”
“Mountains – nothing that a D9 Cat can’t fix”.
LOL, good one, Tomax! You’ll never hear me saying that, though! I probably appreciate the mountain view I have than most native BCers.
Kate for Dictator for Life.
Schnauzer made the Official Dog of Saskatchewan.
Vast Herds of Paving Machines and road equipment will wander the wilderness
Entire province governed out of a Diner. Meetings of cabinet held Tuesday and Thrusdays. Except when dog shows take place.
Sask becomes a huge oil exporter.
Population starts to climb, locals pissed that real estate prices rising.
…
Natives complain that law is applied equally
CBC banned from SASK.
If that happens, I’ll move back!
Although a native BC’er,I lived and worked as a sales rep. for almost 20 yrs in AB,covering parts of Sask as well.BC is indeed beautiful but I do miss the awesome beauty of the prairie sky,especially on a hot summer afternoon as the thunderheads build and start their surreal displays of sound and light.
Anyways,to the topic,you could remove every border sign between AB/Sask and you could still tell when you crossed by the quality of your ride.I never complained though,understanding the severity of winter there and the endless miles of road.It now seems to have reached shameful levels with safety a definite casualty.C’mon NDP,stop this dereliction in your most basic of responsibilities to the good people of Sask.
Don’t make Corner Gas have to move to AB!
BTW,been a long time since I’ve driven on anything but the Trans-Canada in Manitoba,how do their rural hwys compare?
Just returned home to Edmonton from Turtle Lake this past weekend and granted we have some problems here also but my God what a mess!
UNBELIEVABLE ROADS! And can you believe it, the residents there choose not to complain! “They know how bad the roads are already.”
I liked this one too; “The roads are worse elsewhere.”
Too bad the D9 referred to by tomax7 is not on the government payroll and working on one or the other ‘highways’.
The only thing that changes is the size of the ROUGH ROAD signs.
Soon every tourist area in the province will be fly-in!!
CRB
…reminds me of SimCity game where I was going in the hole with overspending on schools/hospitals/services.
So I cut back on roads/repairs and they started turning grey, then checkerboard, then dissappeared all together. Busses stuck on a patch of pavement, cars on another and nothing moved.
Ended up nuking the city and rebuilding, was cheaper
😉
…then again, I called on Cousin Vinnie to get a quick million…
In real life, that was like calling up the Les Liberanoes.
“Natives complain that law is applied equally.”
Okay — you just sold me. I hereby nominate Kate as dictator. Can I get a seconder? (Like a dictator needs one.)
The highways of Manitoba are not quite as bad as Saskatchewan, though they’re getting there. The TCH is in pretty good shape, but the major N/S route in the province (Hwy 75 from Winnipeg to I-29 in ND) is really rough when the frost comes out. And it floods out when the Red rises. Etc.
But when your major thoroughfares are tar-and-chip rather than proper asphalt, as most of Manitoba’s highways are, that indicates something, too.
My theory is that it’s not really the provincial government’s fault. They’re probably spending so much money maintaining the westbound fastlane of the TCH that there’s precious little budget left for anything else.
It is too bad the public sector unions don’t allow for peformance based raises. There are a lot of good employees who are totally frustrated with the system and the lazy bums they work alongside.
The theft of time from the taxpayers is rampant in the Dept of highways.
. When it takes a whole day for two men and a special Sign Truck to put up a school bus sign it is time to privatize these services and pay the workers for working not just showing up.
Ther absolutely no system of incentives to work hard or efficiently in the civil service that prevails in most private sector service industries.
Throwing more money into the highway dept will do little to fix the actual roads. What a sad state of affairs when managers are promoted because of union involvement rather than work habbits
Isn’t it time you folks petitioned Alberta for foreign aid?
Hurry before Ralph leaves office.
Robert in Calgary…Why don’t you adopt 50,000 farmers?
Socialist state of SK….succeeds in bringing everything down to the lowest common denominator.
All Saskatchewan residents now have equal roads…no special “good” roads for evil capitalists or even loyal commisars. The true “Workers Paradise”.
Manitoba commisars need more time achieve this goal.
Of course you could VOTE them OUT next go round!
I’m sure we will here in MB.
Pave Saskatchewan, Calgary needs more parking.
You know, maryjane – the roads paid for by “the farmers” – the municipal grids – are in pretty good shape generally.
It’s the ones the provincial government is responsible for that are singularly deplorable.
I wonder why that is? Not enough civil servants paying taxes, perhaps?
country boy myself, and a good grader operater is worth his weight in gold.
Yeah right – so Grant Devine (a much loved Icon with readers here) started paving the super grids with thin surface ashphalt in a two fold effort to (a)continue with the strategic bankrupting of Saskatchewan AND
(b)to win rural votes for the Tories.
We all knew that these little cow paths (that have what, 9 cars a week drive down them) would require endless repair work THANKS TO MY TAX DOLLARS!!
Get real and stop being such ‘socialists’.
“Isn’t it time you folks petitioned Alberta for foreign aid? Hurry before Ralph leaves office.”
Um, I don’t think invoking Lord Ralph’s name is gonna help you out all that much with the condition of your roads (just a hunch that I have)…
http://www.digiteyesed.com/portfolio/images/2006/05/01395.php
Kate, did you mean the roads in Sask cities are in good shape? Well, the roads in NB cities are in bad shape… pretty much all the work they do is to fill potholes, repair water mains and lay natural gas pipelines (covering them with asphalt uneven with the older stuff… and taking an inexplicably long, long time on a specific spot, seemingly just leaning on shovels and looking into a big hole… I’m talking weeks spent on one hole!).
I feel some kind of fiscal imbalance. The billions wasted federally by the Libranos could’ve taken care of municipal roads.
At least I see a glimmer of hope in the new crew in Ottawa…
Then local mounted must be hurting from the decline in speeding ticket revenue. I paid for a couple miles of paving in the 70’s.
I really don’t see how this is supposed to be a bad road. Certainly not a “road from hell”.
It’s raining out, again. I wish I could drive on a road like that in Northern Alberta…
Kate, open up Google Earth and visit
55d28’30N 113d26’56W
Consider that thousands of people traverse this path to get to Edmonton, that it’s a gravel road, and thus radically subjected to weather conditions…
Don’t I remember a story from about ten years ago or so of some folks down by Eastend who actually tried to fix their highway 13 to Shaunavon? They hired their own trucks, graders, and I assume, pavers, only to have the government shut them down.
Anyone else recall this?
Honestly, it looks like it would be improved by driving a D9 with a ripper attachement down it, followed by a scraper and a really heavy roller.
At least that is cheap & fast to re-do as necessary, and no one expects a gravel highway to be particularly good.
Put these roads back to gravel. The big trucks that haul grain are wrecking them.
ok4ua:
sure……….why don’t we put them all to gravel……It would put the finish touches on what socialists can do to a province.
No one would want to come visit, let alone live here.
Why is it that people like you in this province are always to accept the lowest common denominator.
I guess thats why the NDP gets in. consistency……..the lowest common denominator!!
A lot of these roads should’ve never been paved in the first place. Secondly how do we pay to repair all these roads? Gravel would be more cost effective. Then all the big trucks wouldn’t do as much damage.
The road should be turned back to gravel,like many others in Sask.The readers should try highway 31 from north of Rosetown to Macklin !!!