In a joint news conference that just finished, Prime Minister Harper announced $86M for the proposed South Bridge in Saskatoon. Premier Brad Wall matched the federal contribution and Mayor Atch announced that Saskatoon will be responsible for $70M.
Good. Driving from west to east in Saskatoon is a horror show at the moment. Completing Circle Drive will dramatically improve that.
Special thanks to MP Carol Skelton and MP Lynne Yelich for pushing the Gov’t on this initiative that will finally allow Saskatoon and area to live up to it’s possibilities.
Now we just have to make sure that NEP II doesn’t happen.
Cheers,
lance
Great. Now only if they would announce the 71st bridge!
Great! Now only if they would announce the 71st Street bridge now and not in 15 years.
So why did you need MY hard earned tax dollars to pay for YOUR local bridge?
This is not a federal responsibility.
“Special thanks to MP Carol Skelton and MP Lynne Yelich for pushing the Gov’t on this initiative that will finally allow Saskatoon and area to live up to it’s possibilities”.
There you have it! That evil Harper and his Conservative minions heaping goodies on the West again. Are they not aware that somewhere in Quebec there may be a village with a need for a picnic site or nature path that might carry a few votes with it? Or how about Ontario? Why not fund a stadium in Toronto big enough to house a NFL franchise? Who needs the CFL? Think of the votes!
But …. oh, no! They have to squander, squander, squander tax money on (of all people) those fools who live in the West. All the more reason to elect Pierre Elliot Dion and the Liberals to look after the West.
“Driving from west to east in Saskatoon is a horror show at the moment. Completing Circle Drive will dramatically improve that.”
True enough, but if you want a quick hit of hash while traveling to the east side, you’ll still have to endure 22nd.
Decisions, decisions …
We need to get all the money we can out of the Harper gov’t. before Ont. and Quebec vote for Dion’s “Green Shaft” which will kill Western Canada. Interesting that in Dion’s plan, Quebec Hydro is exempt but no Western resource companies.
This bridge is great news for Saskatoon, but I would rather have heard Harper and Wall speak to the West separating and letting the East freeze in the dark.
The West is finally prosperous and there is no way we should allow the Liberals to get their dirty hands on it.
The question is not if the West separates, it is WHEN!
“Harper” is Prime Minister Harper. CanPress omits that relevant fact. Scumbag CanPress downplays Prime Minister by using small caps on “prime minister”.
Rarely does CanPress/MSM use Prime Minister Stephen Harper. It is evident that CanPress despises the Prime Minister. The words Conservative Prime Minister are not used in the CanPress article. CanPress/MSM are denialists.
CanPress’s “the old national energy program”, aka the NEP, was the product of Liberal PET, etal.
Plain words at last from PM Harper! More, please.
…-
“Harper suggests Liberal carbon tax plan would ‘screw everybody’ in Canada”
“On a visit to Saskatchewan, where oil is helping to drive a booming economy, Stephen Harper suggested the plan would be worse than the old national energy program.
That program, brought in by the federal Liberals in the 1980s, is still criticized for draining money from the West – especially Alberta – and sending it to Central Canada.
“(The carbon tax plan) is like the national energy program in the sense that the national energy program was designed to screw the West and really damage the energy sector – and this will do those things,” Harper told a small crowd in Saskatoon.
“This is different in that this will actually screw everybody across the country.””
http://tinyurl.com/6onggn
At first glance, the new south bridge will be great. However, it will only be a matter of time before city engineers decide that the new road leading to the bridge requires traffic lights at every intersection. It will then become a large, expensive cluster-fk …. just like the current “circle” drive.
Holy crapolla. Waaaaaay back in the 1970s I when I lived in Saskatoon, the construction of Circle Drive was just getting underway. Downtown Saskatoon was a dump. They had started to redesign it and a big part of it was the freeway bridge that emptied at Idylwyld (sp?) where the Mid-Town Plaza was about to be built. Many years later they built the Cliff Wright Bridge which made a big difference to the traffic flow in the downtown area. Now, finally, this!! That took a very long time to complete.
Next thing they’ll have to do is fix the logjam along the north sector of Circle Drive between Warman Road and the highway 11 interchange. That one will take some creativity.
I’m not certain where this bridge is going, but as much as biff detests it, Circle drive is much better than it was 8 years ago. Fewer lights, better flow. Just needs a little work on that last mile or so to Idlwyld (sp?) at the north end.
The Cliff Wright Bridge dumps you on to the bottleneck commercial area between Warman Road and the Highway 11 interchange. Completing the “circle” will certainly help to move traffic, but fixing that bottleneck will take some creative planning. It’s extremely choked at evening rush hour. The whole Circle Drive initiative was started way back in the 1970s when I lived in Saskatoon. It’s been a long time coming to see it completed.
Breaking!!!
Danny (Won’t share any) Williams now says we should vote for Gilles Duceppe to avoid electing Harper or Dion in the next election!
And speaking of NEP II, a Toronto Red Star poll is going horribly wrong:
http://tinyurl.com/5mmzkl
Perhaps Mayor Miller of Toronto can ship to Saskatoon the section of the Elevated Gardiner Expressway that he wants to tear down. It would make a good bridge over the river there. When it is torn down East Toronto will have no connection to West Toronto, but all politics are local and even more local in Toronto.
Saskatoon is a real nice city that is one of Canada’s best kept secrets. The section of the Gardiner may be a little worn but it is still viable. Toronto politicians are anti car so they do not need fast roads or shortcuts in Toronto according to their progressive (socialist) council.
Toronto doesn’t vote Conservative and even then they wonder why the Federal Government ignores them. Actually they vote NDP municipally. So ignore Toronto. The rest of Ontario is still salvagable in case you Westerners are in doubt.
I have my personal doubts about BC and Quebec who are still strangers in confederation.
There’s a hell of a lot more to be done to fix Circle Drive. The north is a _ing disgrace. Time the damn lights so that when you hit either Millar or Ave C at the speed limit, you hit nothing but green. They can do it in Coquitlam (the Green Wave), there’s no reason we can’t do it here. Then add 8th, 20th, 22nd, 33rd, 2nd/Warman, etc…
6 lane bridge to complete the circle….
“Driving from west to east in Saskatoon is a horror show at the moment.”
The bridge will allow another way and give drivers some more room…. but I doubt it’ll improve the Saskatoonian drivers.
And until you do…. driving will always be a horror show in Saskatoon.
Maz,
I saw Harper on the news say those words. Man, straight to the point they were.
Actually I never expected the passion that PM Harper showed when he was talking about giving western grain farmers freedom from the CWB.
If that was in the same Saskatoon news conference.
Got a real burr under his saddle and its about time.
Wusses make poor leaders.
But I’m not sure if he’s serious, because if he is serious about breaking the CWB monopoly, all he has to do is hire Anne McLellan as a Human Rights and Charter expert (heh) and have her run the CWB Act thru the Justice Department.
They would then throw out any sections of the CWB Act that contravenes the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
And that would be most it.
It is mindboggling to see that a Judge thinks that a Charter of Rights applies to State Corporations!
To individual people only, Judge.
Charters apply only to individual people for dogs sake.
How the hell do you ascribe Charter Rights to an inanimate object?
Charters of Rights are written to PROTECT the citizens from the arbitrary, unjust and unfair legislation from the irrational maroons who get elected to govt.
I always said that those Trudeau Liberals didn’t know what they were doing when they passed the Charter of Rights.
And here is a Judge 30 yrs later who still doesn’t understand what a Charter of Rights is for!
Gee, maybe Kate will get the contract to paint the bridge!
Then she’d be set for life!
And I vote for a Dodge ‘Electric Blue’ bridge.
Money for bridges in the West.
Money for RCMP recruits to earn and spend in the West.
I sleep well, but I didn’t think it was that well. When was the election announced?
The next four years of driving in Saskatoon is going to be crazy…can’t we build the bridge quicker? Downtown Saskatoon is a nightmare, especially, on 2nd Avenue…. Plans should be in process now for a second bridge in North Saskatoon. Circle Drive North is chaos as is Idylwyld Drive…..but Saskatoon is still a beautiful city to live in…now if we can only pave the streets.
Thank You Mr. Harper. We are lucky to have you as our PM, rather than the the party of Ontario and Quebec….Liberal Party of Canada…
Haha, that’s funny. Rush hour lasts a whole 15 mins in S’toon.
“So why did you need MY hard earned tax dollars to pay for YOUR local bridge?
This is not a federal responsibility.
Posted by: Johan i Kanada at June 20, 2008 12:48 PM”
It’s because it’s part of federal highways.
Trust the Backward Province to build a new bridge for all the retirees rushing home from work. lol