Chinook Pathway expansion hits a snag

The expansion to the Chinook Pathway on the city's northeast side will have to wait until next year.

Swift Current tendered out the project that included one-kilometre of asphalt but the bids are double the $548,865 budgeted for the work.

The addition would link the pathway from where it ends currently just short of Memorial Drive to the Sask Valley development (close to Canadian Tire).

Mitch Minken, the general manager of infrastructure and operation with the City of Swift Current, said the three crossing under highways is what threw the project's cost out of line.

"The way these grant applications go, you put them together well ahead of some of the detailed information that you need," he said. "When we started working with the Ministry of Highways and working through that process on what they required for the pathway to go under the bridges, it was a little more than anticipated... They requested more build-out with some retaining walls."

The City will now shelve the project until 2024 giving them time to look for some efficiencies within the scope of the work. 

"We're going back to the drawing board with the federal government for approvals of our new plan," he said. "We're picking the project apart and seeing where we can save some money by doing some of the work in-house and some of it to various contractors and split it up and try and get it to a reasonable number."

The federal government would pay most of the bill, forking over $329,319, leaving the City on the hook for $219,546 in a 60/40 split. With the federal government being involved funding-wise, they have a sizable voice in the project if it moves forward and how it will look.

"That's all part of the negotiations with the federal government is to ensure that it is completed in a fashion they're happy with too," he said. "We're still on track to finish the original scope with the pathway continuing from Memorial Drive where it ended around the back of the cemetery and ultimately up into Sask Valley." 

Swift Current has until October 2024 to use the funding and complete the project.