Design of Highway 59 twinning begins

Manitoba is in the planning stage of twinning the section of Highway 59 that runs through Brokenhead First Nation.

A provincial spokesperson said Manitoba Transportation and Infrastructure has started working on the design for the project that involves twinning 14 kilometres from 3.9 kilometres south of South Beach Casino in Brokenhead to Highway 12.

The highway is the gateway to Lake Winnipeg’s eastern beaches and is a busy stretch during the summer.

Design of the stretch of highway, some 70 kilometres northeast of Winnipeg, will take between one to two years and construction is slated to begin shortly after that, the spokesperson said in an email.

RM of Alexander Mayor Jack Brisco has long called for the twinning.

“It was on my mind continuously since I’ve lived over here, and I’ve always been worried about that highway,” he said.

Brisco owned the Birchwood Motor Hotel on Highway 59, about 30 kilometres north of the planned twinning, between 1999 and 2019. Two of his employees were killed on the untwinned portion of highway in just two years.

Kyle William Recksiedler, a 16-year-old Grand Marais high school student was killed Aug. 31, 2003. Recksiedler was driving one kilometre south of Scanterbury when he pulled out to pass slower northbound traffic and collided almost immediately with a southbound Ford Ranger.

In December 2001, another employee, 17-year-old Matthew Armstrong, was killed in a head-on collision near Provincial Road 304, two kilometres north of where the planned twinning will revert to a single lane each way.

Brisco says, ideally, the highway would be twinned all the way to Grand Beach, some 10 kilometres north of Highway 12, but the 14-kilometre strip is a good start.

“As council, we’ve been fighting to support any effort to twin that highway,” Brisco said.

More recently, Brokenhead chief and council have demanded safety improvements along the highway following multiple deaths and injuries involving community members.

After the death of 75-year-old Larry Hodge in 2023, Brokenhead Chief Gord Bluesky and other community leaders called for tighter road safety measures on the two-kilometre stretch of Highway 59 that runs through Brokenhead. They passed a council resolution urging the province to reduce the speed limit to 50 km/h from 80 km/h.

They also called for pedestrian safety crossings, additional shoulder space and lighting on the section of highway in the First Nation.

The speed limit was reduced to 50 km/h that May.

Bluesky couldn’t be reached for comment Thursday.

The design phase of the highway twinning will involve engagement with Brokenhead, the province said.

nicole.buffie@freepress.mb.ca