Infrastructure Minister Ron Schuler recently announced that the province has begun construction on a new service road that will link Waverley Street to Brady Road.
“Our government committed to addressing the significant safety concerns at Brady Road and the South Perimeter Highway,” said Schuler. “The new service road will greatly improve traffic safety and flow for thousands of drivers who pass through the area on the South Perimeter and hundreds who use the South Perimeter to access the Brady Road Landfill daily.”
The province is constructing a bituminous pavement service road that will meet National Roads and Transportation Association of Canada (RTAC) standards to withstand a high volume of traffic. This will replace the dirt service road in the area that is not built to handle heavy truck traffic or withstand extreme weather conditions.
Vehicles will use a traffic signal controlled intersection at the South Perimeter and Waverley Street to access Brady Road. Approximately 1,600 vehicles use the South Perimeter Highway daily to access the City of Winnipeg’s Brady Road Resource Management Facility. The minister noted the upgraded service road is scheduled to be completed by November 2020, which will allow the province to close the Provincial Trunk Highway (PTH) 100 turn-off onto Brady Road.
The minister announced the province is naming the new service road Ethan Boyer Way to honour a 19-year-old who was killed in a collision on the perimeter at Brady Road on Oct. 25, 2019.
“On behalf of the Zuk and Boyer family, we would like to thank the Manitoba government and Minister Ron Schuler for naming the new access road in Ethan’s memory. Our family and all his friends are honoured to have Ethan’s memory live on forever,” said the Zuk and Boyer families. “There is solace in knowing no other families will lose a loved one at that intersection and have to feel the hardship and heartache we feel each and every day. As Dr. Seuss said, ‘You never know the value of a moment until it becomes a memory’.”
Last November, the province implemented a speed reduction to 80 km/h from 100 km/h surrounding the intersection to address immediate safety concerns.
The province is in the midst of a three-year South Perimeter Highway Safety Plan, launched in October 2018. The action plan includes proposed changes to median openings and access at 24 intersections, and service road improvements such as the safer connection of Brady Road to PTH 100. In summer 2019, the province blocked access from Brady Road, north to the Perimeter Highway in order to reduce the number of entry points to the highway.
The province is also finalizing its long-term South Perimeter Highway Design Study with a goal to reconstruct PTH 100 to a freeway standard with no at-grade crossings between the Portage Avenue and Fermor Avenue interchanges.
“We continue to look for ways to improve safety as well as traffic flow along the South Perimeter,” said Schuler. “We will examine locations that see a high frequency of collisions on an ongoing basis to further improve safety.”
The province held public consultations and expects to release the South Perimeter Highway Design Study this summer, the minister noted.
