After being the site of numerous deadly crashes over the years, the Perimeter Highway near Brady Road will see significant upgrades in 2020, says Manitoba’s infrastructure minister.
Ron Schuler told 680 CJOB the planned improvements for that intersection will be completed in 2020.
“We are going to build a side road that will go to Waverley, it will take the traffic accessing the perimeter onto a side road and then it will go through a controlled intersection,” said Schuler.
“The difficulty with that one is we had to identify certain services that have to be relocated, and we are going to build what’s called an RTAC road. It means that can handle truck traffic and that has to be engineered to a national standard.”
The road itself is challenging, said Schuler, due to it being an active location. “A lot of the city’s garbage goes into the Brady garbage dump.”
“If you drove the south perimeter you would have noticed a lot of changes, they’re important changes and I would suggest to you that we will be looking at another round of changes coming as well.
Ethan Boyer is the latest victim to be killed along Brady Road and the Perimeter. The 19-year-old man was stopped Friday behind waiting traffic on the Perimeter Highway when a semi hit Boyer’s car from behind, pushing him into the truck ahead.
Ethan’s vehicle was crushed between the two trucks.
His mother Susan called Ethan a computer science student, an avid hockey fan, and “a big boy with a gentle soul.”
“I’m living my worst nightmare, wishing I would just wake up,” she said.
“I can guarantee that I will be an advocate for changes to that highway and the trucking industry in general.”
Winnipeg trucker David Henry told 680 CJOB that stretch of highway is one of the most dangerous places he drives.
“Traffic is trying to merge off of Waverley and then there’s slow garbage trucks – and different people trying to get into Brady that aren’t quite sure of where the access is because they might not go there very often.”
Schuler said there are 24 Perimeter Highway intersections scheduled for changes after an initial safety review last year.