Travelling off the Beaten Path
By Aasa Marshall
Prairie Post
June 23, 2006
Highway 32 looks harmless enough when you leave Swift Current and take the exit off Highway 1. It’s smooth and wide with solid shoulders and newly-painted white and orange lines. By the time a driver reaches Shackleton, however, the speed limit drops to 90 kms an hour. The road narrows, and then the shoulder disappears entirely. Soon the sides of the road are nothing but broken asphalt, and large patches of the pavement are covered entirely by gravel. Innocuous diamond-shaped red signs perch beside gigantic potholes, suggesting that drivers slow down and swerve into the opposing lane if they want to save their tires.
Where the “Rough Road” sign (an understatement if there ever was one) suggests 70 km per hour, it is necessary to go 60, or less. The number of little red flags marking potholes could easily be tripled. Drivers swerve, white-knuckled, into the path of vehicles driving the opposite direction to avoid canoe-sized pits in the road, and then wave nervously to each other as they pass.
Gordon Stueck, owner of Stueck Pharmacy in Leader, is fed up with the condition of the highway. He has developed a website – www.highway32.ca – where people can posts their comments and opinions about the state of the thoroughfare. So far the comments come from people in the area, people from Alberta, people from northern BC – all are disgusted by the pictures and the video posted on the site, or by their personal experiences on the highway.
After years of hearing people’s complaints about the road, Stueck decided to do something to catch the eye of the government and raise the profile of the situation.
“I could have written letters and all that sort of stuff, and got the standard response, but why not use the latest technology, get it up there front and centre? Nobody has done it before.”
On the website, or in his store, concerned citizens can buy “I survived Sask Highway 32” bumper stickers for $5. They can pick up free post cards with pictures of the highway to send to the Minister of Highways. In the future, Stueck hopes to develop a “pothole of the month” calendar, with scantily-clad local business people posing beside some of the highway’s larger craters. Any proceeds from the sale of bumper stickers are given to the Leader ambulance, as a symbolic gesture: though the ambulance no longer travels down the 32, the money could potentially be used to repair and maintain the vehicles if they did sustain damage. In reality, the money will pay for whatever the Cypress Health Region deems necessary.
The issue of highways is currently top of mind around the province. Saskatchewan has 8,000 km of thin membrane highways taking a pounding from heavy traffic, much of it from increased activity in the oil and gas sectors. Minister of Transportation and Highways Eldon Lautermilch said the province doesn’t have the $2 billion it would need to fix them all, but announced June 20 that the primary weight highways network will be expanded to include an additional 1,190 km across the province. The initiative will allow trucks to haul heavier weights on a broader network of highways.
“I think it’s obvious that we need to develop a system of economic corridors,” Lautermilch said at a recent stop at the southwest SUMA meeting in Swift Current. “…our road system is under some pressure, but I think we also have some opportunities. We’ve got a bit of financial freedom that perhaps we didn’t have ten years ago. Obviously we still spend every dollar it seems that we bring in every year. I’m hopeful that I can work with my colleagues to develop the economy using this infrastructure as part of the tools, and part of the arsenal that we have.”
Public safety is of the utmost importance, he said, and if extra money needs to be found in the coffers to make sure roads are safe, “safety comes much before a budget number.”
The government is currently looking at revitalizing the rail lines in the province. Rail roads make both economic and environmental sense; taking pressure off roads and carbon emissions from the air, said Lautermilch.
To bring additional attention to the issue, the opposition Saskatchewan Party is encouraging residents to comment on the Saskatchewan caucus website and invite Premier Lorne Calvert to drive the worst roads in their region. Based on the submissions, the Sask Party said it will devise a summer driving route for the Premier.
No matter what further action the province takes, it will be years before highway 32 can be easily traveled. It’s clear that simply patching the holes won’t do the trick – much of the highway should be completely rebuilt.
For the communities at the end of the 32, the deterioration of the road is a source of feelings of both isolation and embarrassment. Sister Rosetta Reiniger, Executive Director of St. Angela’s Academy in Prelate, said parents of the 45 students who attend the school don’t have any compliments for the highways they have to travel to visit their daughters. For the Sisters, many of whom are elderly, driving the school vans to basketball and volleyball is a nightmare.
“We had a lady from Toronto…to conduct the Royal Conservatory of Music exams here,” said Sister Rosetta. “We directed her to go around all the way to Maple Creek on highway one, and come up this way [on highway 21], rather than to subject someone from Toronto on highway 32.”
Gary Meier, Mayor of Leader, said residents of his town feel like Albertans. Though Medicine Hat is further away that Swift Current, Leader residents go to the Alberta city to shop, to do business, to make doctor and dentist appointments, all to avoid traveling the Saskatchewan highways. The result is a Saskatchewan town that feels cut off from its own province, and a region that is losing economically.
“Our road going north is almost as bad, or road going east is bad, so our connection is with Alberta,” said Meier. “…there’s a huge economic deficit for Swift Current because of the road.”
Traveling the area, talking to business owners and residents, recurring themes become apparent: though people along 32 would like to spend their money in the province, it is easier to go to Alberta, and therefore Saskatchewan is losing important business. Tourist destinations are struggling to convince travelers to come back. People prefer to get their health care elsewhere. And lastly, the same worry that seems to be on everyone’s lips: “I can’t believe no one’s been killed on that highway”. The consensus seems to be that it’s going to take a tragedy to see some real improvement on the infamous 32.
Booming business not always a positive along Highway 32
By Aasa Marshall
Prairie Post
June 23, 2006
Business is booming for Kelly Mastel, but that doesn’t mean he’s happy about it.
Mastel, who owns Doc Brown and Sons Autobody shop in Sceptre, said he is overrun with business from drivers whose vehicles have sustained damage while traversing deteriorated highway 32. Though it means increased customers, Mastel wishes he wasn’t constantly seeing the broken wheels, blown out tires and shocks, and busted break routers caused by the now-infamous road.
“I have all the work that I ever need without any of this work,” said Mastel, indicating a pile of broken car parts behind his shop. “So, it’s money in my pocket, definitely, but I don’t look at it that way, I look at it more in the safety aspect. I’m a new father and I think about my son going down the highway and I just don’t think that it’s a wise thing.”
Further down the highway in Leader at Fred’s Autobody, owner John Cocks said he’s seen increased windshield damage in the past few years from people braving the 32. Chunks of pavement, shaken loose by large trucks hitting gaping potholes, have been known to hit oncoming cars.
“There’s two layers of glass on your windshield with the lamination in between, and usually… with the average-size stone just the outer surface will be chipped or broken,” said Cocks. “But some of these have almost come right through - like broke the inner glass and it lands on the dash and makes a big mess.”
Like Mastel, Cocks said the highway’s deterioration has meant an increase in business, but he worries for the safety of motorists.
“I see a lot more of it in the last three years,” Cocks said. “For my business I guess it’s good as far as windshields, but a lot of it’s been dangerous stuff that I’ve seen…We’re all busy all the time anyway, it’s not like we need that kind of work.”
As the highway has gotten worse and more people are bringing in their cars to be repaired, Mastel has been spreading the word that the Department of Highways and Transportation will pay for vehicle damage caused by poor highway conditions. Though not every claim filed is successful, he said, the general public may not even know about the option.
Doug Wakabayashi, Director of Communications for Department of Highways, said the government will compensate motorists for damage to their vehicles if the damage is not part of the normal risks one would expect to encounter while driving, or if adequate warning has not been provided by signage on the road.
“You hit a deer. We’re not going to compensate you for that. You hit, say we have a surface break, and the warning signs are up. We’re not going to compensate you for that. You’re following a truck and a piece of gravel comes up and cracks your windshield. We don’t compensate for that,” Wakabayashi said. “… It’s not feasible or possible to have each and every little minor surface break flagged immediately, I mean, we’d have to have people standing on the road 24 hours a day in order to do that. If it’s something really, really significant and it’s been three days and it still hasn’t been flagged, that’s a little different.”
To make a claim for the province to pay vehicle repair bills, drivers must contact the Highways and Transportation Regional office within 30 days of the accident, and submit a written report of the claim. The regional office for southern Saskatchewan is in Regina, and can be contacted at 787-4715.
Though Mastel was unable to claim for damage sustained to one of his vehicles, he said the driver of the Lincoln car was successful in getting money from the province. Not only is it important for drivers to be compensated, he said, but the more bills the province received for vehicle damage, the more they will take notice of road conditions.
“It doesn’t work in all cases, it didn’t work in my case… but it’s not a process that the public is aware of. It’s just through inquiring that I found out about it and now I just forward it on to people … send your bill to these people and write them a letter, and the more noise we make I think that’s the only way we get an action.”
Ambulance choosing alternate route
By Aasa Marshall
Prairie Post
June 23, 2006
The Leader ambulance hasn’t travelled Highway 32 in more than a year.
In that time, the health region instead has chosen to take patients down Highway 21 to the TransCanada to get to the hospital in Swift Current, because neither patients nor emergency medical technicians could handle the rough ride they were given on the road.
Tammy Dietrich, an EMT in Leader, said caring for a patient was almost impossible while the ambulance swerved and bounced along pitted Highway 32.
“It’s very hard to do anything in the back as far as patient care is concerned,” said Dietrich.
“You’re not stable at all, and if you were to be buckled in you can’t attend to the patient. By the time we get to Swift Current you’re ill in the back of that unit because you’re just shook up… It was something we dreaded doing, we dreaded our trips down that road. We just won’t go there anymore.”
Leader has two ambulances that cover the area, and they are making more trips to Swift Current now than ever before. Though the service used to take a large number of patients to Medicine Hat, Alberta no longer accepts them as readily as it once did, Dietrich said.
Terry Klassen, Director of Emergency Medical Services for the Cypress Health Region, said the ambulance has not sustained damage because of the alternate route. Klassen also said it is untrue that the ambulance takes patients to Medicine Hat because of the rough Saskatchewan roads, though some people think that is the case.
“Where we go is based solely on client needs,” said Klassen.
Leader mayor Gary Meier said he feels his community is being “ripped off”; he said it’s difficult for people to get to the regional hospital on Highway 32 and it takes longer to go towards Maple Creek to get to Swift Current. The area has contributed money to the up-coming new regional hospital, even though the facility is not readily accessible.
According to the City Director of Finance Tim Marcus, Leader was one of the first communities to contribute to the project. The town has committed to giving $50,000 in 10 yearly installments.
The RM of Happyland has committed $10,000 to the project, and the RM of Miry Creek has committed $100,000.
Economy starting to crumble as fast as surface of Highway 32
By Aasa Marshall
Prairie Post
June 23, 2006
As highway 32 continues to crumble, so too do Swift Current’s economic ties to Leader and surrounding area.
Leader and area residents seldom choose Swift Current over Medicine Hat as a place to spend their money, said highway activist Gord Stueck. As owner of Stueck Pharmacy in Leader, he would prefer to keep his dollars in the province, but getting to Alberta is easier, he said.
“I can’t do business in Swift Current, I can’t get there,” Stueck said. “I have to do business in Alberta. I don’t want to. I’m not the only businessman in that situation… Basically we’re cut off.”
Gary Meier, Mayor of Leader, said road constitutes a huge economic deficit for Swift Current.
“I know that at one time there was probably 30 to 40 people with [Swift Current Broncos] season tickets down the road, I bet there aren’t five any more,” said Meier. “That’s an impact to the Swift Current Broncos team, and that’s just a very small example, but there’s hundreds of examples, every day it’s the same thing.”
Meier said he was heartened by the discussion at the recent Southwest SUMA meeting in Swift Current; listening to the comments of Mayor Sandy Larson, he said it seems that the city is starting to realize the impact highway 32 is having on its economy.
“At one time they didn’t acknowledge it so much, but I think as it’s getting worse and worse I think more businesses are feeling the pinch,” he said.
Swift Current is taking notice of the economic loss. The Chamber of Commerce’s Business Advocacy Committee (BAC) is looking into the situation, said BAC member Jason Regier.
“Our interested in highway 32 is of course economic infrastructure, and kind of breaking down barriers to doing business,” said Regier, “and if one of those things is the highway then we’re interested in making that less of a barrier to doing business in southwest Saskatchewan.”
Though BAC is just getting started on its work on the highway 32 situation, they are aiming to partner with the Southwest Transportation Committee to see what can be done. Most of their information concerning the highway comes from customer anecdotes in and around the city, he said, but that has been enough to spur further investigation.
“The whole southwest is one important economic unit and we have to act like that in Saskatchewan,” he said.
Reprinted with permission of the Prairie Post.
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