Repair bills up to $650k for past overpass collisions: Saskatoon Chamber CEO

The repair bills could be costly to repair two overpasses hit in Saskatoon within the span of a single week, but there’s another price those in the city are paying, according to the city’s Chamber of Commerce.

The first overpass collision happened on March 5, when a semi hit the Highway 11/16 overpass, impacting traffic on both roadways. The second came the evening of March 11, when the 108^th Street overpass was clipped by a truck, temporarily shutting down the bridge and bringing traffic on Circle Drive north down to a single lane.

“I think referring to some of these companies and drivers as ‘blockheads’ is exceedingly generous and diplomatic,” said Greater Saskatoon Chamber of Commerce CEO, Jason Aebig.

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Aebig explained in the last five years, there have been more than two dozen of these sorts of incidents. Depending on the structure and severity of the damage, those repair bills ranged from $30,000 to $650,000, according to Aebig.

This is part of what he called “the hard cost” of the incidents, which encompasses “the monetary costs of repairs and the lost time to our existing companies” who rely on these roadways to do their work.

He said that’s not the only price.

“There’s also the soft costs of convenience,” Aebig explained, where everyday commuters are experiencing traffic delays trying to get to work and other commitments.

“Just think about the productivity lost in our city when we are clogged up for 30, 40, 60 minutes at a normal commute time. That has a real impact on shift times in hospitals and construction sites and client meetings and opening retail stores,” he said.

While he didn’t want to exaggerate the impacts, for Aebig, “we have to get real that when these incidents happen,” there are impacts to the community.

Calling for harsher penalties

The City of Saskatoon changed its traffic bylaw in 2025 after numerous trucking incidents over the past five years.

It was determined at the time that current fines and penalties weren’t “enough of a deterrent to encourage drivers and transportation companies to do their (due) diligence, get the right permits, measure their loads and make sure that they were transporting them through the city safely,” Aebig said.

By implementing harsher penalties and fines, he said the idea was that trucking companies would be more likely to “play by the rules.”

“But just this one week, we’re seeing evidence that maybe those penalties and fines are not high enough, and if the city has any interest in further amendments to that bylaw, we would express support for that,” Aebig said, speaking on behalf of the Chamber.

As it stands, the bylaw allows the city to seek fines and restitution from those responsible for the damage directly through provincial court, rather than going the route of civil litigation.

With it, individuals can face fines up to $10,000 while the maximum for companies is $20,000, according to city solicitor, Cindy Yelland.

But the bylaw alone won’t necessarily recuperate all costs for repair.

“This is simply a maximum and the actual amount of the fine will be imposed by the Court. Charges with respect to these incidents will be up to the investigating authorities,” Yelland wrote in an emailed statement.

She went on to explain how the City of Saskatoon takes all legal steps to collect damages, either “through restitution imposed by a court based on an offence or through a civil litigation claim,” with insurance often paying for all or a portion of the money.

“It will be the City’s intention to pursue all legal avenues to collect damages for the two recent incidents,” Yelland wrote.

For Aebig, the number one priority is to ensure the city and its taxpayers have 100 per cent of those costs covered. If there’s any levies, fines or penalties that don’t allow for the full recovery, changes need to be made to the bylaw, according to Aebig.

“There’s no reason why existing commercial, residential taxpayers in the city should be footing the bill for people who clearly can’t follow the rules, or frankly, choose to ignore them,” he said.

– with files from 650 CKOM’s Libby Gray and Lara Fominoff