Manitoba NDP Premier Greg Selinger and Thompson NDP MLA and Manitoba Minister of Infrastructure and Transportation Steve Ashton announced Dec. 5 - the last day of the fall sitting of the legislative assembly - a $187-million five-year Highway 6 full upgrade in a plan that includes complete asphalt paving to new wider national highway standards, bridge replacements, intersection improvements, curve realignments, and design work for new passing lanes.
It will make "PTH 6 safer and faster for trade between Winnipeg and Thompson and increase tourism opportunities in the Interlake, Selinger and Ashton said.
The planned upgrades to the northern section of PTH 6 are expected to total $63 million, Ashton said, while planned upgrades to the southern section of PTH 6 are expected to total $125 million.
"Upgrading PTH 6 to national highway standards is the next step to improve our strategic trade routes for people and goods from Winnipeg through the Interlake and to the North," Selinger said. The project is expected to create the equivalent of one year of employment for more than 2,500 people.
One of the first stretches of the upgrade in Northern Manitoba will be from Paint Lake to Wabowden, Ashton told the Thompson Citizen in a Dec. 5 telephone interview from Winnipeg, adding that Highway 6 was added to the national highway system about 10 years ago, along with sections of Highway 10.
The addition of passing lanes, particularly south of Lundar, is an important issue where there is heavier traffic, as you get closer to Winnipeg and there are still a number of significant curves, Ashton said.
The PTH 6 upgrade under the Selinger-Ashton NDP is the largest for the Northern Manitoba's road lifeline to Winnipeg in more than 40 years since the Schreyer-Borowski government of 1969, when then NDP premier Ed Schreyer and highways minister Joe Borowski embarked on pioneering road work in Manitoba between 1969 and 1971, extending Highway 6 from Grand Rapids to Ponton, thus cutting in half the time it took to drive to Winnipeg - reducing transportation costs for goods delivered to Thompson by truck - and the Miles Hart Bridge over the Burntwood River was built on Borowski's watch, as were the roads to Split Lake, Gillam, Nelson House and Leaf Rapids, the latter being built partially, by aboriginal contractors, which was a first for the Manitoba Highways Department.
Ashton said he's always felt a "certain kinship" with Borowski since he was first appointed highways minister in 1999. "With this announcement today, you know, we're finishing the job" Borowski began in 1969.
Ashton noted former Progressive Conservative leader Hugh McFadyen was reported to have said in southern Manitoba by the Carman Valley Leader in 2010 too much money was being spent by the province on highways in Northern Manitoba. He made similar remarks in the May 2007 election campaign. The NDP has more than quadrupled highway investment since coming to power in 1999. In the 1990s, under the Progressive Conservatives, Ashton said, the North received as little as five per cent of the annual capital budget for highways and the NDP increased that to 25 per cent.
First elected Nov. 17, 1981, Ashton is the longest-serving MLA in the Manitoba legislature.
The extension of Highway 6 to Ponton from Grand Rapids was completed in late 1971, Ashton said. When Thompson was built in the late 1950s there was no highway road access. Vehicles and other freight all had to be brought in by rail from The Pas via the spur line between Thicket Portage and Pikwitonei. One of the issues during the first four-week strike by the USW at Inco's Manitoba Operations in Thompson in August and September 1964, along with the company's safety record at the plant and living conditions in the camps, was highway road access to Thompson, Ashton said.
Initial highway access to and from Thompson would be via the old unpaved PR 391, now Highway 6, which ran past the Snow Lake turnoff to the Highway 10 junction at Fidler's Corner, where the road continued south to The Pas. West of Ponton it is now PTH 39. Provincial Road 391 today runs northwest from Thompson to Lynn Lake.
Borowski also commissioned the Mauro Report on Northern transportation, which served as a blueprint for, not only the Schreyer government, but for later NDP governments. The report called for all-weather roads to Cross Lake and Norway House.
Ashton, a graduate of R.D. Parker Collegiate and the University of Manitoba, who received his master's degree in economics from Lakehead University in Thunder Bay, did some of his academic research as a university student on Northern Manitoba highways. Ashton first served as minister of highways and government services when Gary Doer became NDP premier in October 1999 (the department was renamed in January 2001 as transportation and government services). Ashton served in the post until a cabinet shuffle in September 2002 saw him move to the Conservation portfolio. Selinger re-appointed Ashton as infrastructure and transportation minister more than four years ago in the Nov. 3, 2009 cabinet shuffle after he became premier.
Selinger and Ashton also announced the complete grading and surfacing of Provincial Road 373 for Norway House and Provincial Road 374 for Cross Lake over the next five years at an expected cost of $37.5 million. "It's also important because the east side road will go through Norway House," Ashton said. First Nations communities along the east side of Lake Winnipeg in Manitoba are being connected by permanent roads to the provincial road system for the first time.
Upgrading PR 373 and PR 374 will eventually connect communities to the east side road network, which until now have only had winter roads. The $3-billion project, which will take up to 30 years to complete, will cover 1,028 kilometres.
The northern section of the network is a 650-kilometre all- season road that starts at the northeastern tip of Lake Winnipeg near Norway House and Provincial Roads 373 and 374. The road goes east and splits into a Y section at Molson Lake, with one arm ending at God's Lake, and the other passing through Island Lake and on to Red Sucker Lake.
"Our government is committed to investing in our roads, bridges and other infrastructure throughout Manitoba to improve the overall safety of travellers while creating jobs," said Ashton. "These projects are part of a five-year plan for building Manitoba's core infrastructure including roads and bridges, flood protection and municipal infrastructure like sewer and water systems that would not have been possible without the new revenue from the one-cent-on-the-dollar sales tax increase."
The total price tag for the PTH 6 and PR 373 and PR 374 upgrades comes to close to $225 million over the next five years. About $50 million of that work will be done over the coming year, Ashton said, especially in the Devils Lake area.
Construction of Highway 6 began at the Perimeter Highway in Winnipeg end in the 1950s and was pushed farther north until reaching Grand Rapids in the early 1960s, as the hydro-electric generating station on the Saskatchewan River there was constructed between January 1960 and November 1968.
Ashton said planned upgrades to the southern section of PTH 6 include:
- paving 28.4 kilometres of asphalt from Grosse Isle (PR 322) to PR 248 including curve realignment of the road in vicinity of Woodlands;
- improving intersections in the vicinity of Lake Francis;
- improving intersections at the Ashern Auction Mart Road;
- paving 22.7 kilometres of asphalt from PR 248 to PR 415 (St. Laurent);
- paving 30.2 kilometres of asphalt from PR 419 to north junction PTH 68;
- paving 16 kilometres of asphalt from north junction of PTH 68 to Camper Drain;
- paving 16.1 kilometres of asphalt from Camper Drain to north junction of PR 325;
- paving 11 kilometres of asphalt from north junction of PR 325 to 1.6 kilometre south of PR 237;
- paving 19.5 kilometres of asphalt from 1.6 kilometre south of PR 237 to PR 239; and
- building a new structure at Homebrook Drain (St. Martin Junction).
"Our members have told us that safety is their biggest concern on Highway 6 and I am pleased the Manitoba government is listening and taking actions," said Mike Mager, president and chief executive officer of the Canadian Automobile Association (CAA) of Manitoba. "The addition of passing lanes and the reduction of curves from Winnipeg to Thompson will make the ride north a lot safer and smoother for Manitoba drivers."
Planned upgrades to the northern section of PTH 6 include:
- paving 31 kilometres of asphalt from Devils Lake to 31 kilometres north of Devils Lake;
- paving 10.5 kilometres of asphalt from 49 kilometres north of Devils Lake to 59.5 kilometres north of Devils Lake;
- paving 28.4 kilometres of asphalt from the Wabowden access to Sasagiu Rapids;
- paving 25 kilometres of asphalt from Sasagiu Rapids to 25 kilometres north of Sasagiu Rapids;
- providing 25 kilometres of grade, base material and asphalt pavement from 25 kilometres north of Sasagiu Rapids to PR 375;
- constructing a new bridge at Two Rivers Diversion; and
- constructing a new bridge at North Morrison Creek.
