Protesters pan RCUT intersection

CARBERRY — “Safety not shortcuts,” “Listen to the people who use it every day” and “How many more accidents before they listen” were just some of the messages on signs held by protesters opposing an RCUT intersection north of Carberry on Thursday evening.

Around 175 people lined the side of a gravel service road near the intersection of Highway 5 and the Trans-Canada, which the province is redesigning in the wake of an accident there that claimed 17 lives in June 2023.

Jordan Dickson, 31, one of the organizers of the rally, said the RCUT model isn’t safe for the kind of people who live and drive in the area, who include farmers and truckers.

“There’s hundreds, if not thousands of trucks … plus all the other everyday passenger traffic coming through here,” she said.

The RCUT model, or restricted crossing U-turn, doesn’t exist in Manitoba but is commonly found in the United States. The Carberry RCUT would include U-turns both east and west of the current intersection, and would force drivers turning left from Highway 5 to turn right onto the Trans-Canada, merge to the left and take a U-turn.

At an open house in late March, a consultant working for the province said three options for the new intersection design are being considered, but his presentation focused on the RCUT design because, he said, it is unfamiliar to Manitobans.

Dickson, who lives 30 seconds away from the intersection, said the McCain potato processing plant southeast of Carberry creates a lot of traffic throughout the year, and big vehicles would have a hard time matching highway speed before slowing down for a U-turn.

“For all those vehicles to have to merge onto the No. 1 (Trans-Canada), merge over three lanes, do a U-turn, merge back over — it’s spelling a recipe for a disaster,” said Dickson, standing a few dozen feet from where crosses have been erected in honour of the 17 people who died.

Dickson’s preferred option for the intersection is an overpass — a common sentiment among people at the rally.

The province has said that building an overpass isn’t feasible at this time, as it would cost too much, but Dickson said the cost doesn’t matter when it comes to people’s lives.

“At the end of the day, how many more lives have to be lost before the province finally realizes that the cost is worth it, that human lives are worth the cost,” she said.

Kirsten Duguay said her daughter is supposed to start working at the hospital in Neepawa soon and will have to cross the intersection every day to get to work. She said she’s worried about her safety if an RCUT is implemented.

“It makes me nervous that she has to navigate that intersection, possibly after a 12-hour shift where she’s tired,” said the 55-year-old Duguay, who herself works as a nurse in Carberry. “That intersection is busy, it just makes me scared and worried for her.”

Duguay said she wants the province to invest the money needed for an overpass and is “willing to help pay for that with my taxpayer dollars.”

A truck driver who said he uses the intersection at least three times a day said he’s also worried about the province putting in an RCUT intersection.

“I can tell you right now, your accident rate is going to skyrocket,” said 50-year-old Byron Vanrooyen. “A truck can’t pick up speed fast enough, and the guys with the cars come down here driving at 110, 120 (km/h) — you can’t push a truck in there faster.”

Vanrooyen said some tractors can’t go faster than 30 km/h when pulling equipment, and they’ll be in the way of other traffic.

“You’re going to create more problems, with people having more accidents and more deaths,” he said.

Rally-goers, equipped with a megaphone, said the province did its survey of traffic volumes in July, which is among the least busy times of the year. They said the province should have done the survey in the spring or fall, when trucks and equipment are the busiest, and when schools are in session.

Dickson said the province and consultants don’t listen to the people who actually live in the area, and everything is done through statistics instead of real-world situations.

“The consultants aren’t listening, they roll their eyes, they brush us off,” she said to the crowd through the megaphone.

Carberry Mayor Ray Muirhead, who wasn’t at the rally, said he’s “still on the fence” about what kind of interchange the province should select.

He said because the province said it won’t build an overpass, he prefers the RCUT, as the design is safer than other interchanges. But he also acknowledged that farming equipment, which travels noticeably slower than the 100 km/h speed limit, could pose a danger when trying to cross lanes to make a U-turn.

He said he’s heard the province is favouring the RCUT.

“These people out there (at the rally) probably have a good case behind them, but I mean, we’re coming at it from the town’s point of view. We’re coming at it as safety at the intersection.”

Muirhead said the province should put an overpass back on the table, and said the NDP government saying it’s too expensive is a way of “passing the buck off to another government.”

He said people in the area have been advocating for an upgrade to the intersection for decades, and that it has taken far too long for anything to start.

“Unfortunately, it took 17 people to die out there for something to happen.”

He said the rally will draw some attention but doesn’t think it will impact the provincial government’s decision.

Transportation and Infrastructure Minister Lisa Naylor, in a statement Thursday afternoon, didn’t provide an update on which intersection design is currently favoured.

“The province has conducted extensive community consultations, and no final decision has been made,” said a spokesperson from Naylor’s office. “Work continues on the functional design process and the project remains on schedule.”

Construction is set to begin in early 2026, and should be open to traffic in the fall of 2026, according to the statement.

Agassiz’s Progressive Conservative MLA, Jodie Byram, in an email to the Sun, said safety and public consultation needs to be top of mind for the NDP government.

“There needs to be more consultation with the community to build a consensus and address the ongoing safety issues at the intersection,” Byram said. “Safety needs to be the No. 1 issue in any redesign of this notoriously dangerous and deadly intersection.”

alambert@brandonsun.com