A trustee for the Hanover School Division says her board’s request for a safe way to cross the highway in Mitchell has not been handled in the way she had hoped.

Sue Doerksen is one of many Mitchell homeowners upset that Manitoba Infrastructure has chosen to permanently close Ash Street in favor of a pedestrian corridor across Highway 52. What separates Doerksen from her fellow residents is that she is at least part of the reason why the barricade is there in the first place.

For several years, the school division has been aware of the dangers posed by Highway 52. Dozens of children enrolled in Mitchell Middle School and Mitchell Elementary School live just south of the major route and so cross it on their way to and from classes. As a trustee in the region, Doerksen has been one of several voices in support of making that crossing safer for the many student pedestrians. Her plan, however, did not include shutting down one of her community’s main arteries.

de is their way of fixing that issue while simultaneously addressing the school division's concern.

“I agree that we have too many approaches coming out of Mitchell, but to my knowledge, they didn’t do a traffic study inside the LUD as to how this specific closure would affect the side streets and whether or not they could actually handle it.”

That increased congestion is the primary concern of those living in Mitchell. Since the median blockade went up, Doerksen says the crowding on the community’s boundary roads, Centre Street and Peter’s Lane, has become obvious. And this in the middle of COVID-19 when traffic volumes are much less than normal. Compressing more traffic onto smaller roads, she says, is unwise.

“The kids aren’t even in school yet. I can’t imagine kids trying to navigate those streets with no sidewalks and having to walk around all of the parked cars in the middle of before and after school traffic.”

While the Hanover School Division may have been the impetus for change, Doerksen stresses that this course of action was not their original vision. And, though they may have prompted the project, she does not think the board maintains the power to alter its trajectory.