Public Preview Chief Peguis Trail Plans

Last night, over 500 people attended an open house to preview plans for the Chief Peguis Trail extension from Henderson Highway to Lagimodiere Boulevard that was approved in the 2007 and 2008 Capital Budgets.

“After decades of waiting, residents of North Kildonan will have a proper east-west thoroughfare,” explained North Kildonan Councillor Jeff Browaty.

As part of an inner-beltway proposed in the Winnipeg Area Transportation Study (WATS) in the 1960’s, the Chief Peguis Trail will relieve traffic on local collector streets that are currently handling significant traffic cutting through the neighbourhood.

“Local streets, such as Springfield Road, were designed to handle approximately 5,000 vehicles per day, and that particular street is experiencing almost four times that volume today,” Browaty said. “The Chief Peguis Trail will also help alleviate traffic volumes on streets like McLeod Avenue and McIvor Avenue.”

The plans as presented by the City of Winnipeg Public Service also call for the closure of McIvor Avenue, a street that was re-opened in May of 2007 by a motion introduced by Councillor Browaty as local residents were being severely inconvenienced by long routings and concerns related to fire response times.

“The Chief Peguis Trail will address cut-through traffic,” Browaty stated. “Local residents should not be inconvenienced by this improvement to our community. Therefore I will be asking the Public Service to remove the proposal to re-close McIvor Avenue .”

Next the project will enter the Public Private Partnership (P3) tendering process and construction is expected to run from the spring of 2009 through the fall of 2010.

“I am very excited to be part of making this project a reality and would like to thank Mayor Katz and my colleagues on Council that are supporting it,” added Browaty.