Manitoba still listening to experts, premier says after scrapping recommended redesign for deadly intersection
Roundabout, widening median would achieve safety goals similar to RCUT proposal: Wab Kinew
Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew insists he isn't ignoring the evidence, after scrapping the redesign option for a deadly highway intersection preferred by his own government's experts.
The province confirmed this week it won't put a restricted crossing U-turn, or RCUT, at the intersection of the Trans-Canada and Highway 5 in southwestern Manitoba, after hearing locals' strong opposition to the proposal.
Seventeen people were killed and eight others injured at that intersection after a semi and a bus full of seniors from the Dauphin area collided there on June 15, 2023.
Three people were hurt at the same intersection the following month in a three-vehicle crash.
Kinew said each of the three proposed redesigns presented by transportation engineers — the RCUT, widening the median or putting up a roundabout — would achieve a comparable level of safety, according to a report commissioned by the province.
While the RCUT was the Transportation Department's preferred option, "it clearly didn't have the support of the community," Kinew said at an unrelated news conference Thursday.
"We got to listen to the people who are going to be the most frequent users of it."
Right decision in face of 'adamant opposition': Kinew
Replacing the current intersection with an RCUT would have eliminated direct left turns from the Trans-Canada, a busy four-lane divided highway running west-east, as well as going directly north-south on Highway 5. Instead, drivers would have made merges and U-turns to get where they're going.
But pushback to the idea was fierce.
Last month, more than 100 community members confronted officials at a tense public forum about the fate of the intersection, which is north of Carberry. A petition with more than 2,100 signatures implored the province not to move forward with the RCUT design.
WATCH | How the proposed RCUT would have worked:
Kinew said Thursday his government promised a meaningful consultation process from the beginning. Choosing to push ahead with the RCUT "in the face of very adamant opposition from the community … would have shown that that consultation wasn't really real," he said.
The premier has vowed to seek more input now that the RCUT proposal has been scrapped.
At another intersection, the government may have chosen an option with less consultation, "but in this one, given the passion, given the emotions, given the history of the tragedy there, it makes sense for us to take more time," he said.
Some area residents, as well as Carberry's town council, have argued the province should build an overpass at the intersection instead.
The province has previously said an overpass is not an option due to current traffic volumes, but Kinew said Thursday it will be considered.
He wouldn't estimate how long the consultation process would take, but said people in rural Manitoba will know their perspectives were heard.
"We're not going to let this thing linger forever," Kinew said.
Community input can't be ignored: traffic engineer
A traffic engineer said the opinions of the community rightfully prevailed.
"I think if you talk to most experts, they will realize that the input of the community, people who actually live there every day, it is important and it cannot be ignored," said Ahmed Shalaby, a professor of civil engineering at the University of Manitoba.
While an RCUT could have been effective, the reality is it would have been an anomaly on the busy cross-country highway.
Canada's only RCUT intersection is along Highway 16 near Saskatoon, though they exist throughout the U.S., where transportation officials have said RCUTs successfully reduce the number of severe and fatal collisions.
Shalaby believes putting one at the Carberry-area intersection would have left some drivers puzzled, and would "introduce an additional level of risk that is hard to account for at this time."
Over time, that risk would level off, he said, but "we don't want … drivers to be surprised by a configuration they aren't familiar with and then they make decisions that may not be safe."
Shalaby said he's open to the idea of RCUTs being built elsewhere in Manitoba, but he recommends that happen at less prominent locations with lower traffic volumes.
Jordan Dickson, who lives near the intersection and helped organized a protest against the RCUT proposal in May, said provincial officials didn't take into account how busy the intersection can get, particularly during harvest season.
The report the government commissioned looked at two days in July 2023.
Shalaby said he isn't convinced an overpass is the right approach for the intersection outside Carberry, but encourages further study of the idea.
There are other Manitoba locations, such as Highway 1 and Highway 16, with heavier traffic volumes where people have long clamoured for an overpass as well, he said.
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