WINNIPEG — The Manitoba Trucking Association (MTA) was outraged to hear of the Winnipeg’s plans to shut down Plessis Road as a designated Truck Route, especially after the city spent $10 million in the past two years to expand it.

A proposal by Transcona Councillor Russ Wyatt to shut down Plessis Road as a truck route was put forward because Wyatt claims trucks are using it as a “short cut.” The MTA disagrees and argues that Plessis Road meets the city’s criteria for classifying it as a truck route.

The trucking industry has made significant strides in reducing Green House Gas (GHG) emissions, and this closure would create more emissions, rather than reduce them. MTA general manager Bob Dolyniuk, thinks this would be taking a step backwards in their environmental footprint.

“To reduce our greenhouse gas emissions means that our industry must conduct its business in the most efficient and productive manner reasonable and minimize kilometres travelled,” he says. “The elimination of Plessis Road as a Truck Route will cause the exact opposite.”

Once adopted, it would also be costly to both the citizens of Winnipeg, and to the trucking industry.

“The City of Winnipeg has expended $10 million in the last two years developing Plessis Road as a double divided Regional Street and Truck Route. To spend that amount of money on a street and then re-designate to a non-Truck Route street is a complete waste of taxpayers’ dollars,” Dolyniuk reasons.

Furthermore, it will inflict a minimum of $1 million per year of additional and unnecessary cost to the trucking industry, according to the MTA and based on identified trips by the City of Winnipeg and truck operating costs identified by Transport Canada.

Additionally, a report prepared by the City of Winnipeg itself, found that the number of trucks that travel Plessis Road in typical 12-hour weekday is only 428 trucks, while other truck routes carry as many as 3480 trucks.