Cavan Monaghan Township wants the province to address a stretch of Highway 115 following multi-vehicle crashes earlier this week.
The highway location in question is a stretch near Tapley 1/4 Line in Millbrook, about 25 kilometres south of Peterborough. It’s an area known for frequent whiteouts and major collisions — including pileups on both Monday and Tuesday mornings that forced the OPP to close the divided highway in both directions.
“There’s something up with that specific area that we need to further investigate,” said Township Mayor Scott McFadden. “It’s certainly not the first time that accidents are getting reported.”
McFadden has asked township staff to ask the Ministry of Transportation to seek input on what could be done to reduce these non-random bang-ups — “whether there should be proper barriers put up as far snow-fences, plantations or the corn being left in order to deflect some of the wind that’s going through there.”
In an email to Global News, Peterborough, MTO spokesperson Bronte Walker-Moores says the province conducted a review of the entire highway in 2007 and identified sections that are more vulnerable to drifting snow and ice.
Walker-Moores did not specifically address questions about the area near Tapley 1/4 Line but said the MTO is working with private property owners to install snow fences “where it has been identified as needed.” He said around 500 metres of snow fences have been installed along Highway 115.
“The area maintenance contractor has installed snow fence in areas where permission has been granted by the property owners,” he said.
“The late removal of crops such as corn and late season crops like winter wheat can inhibit the installation of the snow fence.”
He encouraged drivers to visit Ontario 511 to follow the area’s maintenance contractor for current highway conditions.
Peterborough County OPP say that while the location or design of the highway might sometimes be contributing factors to collisions, they also caution drivers to be attentive of weather and road conditions.
“If drivers can just take heed to the warning we’re giving on social media, on the OPP’s Twitter accounts, all the weather stations, even your own station here at Global, letting people know when there’s traffic and weather updates, those type of things they can pay attention to help themselves out,” said Peterborough County OPP Const. Rich Nie.
WATCH: Major crashes on Highway 115 so far in 2019