Province spending $19M to improve safety, traffic flow on Winnipeg's south Perimeter Highway

The province plans to spend $19 million over the next three years to upgrade safety and traffic flow along Winnipeg's south Perimeter Highway.

The South Perimeter Highway Safety Plan marks the first stage in a long-term plan to make the stretch of highway into "a fully access-controlled freeway, similar to U.S. interstate standards," the province announced on Friday.

"The south perimeter is one of the most important economic corridors in Manitoba and increased traffic movement means steps must be taken to improve safety," Infrastructure Minister Ron Schuler said in a statement.

The plan includes median openings and accesses in 24 locations from Fermor Avenue to Portage Avenue, wherever intersections are controlled by stop signs.

The province said the work will also involve:

• Opening the roundabout at the intersection of highways 2 and 3 just outside Winnipeg's southwest perimeter, near Oak Bluff.
• Improving the intersection at Highway 3 and the perimeter.
• Improvingservice roads.
• Building a service road connecting Oakland Road just west of the perimeter in Oak Bluff to the Wilkes Avenue interchange to the north.
• Building a service road and rail crossing to connect Aimes Road just east of St. Anne's Roadand Melnick Road, which runs parallelto Lagimodiere Boulevard.
• Building left turn lanes at Symington Road.

The work is expected to be complete by 2022.