Chief Peguis Trail extension plans on display tomorrow

The final phase of a costly consultation process for the Chief Peguis Trail extension begins Tuesday afternoon.

By the time the final designs are produced the city will have spent $3.5 million and there’s no guarantee those plans will be approved.

The final report is expected to go to city council for a vote in January.

The plans have been available online for several weeks but tomorrow will be the last chance for the public to weigh in before that final report is produced.

The plans outline how and where the approximately 10 km stretch of road will go to connect the existing Chief Peguis Trail terminus at Main Street with Route 90.

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The Manitoba Trucking Association has seen the plans and wonder why four of the six major intersections along the planned route are at-grade and controlled by lights instead of interchanges.

“There’s environmental concerns, efficiency concerns and the primary one is road safety, anytime you have traffic interacting, coming at each other in opposing directions there’s opportunities for bad things to occur,” said Terry Shaw with Manitoba Trucking Association.

Tweet This Click to share quote on Twitter: "There's environmental concerns, efficiency concerns and the primary one is road safety, anytime you have traffic interacting, coming at each other in opposing directions there's opportunities for bad things to occur," said Terry Shaw with Manitoba Trucking Association.

Still, he believes the extension, once built, will allow drivers to move around the north part of the city more efficiently and for better utilization of CentrePort.

“It’s huge for us, it really is, it connects Winnipeg east west,” said Shaw.

The Chief Peguis Trail Extension is part of an inner ring road that was conceived decades ago but still hasn’t come to fruition.