The province announced Monday morning that traffic control signals will go up along Highway 52 at Industrial Road in Steinbach. Infrastructure Minister Ron Schuler visited Steinbach to make the announcement with MLA Kelvin Goertzen.

"The new signals will help with the more efficient and safe movement of traffic around Steinbach," says Schuler. "A number of provincial roads run through the city and projects like this will help ensure necessary standards are met and traffic flows safely through Steinbach."

Schuler says the project will go to tender shortly. The new signals and any necessary intersection improvements will be designed in the coming months, with installation completed by the spring of 2019.

"Steinbach continues to grow quickly and along with that growth comes more vehicle traffic and the need to ensure it can move safely," notes Goertzen. "This intersection has been identified as one of the priority intersections by municipal officials for traffic lights and I'm glad that we are able to move forward with it."

Because the project has yet to be tendered, neither Schuler nor Goertzen will comment on how much it could cost. However, it will be fully funded by the province of Manitoba.

"Over the last six months we've gotten tenders in twenty and thirty per cent under what we think they should be," notes Schuler. "The market's been very good to us so let's go out and get a good price."

Goertzen notes the city of Steinbach has seen tremendous growth over the last twenty years, not only through population, but also in traffic. He says while most of the routes into Steinbach have had traffic controls added, this intersection has not received the same level of attention. He adds there is a lot of traffic coming from the west thanks to the industrial park as well as places like Birchwood Funeral Chapel and Southland Church.