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Bend Road to be closed

Revelstoke council votes to close off part of Bend Road as part of highway intersection project
33731revelstokeEng-MutasVictoriaIntersection-BendRoad2016-11-22
The final highway intersection design shows part of Bend Road will be closed and the section from Highway 23 North will end in a cul-de-sac.

After yet another debate, a divided council voted to support an engineers report recommending the closure of part of Bend Road from the Shell/Tim Horton’s/Super 8 area.

The move follows a recommendation by Mike Thomas, the city’s director of engineering, to close off the section of the road that runs from Victoria Road to the Highway 23 North intersection.

Mayor Mark McKee urged a design for the highway intersection that would keep the road open, but Thomas’ report said ICBC recommended the road be closed and not doing so would jeopardize $50,000 in funding from the ICBC and funding from the Ministry of Transportation.

“The part I’m concerned about is when we were doing the approval for Mutas Road and the roundabout, I felt there was a very strong feeling that Bend Road should remain open,” said McKee. “I wasn’t expecting that two months later we would be looking at getting it closed.”

Thomas said the city and consultants McElhanney looked at other options, but they all had safety issues or violated road building rules.

“As staff, we felt ICBC’s recommendation provides the safest reasonable solution available,” he said.

Councillors Aaron Orlando, Linda Nixon and Trevor English supported the closure of Bend Road, while McKee and coun. Scott Duke voted against it.

With the vote, work on the second part of the highway intersection project will resume in the spring with the changes to the Mutas/Victoria Road intersection.