After a year of public discontent about the state of Saskatchewan's highways, Premier Lorne Calvert has pledged an extra $1.5 billion over 10 years for the transportation system.

With the extra money, Saskatchewan will be spending $5 billion on the highway system over a decade, Calvert said Tuesday.

It's all part of the government's plan to improve the transportation system so it will be able to support the surging economy.

Calvert said the government will be identifying key transportation links and will use a different approach than in the past to decide where its money will go.

"We have tended to budget and plan rather ad hoc," he said. "The significance of today's announcement is that we have put together a long-term plan … with a sense of where is the economy going to take us, not just today but in the future."

However, the Saskatchewan Party said the government's new transportation plan is an admission by the NDP it's been failing people for the last 16 years.

Opposition critic Randy Weekes said if the NDP had paid more attention to highways over the past few years, the present crisis wouldn't exist.

"[It] is going to take a number of years to address the problems that have arisen over the neglect of the transportation system," Weekes said.

Calvert was short on specifics, but said he'll have more details in the March 22 provincial budget.

Last spring was a particularly bad one for the province's highways, with broken pavement and potholes a common source of complaints.