Moose Jaw resident Don Morris is excited that city hall and the provincial government could be teaming up to fix Ninth Avenue Southwest and its roller coaster-like problems.
Morris, 90, lives at Points West Living seniors housing in the city’s southwest corner and usually takes his scooter out for a ride every other day. Many of his trips see him travel south on Ninth Avenue Southwest/Highway 363 to visit farmers’ fields.
“The road is a little bumpy for my ride,” he grinned. “It (the road) rattles my teeth.”
During the July 26 regular council meeting, city council voted unanimously to submit an expression of interest to the Ministry of Highways through the Urban Highway Connector Program (UHCP) to address Highway 363/Ninth Avenue Southwest from city limits to Warner Street and Valley View Drive.
The expression of interest (EOI) is in draft form since the ministry is still developing the project’s scope and costs.
Based on the agreement that the municipality and ministry signed in 2015, the province agreed to make annual payments of $99,841 to help maintain urban connector roads. Since then, the North Service Road rehabilitation has been completed, while work on Main Street North should start next year.
“The ministry will fully fund the next rehabilitation of the roadway of the Urban Connectors or non-connector public streets … to a new condition,” a council report said.
In 2016, Associated Engineering assessed Highway 363/Ninth Avenue Southwest from Brenda Street to Vaughan Street and rated the southbound road a five or fair condition.
In 2020, city hall assessed that road to the Warner Street/Valley View Drive intersection and rated it a two or very poor.
Research into the Highway 363/Ninth Avenue Southwest location confirms that the ministry has been aware of the slope instability and slumping issues, with structural repairs and slope monitoring going back to 1997, the report added. The ministry later hired a consultant in 2017 to provide geohazard remediation of the area.
Council discussion
Coun. Dawn Luhning was worried about which government was responsible for maintaining this road — it’s the province, city administration later confirmed.
She pointed out that Moose Jaw was one of the last cities in Saskatchewan to sign onto the UHCP in 2015, something she was happy with since the province was upgrading roads in communities such as Regina and Saskatoon and then turning that infrastructure over to those municipalities to maintain.
The province did a poor job of maintaining roads decades ago since each district superintendent set the rules about who was responsible for maintaining what, said city manager Jim Puffalt.
“The process was very unfair,” he said, noting the province looked after roads in communities with fewer than 5,000 people and communities bigger than that looked after their own municipal/provincial roads. “It’s what you could negotiate with each superintendent.”
The province currently maintains Highway 1 through Moose Jaw, while the municipality handles the rest and receives money per kilometre of road maintained.
The annual budget of the UHCP is “woefully inadequate” at $4 million, Puffalt continued. It’s difficult to get a project to the top of the list with such limited resources.
“The road is a roller coaster and work needs to be done to it. We hope to get it to the top of the list,” he added.
While the slope monitoring goes back to 1997, Coun. Doug Blanc — who worked for the Ministry of Highways for decades — said he knows repairs have been made to Ninth Avenue Southwest/Highway 363 at least three times since 1975. His main concern with this initiative was that the province would fix the road and turn it over to the city to maintain.
“Quite honestly, this section is very dangerous and needs to be addressed. It can catch you unaware if you are not from that area,” said Mayor Fraser Tolmie. “(It’s also) the main route to military base, one of the main employers in the community.
“I look forward to work getting done, so this is no longer a concern for us.”
The next regular council meeting is Monday, Aug. 9.
