The Montgomery area of Saskatoon has a perennial problem with getting legitimate access to our city. Repeated design changes to the road network have not alleviated this problem, and the extra density brought to Montgomery has exasperated it. The City currently has three design options proposed to try to give different access into and out of Montgomery, but those three fail to give 24-hour a-day, seven-day-a-week access.
Besides being a basic safety issue, it is plainly unfair that one of the older subdivisions of the city still struggles with this basic access. I was asked to find a different way, and I spent time and talked to design professionals about a concept I had to take Dundonald Avenue South under the rail lines and connect out at first to the service road by the Civic Operations Centre. A later expansion could create a constant flow of traffic in and out of Valley Road so that people coming in from Circle Drive and exiting to Circle Drive would be able to do so without traffic lights and in non-stop fashion regardless of rail activities.
At the open house in February, the City still maintained they only had three options and residents who were aware of my other option were not happy with the City over this. However, since this date, numerous residents have written to the City, and now the City has allowed the possibility of a fourth design option, which I envisioned.
I went to the City Council and presented this option with the full animation so that the Administration would be clear on its intent and possibility. And I am happy to say that the City is now officially considering four options for egress and ingress into Montgomery, including my option.
This option builds on a construction method that has only recently been used in Saskatoon but has been extensively used in other jurisdictions, including Edmonton. This should open up the appetite of the Administration to consider this further.
The key is to use this new construction method called secant piling to shore walls and create structural members required for the infrastructure. I look forward to questioning the Administration on their review of this into the future and it is a priority of mine to push hard so that Montgomery finally gets 24 / 7 access.