Now that the provincial budget has officially been dropped, the Ministry of Highways has their plan put together for what highway projects they plan to take care of this coming spring. For the most part according to Kindersley MLA Ken Francis, it's mostly going to be continuations of projects that have already had a start on them from last construction season.

"They're going to continue with the Highway 7 passing lane projects West of Kindersley, and also Highway 31 in the Plenty/Dodsland area, they're going to finish up, I think the south part of that that was delayed. Also Highway 51 west of Kerrobert from Fusilier to the Alberta border. I think also Hwy 317, they're finishing up on that. That's the grid road north of Marengo and they've been working on that for a couple of years as well. So there's a significant investment I think just short of $32 million going into West Central, which on a provincial scale is a is a fairly good number for the constituency."

With these projects being the one's announced on the schedule for this year, some constituents may see this list and wonder why a road in their area that's in rough shape isn't being taken care of yet, for example Highway 44 between Glidden and Eston. Francis has heard the comments and read the emails sent into his office, and while those projects are not being tackled this year Francis says that they are in the queue.

"There's no shortage of of highways in need of repair, whether that's in West Central Saskatchewan or across the province, so the list is long and the list has been I'd say neglected is an understatement over several governments prior to us, and our government has taken this as a priority to look at that deficiency and deficit, and to work on it, and that's why we've made a commitment to upgrade 10,000 kilometers of highways over the next 10 years."

To put that commitment to improving 10,000km of highways in Saskatchewan over the next 10 years the current government has promised, data from Statistics Canada from 2003 had Saskatchewan pinned at about 29,500km of paved roads (although Wikipedia states it's closer to 26,000km), meaning the commitment the provincial government has made will take care of well over a third of Saskatchewan's highways. So while there are a large number of projects to take care of areas that see less traffic compared to the rest of the province won't be touched for a little while longer.

"We've been picking away at it with the bigger projects, the passing lanes and the twinning on the major routes, and of course there's corridors, specifically in this area Highway 44 is one that's high on my priority list as far as needing attention, and yes we get several emails and calls on conditions of several roads in the constituency, but Highway 44 between Glidden and Eston for sure is a top priority for me, but we also have to realize there's 60 other constituencies that have similar issues and and we have to be fair with how we go forward with projects. I know patience is hard to hold onto, but definitely it is a priority of mine and I'll be pushing for more investment in this constituency."

There's also been some confusion on the road project that saw stop lights, curbs, and turning lanes added to the section of Highway 7 that runs through the middle of Kindersley and whether or not we're going to see more work done there. If there is still some work yet to be completed however, Francis says it should be fairly small scale compared to the road stoppages we saw last year.

"I would think the town would be up to speed on it up to the minute on exactly what's left to be done. I think the bulk of the work was done last year, but of course there's a few things that carry over into the next year just like most projects, they don't always get completed in the time allotted."

There isn't a time table set yet for when the road construction will start as a lot of that is still weather dependent, but Francis expects to see communication from the Ministry of Highways once that road construction season officially arrives.