Provincial economic stimulus money aimed at Saskatoon sidewalk repair and maintenance

Saskatoon city councillors have voted to divvy up more than $12 million in provincial economic stimulus money.

The money will come from the Municipal Economic Enhancement Program (MEEP). It’s a one-time, $150 million provincial initiative aimed at supporting infrastructure maintenance during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Saskatoon’s portion is about $35 million in total.

A big portion of the $12 million could go towards city sidewalk repair, maintenance, sidewalk expansion and installing more accessibility curbs.

At Monday’s governance and priorities meeting, councillors voted to allocate $5 million towards sidewalk repair and maintenance, including $1 million to create “accessibility curbs” to help those who are mobility challenged, those with strollers, the elderly and others.

It’s something Ward 6 councillor Cynthia Block says is badly needed.

“There are so many people that will benefit by making sure that we have proper, basic infrastructure in our communities,” she explained.

Another $3 million will go towards expanding and creating sidewalks in areas where they don’t exist, said Block. Over the last many years, she said the city hasn’t been able to keep up with the demand for them in many neighbourhoods. Now, those projects can be accelerated.

“Through this acceleration not only are we able to now overall improve sidewalks in areas much more quickly…but we are also able to add sidewalks where none have existed previously. And that is actually a game-changer for historic neighbourhoods in and around the downtown where many streets in the day that there were no sidewalks, or there were sidewalks perhaps only on one side of the street.”

In some cases, she said those areas are located next to senior’s residences or schools.

The sidewalks maintenance and safety program’s annual budget is $1.25 million per year, while the sidewalks preservation program gets $6.1 million per year.

The committee initially discussed ways to spend the $12 million portion at its last meeting in June and came up with a shortlist of priorities.

The final list also includes a vehicle noise mitigation study, a Wi-Fi pilot project, money for a parks asset management plan, a pedestrian and cyclist rail crossing, and a west-central multi-use corridor.

While the governance and priorities committee can recommend where the money should be spent, it’s up to city council to give its final approval.