The Village of St. Pierre is gathering support from local municipalities to once again lobby the province to have Highway 59 twinned further south.

Mayor Raymond Maynard says their hope would be for the 59 to be twinned up to Highway 52.

"We had a meeting around two to three years back with surrounding municipalities, including Hanover, Steinbach, De Salaberry, Niverville, Tache, Ritchot, and we just basically feel that now is the time to get back into it," says Maynard.

He adds the traffic signals that were put up by Niverville definitely helped but indicates the traffic flow is only increasing, making the highway more dangerous. Maynard says they would like to see it twinned even further south but acknowledges there is not the traffic flow to support it past the 52.

"I mean, the ultimate dream would be to have it twinned all the way down to the US border but I don’t think I'll be alive when that happens."

"Right now we’re basically putting the word back out," explains the mayor. "We’ve sent requests for support from different municipalities and we’ve had some good response."

Maynard believes it is time to revive this longtime dream and meet with the Minister of Infrastructure to try and get this done. 

"We would like to get together with them and maybe get at least one councillor from each municipality for when we meet the minister to show that it’s not just the Village of St. Pierre that wants this, it’s all the municipalities that want it. They want a safer road."