The City of Selkirk will present its 2023 infrastructure projects at a public open house at Memorial Hall on April 19 from 3pm to 7pm.
Approximately 5 million will be spent on infrastructure projects that have been identified through the city’s Capital Asset Management Program (CAMP) as being at the right time in their lifecycle for cost effective upgrades. The work will begin in May or June once the ground has thawed, and work will continue through to the fall.
“Hosting an open house lets residents come into a casual environment and see what the city has planned for this year,” Mayor Larry Johannson.
Sutherland Avenue getting a full reconstruction
“The 300 and 400 blocks of Sutherland Avenue are getting a full reconstruction this summer, so we want those folks to be informed about what is happening and why, but the information we’ll be putting out is important for anyone who walks or drives or bikes on our city streets.
“Main Street north is also getting a significant upgrade, and since it’s a Provincial thoroughfare they’re paying the costs for the travel lanes, but the city is piggybacking and doing our portion of work at the same time.”
The city will invest $1.5 million into Sutherland Avenue in the 300 and 400 blocks with new street surface, sidewalks, watermains, sewer and storm sewer, furthering the city’s separation of combined sewer. Both blocks were identified through the Capital Asset Management Program (CAMP) as requiring watermain and sewer renewal/liners to extend service life and reduce the risk of watermain breaks. The two blocks will also see the separation of the combined sewer line, which eliminates sewer back up during heavy rain events for the homes and adds capacity to the city’s storm water system. The 200 block of Sutherland will have its sewer lined as well.
“These two blocks were identified through our water and wastewater master plan that came out in 2011,” said Dan McDermid, Director of Operations.
“The plan has identified that the watermains need to be upsized so that we can improve fire protection to the Main Street area and increase quantity to the south. There have also been a lot of watermain breaks in that area, which was picked up through our service tracking program, so there’s two reasons for the upgrades on Sutherland.”
The combined sewer separation will be paid, in part, with Federal funding through the Disaster Mitigation and Adaptation Fund. The road surface is rated as poor through CAMP so it will be resurfaced and since some of the sidewalk will be torn up during construction, a good portion of it will be replaced at the same time.
“When we replace the sidewalks, we’ll use detectable tile for the visually impaired, which improves accessibility,” McDermid said.
Main Street North driving lanes to be resurfaced
Main Street north of Manitoba Avenue will see the driving lanes resurfaced by the Province of Manitoba and the city will invest $2.5 million into improving turning lanes, boulevards, medians and crossings at the same time, which is a cost-effective move.
Purvis Boulevard will also see street renewal between Belanger Place and 150 meters North, a project that will be cost shared with developers operating in the area.
Tree planting will be done on all of these streets, with funding Selkirk received for trees from the Investing in Communities program, a matching grant of the Provincial and Federal governments.
The city will continue to improve and expand its Active Transportation network this year. An investment of $140,000 into the new Eveline Street multi-use AT trail will extend it and allow those on foot or on bike to safely get from the entrance of Selkirk Park to the dog park. Also, $50,000 will be spent on a new accessible AT pathway from Eveline Street to the Waterfront, allowing those with mobility issues safer access to one of Selkirk’s finest attractions. Detailed design for the pathway was included in the Eveline Street Reconstruction project.
The dike by the Selkirk Canoe Kayak Centre was recently permanently closed. Previously, the city built and removed a temporary dike each year to prevent water from coming into Selkirk Park.
“This is a permanent fix,” McDermid said.
“We are going to be ramping up the Canoe and Kayak Club’s entrance to the water. They can take their canoes and kayaks and go straight across the dike and straight into the water.”
