From the Daily Graphic

Trucks still using bridge because of problems

The temporary causeway built by the City of Portage la Prairie to allow heavy traffic to cross Crescent Lake is poorly designed and nearly unusable, according to some truck drivers.

The problem, they say, is the turn on and off of the causeway is too tight for most trucks to safely make.

“It’s pretty near impossible with a semi,” explained Rick Graham, a truck driver and owner of RTG trucking in Fortier. “I pull a 48-foot reefer, and when you turn off to go on to the causeway from Tupper Street, you have to take the whole street, so you’re going into oncoming traffic to make that corner.”

Graham said negotiating the south end of the causeway is just as difficult as getting onto it.

“When you come off of it on the island, you’ve got to make that left hand corner and your trailer wheels just barely clear it — and that’s with a 48-footer, the 53-footer would be even worse.”

Graham said he only uses the causeway when he is carrying a load, other than that he continues to use the bridge.

The one-lane temporary causeway, which cost nearly $270,000 to build, was completed in early July, and was meant to relieve the old bridge of heavy loads weighing over 13.6 tonnes.

One semi driver who drives across the new causeway every day transporting produce grown on the island to Winnipeg, said he feels the city wasted their money on the project.