More improvements to Highway 6 needed

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This article was published 01/03/2011 (5495 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Area residents and representatives says recent improvements to Highway 6 near Grosse Isle didn’t go far enough and plan to press the province to do more to ad­dress their concerns about the roadway.

The province completed $2.9 million worth of improvement to the highway last year. The upgrades included realigning several curves, intersection enhancements, the addition of acceleration and deceleration lanes, paved shoulders and centre line rumble strips.

Grosse Isle resident Daphne Harris said that while the improvements have made the morning commute to her job at King’s Septic and Portable Toilet’s in Gordon safer, she wants the enhancements to be extended all the way to the Perimeter Highway.

Harris said the narrow lanes, lack of shoulders and high traffic volumes on Highway 6 pose a serious danger to motorists.

“The drive down Highway 6 has always been treacherous especially along the curves,” she said. “There are no shoulders so there is nowhere to go if there is a problem. Truck traffic is also really heavy along that stretch.”

Rosser councillor David Nichol said he shares Harris’s concerns.

Nichol said council members have requested a meeting with Manitoba Infrastructure and Transportation to discuss the province’s plans for future Highway 6 improvements.

“As a council we have concerns about the safety of Highway 6 especially around the curves at Gordon,” Nichol explained. “So we wrote them a letter to see if there are any plans to extend the Grosse Isle improvements to Gordon.”

A meeting originally scheduled for Feb. 4 has been rescheduled for later this month, Nichol said.

He said the rural municipality hopes to pressure the province to do something to address the concerns of people in the Gordon area.

Glenn Cuthbertson, director of traffic engineering for Manitoba Infrastructure and Transportation, said the province has invested significantly in improvements to the roadway.

He said the province has spent approximately $8 million to address concerns about Highway 6 since 2006.

“Work will continue on the road in the area, but it will be more northerly to PR 248,” Cuthbertson said. “We also have plans for a number of areas along that highway but those will be identified sometime in the spring.”

A provincial report indicated 202 collusions occurred on Highway 6 between the Perimeter and Highway from 1994 to 2006. Eight of them resulted in fatalities and another 61 in injuries