City council looking at hiring design consultant for potential relocation of Ring Road rail tracks

Regina city council will discuss the next step in the potential relocation of the rail tracks away from Ring Road. 

Council will discuss authorizing a public procurement process to move the tracks. The process would hire a consultant and professional engineering services for the design and construction.

If approved on Aug. 11, the consultant would develop a preliminary design. The design would be taken to the rail companies to determine if it's feasible and acceptable. The new route would need to feed into the companies' property as they need it to. 

"So preliminary design funding needs to be approved. Preliminary design over the next probably 12 months would be worked through," Mayor Sandra Masters said. "The idea would be hopefully that coming back 12 months from now, we would have something in place that we could seek approval on."

Council already approved $2 million in the 2020 and 2021 budgets for the process. The cost to completely move the tracks is estimated at $107 million. Council would also need some other forms of funding as it would be a big price tag, Masters said.

Masters said she suspects the best option for the tracks would be to relocate them to the north of the city, away from some residential development. 

The rail tracks have been a point of contention for years, with trains stopping traffic for as long as an hour and a half in the past. There have been been studies costing around $300,000 and previous talks about an overpass or underpass.

This new public procurement process is one of the next steps of the previous council's $107-million, eight-year plan to remove the tracks. 

They are also going to be considering if the preliminary design would impact future development. Masters said she doesn't think a move would, as the city can grow by another 100,000 people in other neighbourhoods.