Yorkton is among 48 communities to receive dollars through provincial Traffic Safety Fund Grants.
The recently announced grants were approved for funding from the proceeds of photo speed enforcement (PSE).
The PSE committee awarded the second round of Provincial Traffic Safety Fund grants, providing a total of $500,000 to improve safety in Saskatchewan. These include intersection and crosswalk improvements, speed display signs, pedestrian crossing signals, school zone beacons and other speed-reduction initiatives.
In Yorkton’s case the City received $10,338 for a crosswalk with flashing beacons.
Yorkton’s City Manager Lonnie Kaal told Yorkton This Week the funding saves taxpayers funding a project that was going to be carried out anyway.
“We were planning on doing this anyway. It’s something we wanted to do for pedestrian safety,” she said, adding because of the grant, “It doesn’t have to come out of the tax pie.:
Other communities in the area to receive funding included; Churchbridge $3,087 for speed display sign, Langenburg $3,865 for speed display sign, and Melville $10,000 for flashing school zone beacons and speed display signs.
Grants from this round range from $850 to just over $37,000.
“These projects will help calm traffic and make Saskatchewan roads safer,” Minister Responsible for SGI Joe Hargrave said in a press release. “I want to congratulate the successful applicants and express how pleased I am that so many communities are keeping traffic safety top of mind and have taken the initiative to make improvements to keep their citizens safe. I continue to encourage other municipalities and Indigenous lands or territories to consider applying for these grants for their own safety initiatives.”
The PSE Committee is already accepting applications for the next round of Traffic Safety Fund grants, as well as applications for new PSE camera locations. The deadline for both applications is March 30, 2020. More information can be found at www.sgi.sk.ca/pse-grants.
Applications are evaluated by the PSE committee, which includes representatives from the Saskatchewan Urban Municipalities Association, the Saskatchewan Association of Rural Municipalities, the Federation of Sovereign Indigenous Nations, the Saskatchewan Association of Chiefs of Police, the Ministry of Justice, the Ministry of Highways and Infrastructure, and SGI.
Applications for traffic safety grants are assessed against criteria focused on priority areas including intersection safety, aggressive driving, speeding and vulnerable road users.
Applications for new PSE locations need to demonstrate the proposed location is either high-risk, the site of frequent speed-related crashes, or is used by a high volume of vulnerable pedestrians. Applicants also must demonstrate that previous measures have been unsuccessful.
Provincial Traffic Safety Fund grants are awarded twice annually, and applications for new PSE locations are evaluated once each year.
