“Our roadways crews are working hard these days battling snow and ice one day and melting and drainage the next.

As we head towards the spring season, I wanted to update Citizens on our infrastructure improvements as well as some of the new innovations that our staff are bringing forward to improve our services to residents when it comes to infrastructure.

It is very important that you can see the value of the money you invest through your taxes in the services we provide. “

Here are a few highlights from 2019:

• 185 km of roads repaired, including applying crack sealant to 9.8 km to defer the need for more major work
• 472 km of line paint applied, along with 6.4 km of durable line markings
• 25 km of water mains and sanitary sewer mains repaired
• 21 km sidewalks repaired to eliminate tripping hazards
• 3,000 tonnes of asphalt used to repair 180,000 potholes
• 400 km of back lanes were graded and 9.5 km of back lanes were reconstructed
• Swept 127 km of streets in the fall to mitigate drainage problems in the spring
• Stage 1 of the Sid Buckwold Bridge repairs were complete, along with parts of Circle Drive, Boychuk, and Kenderdine

Improvements to operations include:

• Increased capacity in the roadways crew to work at all hours of the day and throughout the week. The cost of adding a weekend night shift was offset by reducing contracted services, and this resulted in enhanced services to Saskatoon residents
• Nighttime pothole repair was added, and this is new for Saskatoon. Patching potholes at night means emergency pothole repairs can be completed faster and with less disruption to traffic.
• Safety was improved by increasing the visibility of equipment, additional lighting on equipment that would now be operating at night, speed limit signs were added on local streets receiving upgrades.

To see what work is planned for 2020 and 2021, you can check out this document.