Warm weather extends Saskatoon construction season

WATCH: With the calendar flipping to November, construction season is coming to a close. But the warm weather is helping city crews squeeze in a few more days o

Construction season in Saskatoon is coming to an end, but as long as the weather holds, crews will stay busy.

“There’s so much work that we almost bank on having a great October and whenever we can get some nice weather in November, as well,” said Matt Jurkiewicz, the city’s director of construction and design.

“That just allows us to complete a few more things that we don’t have to carry over to the next season.”

In addition to the usual annual projects like road, bridge and sidewalk maintenance, the city tackled a number of water and sewage infrastructure to put the pressure on crews to get work done in time before constant freezing temperatures arrive.

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Add all that work on top of the repairs and upgrades necessary to build Link transit stations, and road closures and construction projects across the city were a common site.

“A large amount of work and quite a short season in which to do it,” Jurkiewicz said.

Link, the city’s upcoming bus rapid transit program set to launch in 2028, was at the heart of one of the more notable changes in Saskatoon this year.

The new Broadway Bridge now has a bend in it at the north side. Crews got rid of the unique intersection at 19th Street and 4th Avenue to create a traditional T intersection, complete with pedestrian crossings and new traffic lights.

All these improvements serve to more easily connect Broadway Avenue and downtown for the Link station near the north side of the bridge.

Before snow begins falling, crews are expected to finish work on 33 new station platforms, bringing the total to 41 since construction began last year.

An additional 44 platforms are planned for 2026 as the city prepares to install new bus shelters for these platforms, featuring digital information displays and street furniture.

“We’re finishing projects every day as we’re moving along into the last few days of construction season,” Jurkiewicz said.

The Broadway Bridge opened to traffic on Saturday night after closing for more than six months for its most major overhaul since 1987 — and businesses are pleased to see the area return to normal again.

“It’s like that bustling is coming back, the traffic is flowing, people are walking and I think people are just going to forget about that pretty quick,” said Bill Matthews, the owner of Gangsters Italian Sandwiches.

Matthews said with a devoted base of customers, he only noticed a modest dip in sales this summer with lower volumes of traffic.

Chantel Pulak, owner of Bill’s House of Flowers, feels similarly. She said she isn’t focusing on the bridge construction’s impact on business and is instead focused on having Broadway bustling once again.

“Yeah, I do think we missed the foot traffic of being able to cross over, and I did notice a little bit of a difference in the street maybe not being quite as busy with traffic,” she said. “So, it’s nice. It’s nice to have it back.”

Jurkiewicz said crews and contractors improved approximately 200km of roadways, built four kilometers of new roads, fixed more than 10km of sidewalks and fixed six kilometers of water mains as well.