It will be next year before city administration feels it can truly gauge the actual shift in traffic after two new bridges opened in Saskatoon. Acting Director of Transportation Jay Magus says residents will have more options in terms of cycling and walking paths on the new bridges and of course there is the advantage to having more options when there is an accident on another bridge or one of them is shut down for maintenance.

All bridges and their feeder intersections have vehicle counters. Magus says his gut feeling is that traffic at Attridge and Central Avenue will be cut in half and the number of vehicles on north Circle Drive could be cut by 10 to 15 thousand with the two new bridges opening up in Saskatoon. Last week North Circle Drive recorded 45-thousand vehicles in a day.

Meanwhile, if you have been enjoying using a partially opened Boychuck and Highway 16 overpass in Saskatoon, it will be next spring before it opens up completely. Magus says it opened up ahead of schedule and there was actually an extra year in the contract.

He believes that later this year, the eastbound to northbound loop will open at the McOrmond and College Drive overpass, much like what happened last weekend at the now partially opened Boychuck overpass, with the rest of the McOrmond project also coming to fruition next spring.