Regina bypass 40 per cent complete and on budget

Regina’s $1.88 billion bypass project is still coming in on time and on budget, according to the Ministry of Highways and Transportation.

Highways and Transportation Minister David Marit said unseasonably warm temperatures have played a key role.

“I think it’s a result of a nice winter last year, and work being done. I think it really shows the collaboration between the teams to keep a project of this magnitude of this size on time and on budget,” Marit said.

The entire bypass project is currently sitting at 40 per cent complete.

Alisdair Dickinson, Regina Bypass Design Builders project director, said the Pilot Butte overpass is still scheduled to open to the public a year early, by Oct. 31, 2018.

READ MORE: Pilot Butte, Sask. overpass expected to be completed one year earlier

“As we come into 2017, what we’ll start to see is assets, or sections of road being available to traffic as we finish paving,” Dickinson said.

Dickinson said more open houses will be scheduled for the new year to help educate the public about the changes.

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“The intent is not to have a nice new asset sitting with a big red ribbon sitting across it. It’s going to be a phase transition to help educate the travelling public about what changes are and also, allow us to finish off some of the work we need to finish,” he said.

READ MORE: Regina Bypass digs massive ‘borrow pit’ to build overpasses

The Highway 1 West interchange at Pinkie Road is currently sitting at 20 per cent complete. It’s one of 12 overpasses that will need to be contractually finished by Oct. 31, 2019.

That interchange will consist of eight bridges and will carry traffic from Highway 1 to the bypass at normal highway speeds of 110 km/h.

By the Numbers:

• More than 70,000 tonnes of material was used to repave over 24 kilometres of Highway 1 east; Equivalent to the weight of approximately 40,000 passenger cars

• More than 5 million cubic metres of dirt have already been moved; Equivalent to nearly four times the amount of dirt removed in the Big Dig at Wascana Lake

• More than 1 million tonnes of gravel crushed for paving; Equivalent to more 1.4 million times the combined weight of the offensive line that started for the  Saskatchewan Roughriders