Province to proceed with twinning Trans-Canada
Proposed timeline for project to be announced this fall, premier’s letter confirms
By: Chris Kitching Posted: 9:00 AM CDT Thursday, Sep. 1, 2022 Last Modified: 9:07 AM CDT Thursday, Sep. 1, 2022 | Updates
Manitoba is moving forward with plans to twin the province’s last remaining undivided stretch of the Trans-Canada Highway, with the first phase to begin soon, the Free Press has learned.
The government is preparing to tender contracts for engineering design studies, which will lay the groundwork for the doubling of Highway 1 between the Falcon Lake area and the Manitoba-Ontario boundary.
A proposed timeline for the twinning project will be announced this fall, Premier Heather Stefanson wrote in a response Wednesday to the family of Mark Lugli and his son Jacob Lugli, who were killed in a head-on crash on July 21, 2019.
After a series of Free Press articles, the family sent a letter to the premier’s office on Aug. 16 calling for the 17-kilometre stretch of two-lane highway to be divided and expanded to prevent similar tragedies.
Stefanson informed the family her government will speak to Indigenous rights holders and other stakeholders “early and throughout” the project.
Discussions with Ontario, which has already started twinning a section of the Trans-Canada east of the provincial boundary, will continue to ensure the neighbouring projects align, the premier indicated.
“The Trans-Canada Highway between the Ontario boundary and Falcon Lake is an area of concern that will benefit from investment,” Stefanson wrote in the letter, which was shared with the Free Press. “Twinning the highway will significantly improve safety for motorists, and our government is committed to getting the job done.
“As the first stage of a phased approach to completing this project, we will soon tender and award contracts to engineers for the conceptual and functional design studies for the critically important twinning of the Trans-Canada Highway from five kilometres west of the Provincial Road 301 to the Ontario boundary.”
Stefanson offered condolences to the Lugli family, describing the deaths of Mark, 54, and Jacob, 17, as a “terrible tragedy.”
Mark Lugli, a school principal, was driving his son, a recent high school graduate, from their home in Dryden, Ont., to a golf tournament in Selkirk when they were killed.
Their family was told an eastbound tractor-trailer driver swerved into their lane near Barren Lake to avoid crashing into stationary traffic while a driver attempted to make a legal left turn onto a private road for cottages.
Loves ones were informed the transport driver pleaded guilty to two counts of careless driving causing death. He is scheduled to be sentenced in October.
In the letter, Stefanson told the family she has “consistently” heard concerns about road safety while meeting thousands of Manitobans since becoming premier last year.
Manitoba has faced pressure to twin the highway since Ontario announced plans to divide a longer section of the Trans-Canada from the provincial boundary to the Kenora bypass.
Construction of the first of three segments began in June and is scheduled to be completed at the end of 2024.
Transportation and Infrastructure Minister Doyle Piwniuk confirmed Aug. 16 that Manitoba is in the “early stages” of exploring how to divide its section of highway, without providing many specifics.
The province has not given an estimated cost of such a project, which will go through Canadian shield territory.
The topography will pose challenges, Piwniuk said previously.
In 2017, a traffic count determined an average of 4,870 vehicles use Manitoba’s undivided section every day.
A spokeswoman for Stefanson, who is scheduled to meet with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in Winnipeg this afternoon, acknowledged a letter about the twinning project was sent to the Lugli family.
chris.kitching@freepress.mb.ca
Twitter: @chriskitching
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