Government looking into long-term fix for limited road access to western P.E.I.

P.E.I.'s Department of Transportation is looking into a long-term fix for a portion of road that, if blocked or unusable, could cut western P.E.I. off from the rest of the province in an emergency situation.

Transportation Minister Steven Myers ​​​​​​said he knows Hal Perry, MLA for Tignish-Palmer Road, has been fighting for a solution and Myers said he is taking the issue seriously.

"There are a lot of people that live on the west side of Portage and we want to make sure that we do everything we can do to help take that stress away from people," Myers said.

Perry said there is about a three-kilometre section of Route 2, between Portage and West Devon, which is "the only point of access to and from West Prince."

"My concern was if there was ever an extreme weather event or an accident that shut off that section of road, there would be no access to or from West Prince," Perry said.

Perry raised the question during the fall sitting of the P.E.I. Legislature. Perry said the road closed in 2018 for several hours due to an accident.

'Careful that we're wise'

Myers said he hasn't given his department a timeline on a long-term solution, but he would like to bring something back to the legislature in the spring.

"We'd have to put it through the capital budgeting process. Any additional road like that would be a brand-new build," he said.

There is not a lot of landmass in the area and a new road may have to go over water, Myers said.

"We all know the cost of going over water these days. So, we have to be careful that we're wise with how we look at this financially," he said. 

"But we do have to come up with a solution to rectify the problem so that we don't strand a bunch of people in the western part of the Island."

Short-term fix in place

Myers said there is a back-up plan if the section of road is obstructed, but admitted "it may not the best back-up plan in the world."

"We have the Confederation Trail, which we can use to get people in and out, and to get goods and services in and out to the west. That's a short-term fix if anything were to happen," Myers said.

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