A dangerous intersection in a rural area near Kinkora is slated for a facelift.
A roundabout is being planned for the intersection of the Newton and Scales Pond roads, where nearly 20 crashed have occurred since 2006.
The province recently issued a tender for the project and plans to hold a public meeting sometime in mid-May to discuss alignment, process and timelines with local residents and businesses. Work is expected to begin this summer.
There are currently stop signs with flashing red lights on the Newton Road sides of the intersection.
Mayor Pat Duffy of the Rural Municipality of Kinkora welcomed news of the project.
“There has been a number of accidents over the past number of years at that intersection,” said Murphy.
“There’s a lot of farm traffic. It’s probably the highest traffic point for farming, coming and going, on the Island, actually. So to increase safety there would be a wonderful thing and I think roundabouts do that.”
Borden-Kinkora MLA Jamie Fox raised the issue in the Provincial Legislature Thursday. The Opposition member said he’d been contacted by local farmers concerned about navigating their large equipment through a roundabout.
“Is there any way we could postpone that roundabout or have discussions between Department of Agriculture and Department of Transportation to delay that build until we have a lot of consultation with the farmers in that area?,” asked Fox.
Minister of Transportation Paula Bigger replied that, given the number of tragedies at or near the intersection in question, it was slated for a roundabout to increase safety. She added that the designers will take its rural nature into account and that a public meeting would be held.
She was hesitant, however, to postpone the project.
“The concern would be if we do postpone it and there is a fatality there as a result of it, then it comes back to ‘well you should have put that (roundabout) in this year.’”
Bert Webster, who farms potatoes in the area, said he would not be in favour of putting a roundabout at that intersection.
Farmers want the road to be safe, he said, but he would rather see the province install even more visible signage, rather than spend however much they’d need to build the roundabout.
“They’ve put a light in there, a white light in the corner, and some other street lights, and I don’t think there’s been any accidents since they did that,” said Webster.
According to the Department of Transportation, between 2006 and 2015 there have been 19 crashes, including four fatalities, near that intersection.
An exact date for the public meeting will announced in the coming weeks.
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