Manitoba’s transportation minister says the province wasn’t able to install a safer, lighted crosswalk at the site in Winkler where a girl was killed last week.
Steve Ashton claims provincial officials weren’t able to proceed with the lighted corridor on Highway 428 in front of Northlands Parkway Collegiate because it wasn’t clear where the sidewalk would be located at the newly built school.
“You have to know where the (sidewalk) is, you have to know specific design,” Ashton said said in an interview Tuesday with Global News.
The claim has Winkler’s mayor angrily accusing the NDP minister of not telling the truth.
“It’s just false information that he’s spreading,” Martin Harder told Global News Tuesday. Harder produced documents dated October 22, 2012 that were sent to the province, requesting the lighted corridor and providing detailed descriptions of the highway and plans for nearby pathways.
“A signalized and lit crosswalk is being requested for the crossing of PR 428 at Northlands Parkway in 2013 in order to provide safe passage for the students crossing the highway,” reads the memo.
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16 year old Carina Denisenko died Friday afternoon when she was struck by a truck on the highway as she crossed from school, where she was in Grade 11, to her job at a nearby restaurant.
Ashton insisted Tuesday that provincial staff followed the proper procedures in evaluating what was needed at the crossing, which is currently marked only with signs on the highway where the speed limit is 50 km/hr.
“Our department has to order the signs, get the signs in place, they have to design where it’s going to be put,” Ashton said.
Winkler’s mayor says he still hasn’t heard from the minister since the tragedy; Global News was only able to get him to address it personally by finding him at an unrelated announcement Tuesday in Clandeboye, in the Interlake.
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