Good news, everyone. The City of Swift Current will be paving a few troubled routes, along with beginning a much-requested paving project. 

The announcement came Wednesday afternoon during the latest Swift Current city council meeting, where they listed off the following paving projects included in the bid for the Paving and Concrete contract. 

  • Annual Paved Street Rehabilitation Program
  • Annual Sidewalk and Curbing Rehabilitation Program
  • Plewis Automotive Group Inclusive Park - parking lot, curbing and pathways
  • First Avenue Northwest and Cheadle Steet Traffic Signal Project - surface related to intersection improvements
  • Phase One of Marston Street Paving
  • 10th Avenue Northeast Infrastructure Project - full sidewalk and road replacement

In total, the contract will run up a cost of $1.85 million. That money will go to United Paving Ltd. of Swift Current, who won the bid. This was the lower of the two offers received. 

This year, the City will only have 1.4 kilometres paved. Most years, they average between 1.5 and 2.5 kilometres. 

For the sidewalks, the City will have United Paving patch up around 300 metres of the roughed-up walking surface on one block in town, but otherwise, won't be doing much.  

Mitch Minken, the general manager of infrastructure and operations for the City of Swift Current, exposed the focus on sidewalks being a non-priority for the City. 

"Most of our focus is on roadways these days," said Minken. "Sidewalks, we're kind of maintaining trip hazards and broken stuff. We'll fix sections, but we're not doing major full-block replacements at this time. This particular one, both sides of the entire block are disintegrated to a point where they have to be replaced."

The City of Swift Current will have more information on the start dates for these projects next week.