Carberry calls for overpass solution

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This article was published 13/09/2024 (481 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The Town of Carberry has formally endorsed a grade-separated interchange — or overpass — as the community’s choice for improving the safety of the infamous intersection of Highway 5 and the Trans-Canada Highway.

Carberry Mayor Ray Muirhead told the Sun that a majority of councillors voted for the interchange option at a council meeting last month.

“I think if (the province) came back after the whole process was completed and say, ‘Yes, we’ve decided to go with an overpass,’ I think that would be a relief,” the mayor said. “And then, I know, we as a town would really push (for) that — we’d make sure that it wouldn’t stall out.”

In June 2023, 17 Dauphin-area seniors were killed when the bus they were in collided with a semi-trailer at the intersection.

The interchange was not one of the three “medium-term” intersection improvement options presented by the province after the government announced in January that it was committed to spending $12 million to improve the intersection’s safety. Instead, it was a “long-term” option that the province said would be years down the road.

Since then, the province has sought feedback from community members, hosting an open house at the Carberry Community Memorial Hall in July during which residents were invited to share their preferred option.

“The general consensus in the community was lights — a lot of them say lights, but most of them say overpass,” Muirhead said.

The three medium-term options presented in a road safety report in January included 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.

Traffic signals and lowered speed limits were options considered by the report authors, but they said evidence suggested that those measures would not be effective at this intersection.

An interchange was presented in the report as a long-term option, as it would require significant planning and analysis due to cost and potential impacts on surrounding communities. At the January press conference, the province said that an interchange or overpass would come with a price tag of about $100 million and a 20-year-plus timeline.

At the time, the premier said while the report showed that the safest option is the roundabout, the RCUT intersection is comparable to an interchange in terms of safety.

Muirhead told the Sun that a roundabout or an RCUT design would be a more complicated option for drivers.

“The easier, the better,” he said, adding that an overpass would keep traffic moving on the highway.

In an emailed statement to the Sun, the province said the functional design stage is underway and the department will share the options and evaluation findings for public feedback this fall.

Construction on the project is expected to be completed by the fall of 2026, the statement said.

Muirhead said he recently received confirmation from the consulting company undertaking the planning work that the town’s preference has been forwarded on for the next stage of the design process.

» gmortfield@brandonsun.com

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