WINNIPEG – Long-term safety changes are coming to a deadly intersection north of Oakbank, Man., that was the site of a fatal crash on Oct. 22.
Infrastructure Minister Ron Schuler said interim safety measures had been put in place at the corner of Garven Road and PR 206 following an earlier crash in May, which left an Oakbank man with serious injuries.
Rumble strips, flashing lights on stop signs, and flags were placed at the intersection, but Schuler said it wasn’t enough.
“We’ve not had as much success with those interim measures,” he said.
“We thought the rumble strips would be very important, it made some impact, not enough.”
Now the province is looking into long-term fixes.
Schuler said ideas such as traffic lights and traffic circles are being studied, but the province doesn’t own enough real estate in the area for either of those projects.
He also said residents will be given the opportunity to voice their opinions on what they think needs to be done.
“It has become a problem intersection in the province,” Schuler said.
WHY IS IT SO DANGEROUS?
Schuler said one of the issues with the corner is that drivers seem to become impatient.
He said he’s heard from many residents who feel they’re pressured to take risks when approaching Garven Road and PR 206.
“People aren’t paying attention to what’s going on,” he said.
“We’ve had a lot of emails where individuals feel they’re at the stop sign and that they feel they’re being pressured to take on risky behaviour to get across what is Highway 206. And people feel pressured to get into unsafe situations.”
Schuler reminds people they need to drive to the road conditions and obey traffic signals.
CRASH SURVIVOR MEETS WITH THE MINISTER
Dan Wischnewski narrowly survived a collision at the intersection on May 8.
He was left with a broken knee, broken femur, broken ribs, broken hip, punctured lung, a brain bleed and a severed spleen after a driver drove through the stop sign.
Since his collision, Wischnewski has been urging the province to make changes to the intersection, so no one else gets hurt or killed.
On Tuesday he met with Schuler and said he came away from the meeting feeling like the minister listened to what he had to say and that the province is going to take action.
“It’s very hard to find fault on anyone in this situation. Action was taken to make that intersection safer and they did that to solve the problem temporarily until they could put in a full-time, real fix,” he said.
“But after meeting with the minister of infrastructure, he explained to me it takes time and it’s a major development, whether they choose to do a roundabout or the fixed lighting.”
Schuler said he hopes further interim safety measures will be put at the intersection within the next week
- With files from CTV's Jon Hendricks.
