City to adopt evening, weekend road work in 2020

Drivers’ headaches and stress on Regina’s roads are likely around for the long haul this year.

Mayor Michael Fougere announced Thursday morning that the City of Regina won’t officially adopt evening, night-time and weekend work for its many construction projects until 2020.

This year, the city will complete a $16.4-million road renewal and construction program affecting several busy roadways, including Victoria Avenue, Ring Road, Lewvan Drive, Dewdney Avenue and others.

But why aren’t there work schedule changes for 2019?

Replied Fougere: “Some of our sites are working 12 hours a day, six days a week already.”

The change for 2020 will make night and weekend work more of a “template” for the future, he said.

Fougere said that work crews’ shifts are, in a way, taking them into evening work already.

“You start at 7 a.m. and you go to 7 p.m., or around there,” he said. “It is part of our collective agreement with workers that we work on.

“(Night and weekend work) is expected. Other cities do this. We do this too, but I’m saying we should make it more institutionalized for us.”

The mayor noted that the city will be adding more signage around and leading up to construction projects, so that drivers can better prepare for a route change or a delay.

Ring Road bridge replacement

The mayor also addressed crews replacing the two bridges on Ring Road that run over Wascana Creek, south of Assiniboine Avenue.

He said the city has engineering reports that say the bridges need to be replaced this year.

There also isn’t necessarily a connection to replacing the bridges in 2019 and the completion of the Regina bypass later this fall, Fougere said.

The bypass is set to open in October.

“I’m not sure there’s a linkage between those two projects,” he said.