After five years of planning, the Plum Coulee pedestrian bridge project finally got the green light from the province last week for work to begin.
Committee chair June Letkeman shared Friday that Manitoba Transportation and Infrastructure has issued the project the permit it needs to get the bridge’s piers in the ground next month.
“It’s been a long, hard struggle,” she says. “Our first application went in on April 19, 2019, so it took five years to get this permit. But now we can finally start.”
The plan is to build a permanent bridge across the Hespler Drain, which cuts off the south side of the community from the north, forcing pedestrians and cyclists onto busier highways on either end of town.
This new bridge will be a much safer option for everyone, Letkeman says, especially considering how much the town has grown in recent years, with new residential builds going up all the time.
“This is very exciting news for Plum Coulee,” she says. “It’s just so necessary because we have no safe way of walking from one side of Plum Coulee to the other.”
Work will start first thing in 2025 on phase one of the project, which includes getting the bridge’s foundations installed. Phase two will finish off the bridge itself.
Letkeman singles out project engineer Kyle Wiebe for getting them to this point.
“He’s put in an amazing amount of hours to get all of this done,” she says. “He has worked tirelessly to get this permit from MTI.”
With the good news, though, comes some bad: the project did not received the $100,000 grant it had been hoping for from the provincial government’s From the Ground Up program.
“So we still need to raise $150,000 to complete the second phase of the bridge,” Letkeman says.
Considering the entire project is pegged at $420,000, and they’ve already raised about $270,000 of that, this last $150,000 is more than doable, Letkeman stresses.
“That’s not too bad—we will do it,” she says, thanking all the individuals and businesses who have already support the campaign. “We’ve had nothing but encouragement and support, amazing support.”
The bridge committee will continue reaching out to local businesses in the months ahead, and plans are also in the works for a few public fundraisers to get them across the finish line.
The hope is that the money will be raised in time to allow for bridge construction to be completed by the end of 2025.
If you’d like to make a donation toward the pedestrian bridge or get involved as a volunteer with the committee, contact Letkeman at 204-362-0501.
“We’re looking for people to help us raise these funds,” she says. “We’re open to any help that is out there.”
