City workers, Jason Kurtz, left, and Justin Kniivila install a new speed limit sign for the playground zone near Sierra Boulevard and Saamis Rotary Way on Friday.--NEWS PHOTO COLLIN GALLANT
A once-controversial playground zone that slowed traffic for those in the community of Saamis has been expanded now that a new school in the far south community is set to open Monday.
Ecole Les Cypres was built over the last year at the corner of Saamis Rotary Way and Sierra Boulevard, on green space allotted in the 2000s for school construction in the city-led development.
For a decade though, residents complained that a playground zone that began at Saamis Rotary Park, hundreds of metres away, was too long considering it was the only route in and out of the community.
It was shortened in response, but on Friday was again designated with signs as a playground and school zone with a posted limit of 30 kilometres per hour.
In Medicine Hat, school and playground zones exist as a single designation which is enforced between 7:30 a.m. and 9 p.m. every day.
Ecole Les Cypres is an all-grades francophone school that recently operated at the former Central Park School location on the Southeast Hill.
Sewer lining on the move
Work to coat and reinforce sewer pipe along Southview Drive will proceed after Labour Day and last into October, the city’s environmental utilities department announced Friday.
Areas between Higdon Avenue (near Dunmore Road) and Carry Drive will see work begin on Sept. 8 in a continuation of lining work that took place along the length of Carry Drive in 2018.
Administrators have said that acidic gas that forms in sewage has weakened the underground pipes.
The repair process, which coats the interior wall of pitted concrete pipe, does not require complete excavation, but will cause traffic disruptions from time to time. Similarly, water and sewer service shouldn’t be affected other than short, temporary shutoffs.
