Safety measures worth getting right

Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 10/01/2024 (618 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Doing nothing is not an option. The collision between a mini-bus and a semi-trailer that ultimately claimed the lives of 17 seniors last June was just too horrific to ignore.

And it was clear on Monday during a press conference in Dauphin that our current crop of provincial leaders were taking the need for change at the Highway 5 and Trans-Canada Highway intersection seriously.

“I want to acknowledge that we cannot make things right or make you whole, but we are going to work our hardest to ensure that something like this does not happen again,” Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew said during the afternoon news conference.

But somewhat counterintuitively, the safety report into the intersection that was prepared by WSP Canada Inc. did not take into account the June 15 fatal collision, or another crash at the same intersection six weeks later that sent three people to hospital. Instead, it as based on an analysis of 29 collisions that occurred at the intersection between 2012 and 2021 — some of which we have previously recounted on this page.

But that decision was likely by design for a few reasons. The report authors could look more dispassionately at events that were further removed in time from last June’s collision. After all, emotions remain raw for many of the family members whose loved ones died. But more importantly, the RCMP investigation into the June collision remains open, and investigators have not yet interviewed the driver of the mini-bus. Presumably they have been unable to.

Better then to base such a safety report on collisions — both fatal and otherwise — where conclusions have already been reached.

Among the 34 potential countermeasure options listed in the 179-page report — which was dubbed an “in-service road safety review” — were three intersection improvement options, including a roundabout, widening the median at the intersection and a new “RCUT” intersection design that is widely used in the U.S. in which drivers turn onto a main road and make a U-turn at a one-way median.

Again, somewhat curiously, the use of traffic signals and lowered speed limits at the location were considered, but ultimately rejected by the report authors, who suggested that these measures would not be effective at this intersection — and could even cause more collisions.

While an interchange or overpass at the intersection may also be implemented down the road as a safety measure, the province sees that as a long-term solution with a 20-year-plus timeline and a cost estimate of around $100 million. No doubt, that project will likely cost more in two decades.

So in the interim, one of the three options would be a “medium-term” improvement to reduce collision risk. And the premier says that over the next several months, the government will seek input from Manitobans in the agriculture and trucking industries — as well as those affected by the crash and residents of Carberry and Dauphin — to wade in on their preference.

All of these options will have their proponents and their detractors. Certainly we were left wondering at the wisdom of discounting speed reduction and the employment of traffic signals at this particular intersection, when similar speed deterrents are already in use at Virden, Brandon, Portage la Prairie, Elie and Headingley along the Trans-Canada Highway.

It was only in 2015 that the province announced the speed limit along most twinned sections of the Trans-Canada in Manitoba would rise to 110 kilometres per hour. There may well be an argument to make that the province should study what effect this increase in speed has had on driver habits along that highway over the last eight years.

While that would have little bearing on the specific incident in question at Highway 5, where the speed limit is currently 100 kilometres per hour, Manitoba Public Insurance constantly reminds the public that speed kills.

Yet we are hardly experts in traffic collisions and highway safety, and if these options are being proposed by actual experts, Manitobans should give them a fair look. After all, the whole point is to make that dangerous intersection safer for the motoring public. At some point, we have to presume that our provincial government understands that fact and is working to ensure it.

Until these new safety measures are decided upon and constructed next year or in 2026, we really won’t know how well they will work.

But as we said, doing nothing is simply not an option. For the sake of those whose lives were lost, let’s hope we get it right.