The Provincial Government is now in the planning stages of adding passing lanes on Highway 39 and Highway 6 from Estevan to Regina rather than twinning the highways. 

"We're looking at that alternative on the passing lanes," explained David Marit, the provincial minister of Highways and Infrastructure. "We're probably going to start doing some preliminary study work on where the passing lanes would be going. We're just in the process of planning. We kind of have a rough estimate on the number of passing lanes we need."

"We're looking at it for a number a reasons. Right now, we've obviously got traffic issues between Estevan and Regina with the number of vehicles on the highway. If we go to twinning, it really becomes cost prohibitive to some degree, when we're looking at about $2 million a kilometer for twinning. And to twin that stretch of highway, we would be looking at a multiple of years to get that done."

"But what we can do with passing lanes right now, is we can alleviate the pressure of the traffic. Obviously safety is our number one concern here, and we can have the passing lanes literally up and running in a couple years."

"We're still seeing a significant increase in truck traffic to the US and vice versa. We did have a discussion here a few weeks ago with our counterparts from North Dakota with concerns about what we were going to do on 39 highway in conjunction with their highway and they were very happy to hear that we were looking at passing lanes."

He adds that there is the option to turn the passing lanes into a twinned highway should the need arise.

"That's some of the process we are looking at is, can we do the passing lanes, can we integrate them into a system down the road, I think that all has to be looked at. If we still see significant increases in traffic then we have to look at some alternatives but I think in relative to everything, we have to look at the cost. But also even in passing lanes we're still seeing significant number of drop in accidents."

"Passing lanes versus twinning, there isn't a real big spread. There is a spread, but it's not as significant as I thought it would be. But the cost is less than 20%. And I think that's what we have to consider in this corridor. For a set, it's just over a million dollars or a million five for a set so we're finding some significant savings there."

He added that there are many other factors to take into consideration such as the railway which runs parallel along much of Highway 39. The lanes would be two kilometers in length so he adds that they need to work with local multiplicities to ensure there's not too much interference with the grid roads as well as any services that would need to be moved.

He mentioned that in areas where passing lanes already exists, they are working very well.

"We're seeing this as not just a short term but it could be a long term solution to a safety issue that is very important to us."

READ MORE: Highway 39 Twinning Project Could See Some Asphalt Soon