Wanuskewin Road set to reopen by end of weekend: City of Saskatoon

After a three-month closure, Saskatoon’s Wanuskewin Road is expected to reopen to traffic this weekend.

The closure was in place to allow city workers to replace two underground pipelines connecting the city’s Wastewater Treatment Plant to a city-operated biosolids facility in the Rural Municipality of Corman Park.

Read more:

• Wanuskewin Road closed for three months as city replaces wastewater pipes
• VIDEO: Overpass at Lorne Avenue and Ruth Street is latest to be struck in Saskatoon
• VIDEO: 51st Street overpass becomes fifth hit in Saskatoon this year

At city council on Wednesday, Dan Willems, Saskatoon’s director of technical services, said Saskatoon Water is scheduled to finish work on Wanuskewin Road by the end of the weekend.

Willems said if the weather doesn’t accommodate the plan to permanently pave the road by the end of the weekend, a sacrificial layer of asphalt will be put down to last through the winter, and the work will be finished next year.

The reopening of Wanuskewin Road is expected to occur ahead of planned overpass repairs at Idylwyld Drive at 51st Street next week.

Idylwyld Drive southbound will be closed at the overpass for four to six weeks while steel girders are repaired above that portion of the roadway.

The city said drivers can use Avenue C and Wanuskewin Road as alternate routes.

On July 24, the overpass was hit by a truck carrying a grain bin, marking the sixth overpass hit in Saskatchewan.

In addition to the overpass strike, Willems said the city has been monitoring serious damage dating back several years.

“Now is the point at which we’re pulling the trigger on repairs, because they are quite costly,” Willems said.

There have been seven overpass strikes in Saskatoon this year, and nine in total across the province.

The most recent collision saw a truck collide with an overpass at the intersection of Lorne Avenue and Ruth Street, in the city’s Exhibition area, on Oct. 14.