Looking through Bill and Olga Martin’s window five kilometres south of Regina, semi-trucks make their way west, darting across the Trans-Canada Highway. In three years, those same trucks will dash across a portion of the new $1.2-billion bypass—35 metres from Bill and Olga’s front door.
The Martins are one of 100 landowners affected by the planned highway.
The gravel road to the Pinkie overpass from the Martin’s farmhouse will no longer connect, as the bypass will replace it once that potion of the highway is built.
Instead of simply driving north to the Pinkie overpass, the Martins will have to drive south for 5 km, turn left at an access point, then drive another 5 km to reach Regina. That turns out to be an extra 20,000 km per year of travel time for the family, Bill said. His family includes himself and Olga, their son Craig, and his wife Dana.
The problems don’t stop there. The bypass will shave 25 acres of cropland and complicate farm operations, as farmers will have to constantly cross the highway to reach their lands.
On top of that, the Martins are worried about the extra time needed for ambulances to arrive at their homes, the congestion made by farmers who need to cross the highway, and the perpetual noise created by speeding semi-trucks.
“It’ll change our everyday lives,” Olga said.
“What really hurts is when someone says, ‘Oh, you’ll get used to it.’ People in the city don’t realize the impact because if something like this was coming on their street, they wouldn’t like it.”
Dana thinks no differently.
“I can’t even think about it,” she said. “It just very upsetting and moves us to tears.”
The Martins were compensated for the land lost to the bypass, but felt they had no say in the consultation process.
The government looked at two possible routes the southern leg of the bypass could take. Option A—the route the Martins preferred— was much further out from their home.
But the government chose Option B because it better connects to the Pinkie overpass, requires less land severances, and is shorter, meaning it’s cheaper for the government to buy and build the project, said Doug Wakabayashi, spokesman for the Ministry of Highways and Infrastructure.
“When we’re deciding on these options, we’re trying to balance things like safety and roadway functionality in terms of how it’s going to impact people and land.”
For those living in Regina, the bypass will ensure the city’s roads are safer, as large semis won’t drive on them, causing less ware and tear on city streets, said Regina Mayor Michael Fougere.
The Saskatchewan economy—including agriculture—will also become more efficient, as trucks hauling grain to the Global Transportation Hub will no longer congest along the eastern stretch of Victoria Avenue, Wakabayashi said.
“The faster and more efficient link to the national highway system and Class 1 railways will make Saskatchewan and the Regina region, in particular, more attractive places to invest.”
Even though many farmers will benefit from an improved highway system, the Martins are one of the latest landowners to succumb to developments that are a result of a growing Regina and provincial economy.
In fact, the land area of rural municipalities that surround urban centres has shrunk within a decade, according to Statistics Canada. At the same time, cities have gradually grown, engulfing land used for crop production and affecting landowners who have called their farms home for more than half a century.
According to Statistics Canada, land used for producing crops in Saskatchewan fell by 1.1 million acres from 37.5 million in 2001 to 36.4 million in 2011.
RMs that surround Saskatchewan’s major centres saw dramatic decreases in arable land and total land area.
In particular, cropland around Saskatoon fell by over 20,000 acres from 23,768 acres in 2006 to 2,816 acres in 2011.
Saskatoon’s neighbour: the Rural Municipality of Corman Park, saw its arable land decrease by about 39,000 acres from 312,944 to 274,043 within that same time frame.
Travel 260 kilometres south of Saskatoon, and you’ll see the same story holds true.
The Rural Municipality of Sherwood, which cusps Regina, saw its land used for crop production fall by about 8,000 acres from 160,030 in 2006 to 151,753 in 2011.
Meanwhile, Regina and Saskatoon’s land area increased by 6,568 acres and 9,570 acres from 2006 to 2011, respectively.
The RMs that surround those cities saw their land area fall by 6,578 acres (Sherwood) and 10,858 acres (Corman Park).
Even though the Martins aren’t within the realms of Regina’s January 2014 annexation (8,500 acres), the planned bypass will slash arable land.
The loss of cropland is nothing new in Canada and around the world, said Lenore Newman, the Canada Research Chair in food security and environment, who also teaches geography at the University of the Fraser Valley in Abbotsford, B.C.
“We know that cities are eating up farmland. We are losing farmland, and we are not adding much of it anymore.”
Newman explained the world has likely reached “peak farmland,” meaning the amount of the globe’s cropland has reached its max, and will begin to steadily decline.
However, Saskatchewan and the other prairie provinces can grow a bit differently due to their geography.
“The prairie cities sprawl,” Newman said. “It’s like you’re building on a tabletop. You can just keep going.”
Although prairie cities like Regina are expanding, they grow strategically, Fougere said.
“We are not growing the borders to just grow. It’s done strategically, and the annexations are based upon our view in consideration with many partners by what’s sustainable and what’s achievable.
“We have people moving to the city, and they have to live somewhere. We don’t want the city to just sprawl. That doesn’t make a lot of sense.”
He added the city follows a 70/30 guideline when developing, where 70 per cent of land is suburban development and 20 per cent is urban development.
The City of Saskatoon’s Director of Planning and Development Alan Wallace said Saskatoon’s rule for development is 80(suburban)/20(urban), which will eventually change to 70/30, as the city prepares for a population of 500,000 in the next 30 years.
Market demand is the main reason Saskatoon has predominately developed outward, Wallace said.
“Generally, families like to have their own plot of land.”
After farmland is annexed by Saskatoon, city planners primarily look to transition cropland for urban uses, whether that be residential, commercial or industrial developments, he added.
But the RM of Corman Park deals with development a little differently.
“We want to protect agriculture land as best as we can,” said Adam Tittemore, administrator of Corman Park. “It’s a very fine line for us to walk because we do have a lot of development pressures for commercial and residential developments.”
The RM appeases farmers and developers on a case-by-case basis, where less productive soils for growing crops is used for developments and highly productive farm operations are kept, Tittemore explained.
“It is a significant issue. And because we have so many other development pressures, it makes us unique compared to other municipalities in Saskatchewan.”
Landowners, too, can sell their lands for favourable prices to private developers, cities and the government when approached.
But for the Martins, they wish there was better communication between all parties involved with the bypass project.
“We understand the need for a bypass,” Dana said. “But, maybe it could have gone further out, where all it would do is disrupt is land, not people’s lives.”
Bill and Olga plan to make the best of the situation. But “if worse comes to worst,” they will leave the farm, Olga concluded.
“There’s always hope,” Dana said. “It’s like a storm is coming in, and it’s a bad one. But you do what you can do to try to get through it.”
