Route around Morris cheaper, easier: Tories

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This article was published 15/11/2017 (2343 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

It’s not southern Manitoba’s first choice, but it will be $111 million cheaper to route traffic on Highway 23 and Provincial Road 246 and through Aubigny when spring flooding hits Highway 75 in the Morris area, Infrastructure Minister Ron Schuler told reporters Thursday.

And it will be far easier to build, he declared.

However, it’s not a done deal until Schuler again hears from communities south of Winnipeg who want to have the province go for the more elaborate options the Pallister government wants to avoid.

Schuler laid out all the reasons the government doesn’t want to raise the Town of Morris bridge over the Morris River — a project that community 65 kilometres south of Winnipeg has long coveted — or raise the 12-km stretch of Highway 75 from Morris to Aubigny.

Nothing will happen before what Schuler said will be a fourth round of consultations with area residents, beginning in the new year.

Schuler said the project will cost about $100 million — while the price tag is at least $211 million for any work involving the Morris bridge.

The simpler project will take a far shorter time to build, he said, though he repeatedly ducked questions about how soon the work would start and finish.

Schuler did confirm the Highway 75 floodproofing project would not be among the capital projects going out to tender in announcements today at the annual meeting of the Manitoba Heavy Construction Association.

“We are basically prepared to go to the communities again and lay out our option,” Schuler said.

“They will have valid concerns… The problem is with the bridge crossing the Morris River — that would add $100 million to the cost. That $100 million would be a little painful.”

The water flow is so strong that the bridge would need such deep piles that the cost soars, he said.

“We’ve got to keep Highway 75 open, we’ve got to keep the traffic flowing,” Schuler said, noting flooding has blocked Highway 75 twice in the last decade.

Schuler said using Highway 23 and PR 246 — after bringing them up to standards required for transport trucks — would add about 15 minutes of travel time. He said he was not aware whether the project would require installation of traffic lights.

“This is a priority of our government,” he said. “The first step we’ve got to take is to take it back to the communities.”

The Town of Morris said earlier this week the province no longer wants to raise its bridge over the Morris River, or raise the 12 km between it and Aubigny.

The Town of Morris’s first choice is to raise Highway 75, Mayor Gavin van der Linde said. That way local stores, gas stations and restaurants still benefit from vehicle traffic during the four to six weeks when the town closes its ring dike due to flooding.

It had looked as though the province was prepared to do that, purchasing two properties adjacent the bridge on the north side of Morris.

But complications arose. Provincial officials told van der Linde they discovered raising Highway 75 would act as a dike and change the movement of floodwaters and artificially flood land that currently isn’t impacted. It would also have to include control structures in the form of two bridges and some large culverts, which would add to the cost.

As well, the bridge over the Morris River would have to be raised by more than five metres.

“The reason for that is the bridge now is six feet underwater in a bad flood. The province wanted to raise the bottom girders so they are out of the water and don’t trap trees and debris, and that’s another 10 feet,” van der Linde said.

It’s imperative for Winnipeg’s inland port, CentrePort Canada, that the Transcontinental Trade Corridor be kept open during floods, said Terry Shaw, executive director of the Manitoba Trucking Association.

However, the detour may be “the best option relative to budgets.”

nick.martin@freepress.mb.ca