← Steinbach City Council Reporting

Part 1 · The council record

Whose decision?

Steinbach's two through routes are provincial highways: PTH 12 runs north–south (PTH 12 North, then Brandt Street south of Main), and PTH 52 runs east–west (PTH 52 West, then Main Street). Manitoba Transportation and Infrastructure (MTI) owns them and runs every signal on them. A new highway around the city would be a provincial project; the city's part would be land-use planning, lobbying and possibly a cost share. For more on who controls what, see Traffic in Steinbach.

The only public bypass discussion by the province found for this report is from 2018. A highway access plan prepared by the province with the city and the RM of Hanover mentioned a perimeter highway or bypass. A provincial official said “the comment in that study is just a hypothetical concept being considered”. Asked whether anything was on the horizon, he said: “No, I don't see that happening anytime soon.” (SteinbachOnline, Mar 20, 2018). The province says that 2018 access management study of PTH 12 and PTH 52 led to a later design study for PTH 52 through Mitchell (EngageMB). Neither that study nor its September 2025 update, which the 2025 traffic study cites, is published online.

The city's 2025 development plan describes PTH 12 as “an Expressway north of PTH 52 and a Primary Arterial south of PTH 52”, and both highways as heavy-truck routes to be “preserved as major highway corridors”. The province's current five-year highway plan lists intersection improvements at PTH 12 and PTH 52 in Steinbach. It lists no bypass, realignment or twinning through the city (Manitoba 2025/26 infrastructure strategy, 2026–2030 list).

What the traffic study shows

Every year since 1997 the city has paid WSP Canada to count traffic on the two highways. The 2024 study, presented on March 18, 2025, counted 20 intersections on four weekdays in late September and early October 2024, from 3 to 6 p.m., plus a.m. counts at four sites (study, pp. 1–4). It is the main evidence council points to on the bypass question.

Where the traffic is

The map shows each stretch of PTH 12 and PTH 52 between two counted intersections, drawn wider the more traffic it carries in the weekday evening peak hour. Switch between the 2024 and 2025 studies, or split each stretch by direction. Tap or click an intersection to see where its traffic goes: how many drivers turned left, turned right or went straight, from each direction.

The chart below gives the same picture for 2024 at each intersection. It adds the two highway approaches at each counted intersection: northbound plus southbound on PTH 12, eastbound plus westbound on PTH 52. That gives a rough two-way flow on the highway at each point in the evening peak hour. Cross-street traffic isn't included. The highlighted bars are the outermost intersections the study counts on each route.

What the numbers can and can't say

A vehicle passing through Steinbach has to enter at one end of a highway and leave at another. On Brandt St, two-way traffic at the south end (about 725 an hour) is a third of the flow at Park Rd (about 2,200). So at most about 725 vehicles an hour in the evening peak could be travelling right through on PTH 12 from north to south. The real number is likely lower, because many of those trips start or end in the south of the city. Traffic also builds toward the middle of both corridors and falls off toward the ends, and westbound PTH 52 is heavier than eastbound in the evening, the pattern of people leaving jobs in Steinbach. Both fit Councillor Siemens's point that most traffic is coming to Steinbach.

The west end (about 1,800 an hour) and the north end (about 1,880) carry more traffic, and the obvious bypass route would link them. The study's turning counts help here. At Brandt St and Main St, 140 drivers an hour turned from PTH 52 West onto PTH 12 North and 85 turned the other way in 2024: 225 in all, under 7% of the 3,430 vehicles through that junction. In 2025 it was 180. Some drivers may cut through on Industrial Rd and Park Rd West instead. Even if every turn on that route were a through trip, the total stays below about 550 an hour in either year, and many of those trips are local. The 2024 study shows evening traffic heading out of the city in both directions: westbound on PTH 52 at Westland Dr (1,075) outnumbered eastbound (725), and southbound on Brandt St at Hanover Rd (485) outnumbered northbound (240).

The counts still can't follow a vehicle from one end of the city to the other. Only an origin–destination survey, which matches licence plates or tracks trips at points around the city, can. None was found for Steinbach.

What council has said and done

“Traffic comes to Steinbach”

“One, one of the things I always look at on this report is the amount of traffic coming into Steinbach and the amount of traffic leaving Steinbach, because I always get that, why isn't Steinbach building a bypass to help with the traffic? But we see when in this, these reports, we see every year when we do these, we see traffic comes to Steinbach, it doesn't go through Steinbach. So a bypass Doesn't make sense to me.”

Councillor Jac Siemens, on the 2025 traffic study · Feb 17, 2026 · 0:24:02

“The other thing is, this is always done in September or early October, this traffic study, and we're always under construction. The last quite a number of years we've been under construction at one of the intersections.”

Councillor Jac Siemens, same remarks · Feb 17, 2026 · 0:24:02

This is the only time in 103 regular meetings from January 2022 to September 2026 that a member of council spoke directly to the bypass question. Nobody responded to it, and council accepted the report unanimously (R26-037).

Using the study to lobby for intersections

“It helps us identify problem intersections or roads and it helps us to prioritize and get them up to speed to take the traffic that's coming through them.”

Mayor Earl Funk · Feb 15, 2022 · 0:25:42

“We have data that we're able to present to the province to show that our growth does does merit improvements to our intersections.”

Councillor Michael Zwaagstra · Feb 17, 2026 · 0:21:48

“And again, these recommendations are exactly that; they aren't they aren't must-haves.”

Troy Warkentin, City Manager, introducing the 2025 study · Feb 17, 2026 · 0:14:17

City streets as the bypass

In practice, Steinbach's “bypasses” are city streets that let drivers avoid the busiest stretches of PTH 12 and Main St: Park Road West, Acres Drive, Loewen Blvd and Old Tom Road.

“The traffic around Steinbach is horrendous.…And the traffic around Steinbach, when we paved Old Tom 10 years ago, whenever that was, there was a lot of unintended consequences, and that becomes a way to bypass Highway 12 and our main street.”

Councillor Jac Siemens · Sept 6, 2022 · 1:18:26

“One of the things that I did notice was that with Park Road being closed, Acres Drive has more than doubled in traffic.”

Councillor Jac Siemens, on the 2022 traffic study · Mar 21, 2023 · 0:45:46

“this is going to be a great bypass when we do the intersection at number 12 and Lowen Boulevard.”

Councillor Bill Hiebert, on the $1.97M Park Road West extension (SteinbachOnline reported the same words as his) · Mar 21, 2023 · 0:51:51

Trucks

“there will be more truck traffic on Main Street. And trucks generally go south on 12 or north on 12.…generally they're after the number 1 highway, they're going south to the border.”

Councillor Jac Siemens, on selling city land to a trucking company · Jan 16, 2024 · 1:31:02

Trucks are the usual case for a bypass, and the city's study doesn't report them. The province's most recent truck estimates (2019) put about 750 to 1,800 trucks a day on the PTH 12 sections around Steinbach, and about 500 to 1,235 on PTH 52 (MTI truck traffic layer). Those figures don't say how many trucks pass straight through. The city's designated truck routes are PTH 12 (Brandt St), PTH 52 (Main St), McKenzie Ave, Acres Dr and Industrial Rd (City of Steinbach), so through trucks are routed along Main St and Brandt St. In the 2024 discussion, staff confirmed that trucks serving that site would have to use PTH 52.

Follow-through

Their reasons for not pursuing a bypass

1“Traffic comes to Steinbach, it doesn't go through”

Councillor Siemens's argument (above) is the only stated reason on the record. A bypass only helps if a meaningful share of traffic is passing through, so the reasoning is sound in principle.

2It's the province's highway, and the province has no plans

“MTI, who is the authority who manages all the traffic signalization in Steinbach.”

Troy Warkentin, City Manager · Feb 17, 2026 · 0:14:17

3Build city connector roads and fix the intersections instead

“We've talked about that at our study sessions, and we continue to do that as part of our long-term planning process, is how do we manage our traffic flows within Steinbach.”

Councillor Jac Siemens · Sept 6, 2022 · 1:18:26

“I would hate to have 3 sets of traffic lights in one block”

Councillor Jac Siemens, on possible signals at PTH 52 and Lund Rd · Mar 18, 2025 · 1:33:18

Part 2 · How Steinbach compares

Scorecard

Strong ahead of or matching good practice   On par typical practice   Partial started, with gaps   Gap common elsewhere, not done here

Key findings

1The bypass was dismissed, not studied

Council's only stated reason (reason 1) rests on a study that measures intersections, not trips. Its numbers make a large north–south through flow unlikely. Its turning counts suggest the west-to-north movement, the one a bypass would most likely serve, is also modest: at most about 550 vehicles an hour in the evening peak, and probably far fewer. But that's an upper limit worked out from turning counts, not a measurement. An origin–destination survey would answer the question directly, as Yorkton's did.

2Steinbach's approach matches its closest peers

The province controls the highways (reason 2), and no Manitoba city of Steinbach's size has had a bypass built recently. Winkler, Morden and Niverville, like Steinbach, are getting their highways rebuilt through town with cost-sharing. The bypassed cities, Portage la Prairie, Brandon, Selkirk and Dauphin, got them decades ago as part of larger provincial highway projects, not at a city's request.

3The real bypasses are residential streets

Choosing connector streets over a highway bypass (reason 3) has moved some traffic onto Old Tom Rd, Loewen Blvd and Friesen Ave, and residents there have complained. With the population projected to roughly double in 20 years (see Steinbach in 10 to 20 years), the city has no transportation master plan saying which streets are meant to carry that traffic.

4Elsewhere, bypasses follow trucks and crashes, and are measured first

In the Canadian cities that built one, the province planned and paid, sometimes with federal money. The trigger was usually trucks or safety rather than general congestion. Yorkton's truck route came with new canola plants and Estevan's bypass after truck traffic nearly doubled. Kenora's followed crashes on a Trans-Canada main street. Where through traffic was in doubt, the province measured it.

Yorkton is the closest match to Steinbach: a regional service centre of about 16,000 on several provincial highways. In 2016 its province, city and neighbouring RMs recorded licence plates on all seven highways into the area for 12 hours. “On average, 11,300 vehicles enter the study area on a highway each day, including 1,460 trucks. Of that number 1,700 vehicles (15%) including 475 trucks (32%) continued through the City”. The study concluded “it does not appear the through traffic demand on Highway 16 will warrant a high-speed through route” and recommended better regional connector roads instead (Yorkton Regional Transportation Study, 2018). That is Steinbach council's argument, settled with data, and it still found that a third of trucks were passing through.

In the small town of Moosomin, Saskatchewan, a two-hour provincial truck count at three points in 2016 found that “out of 83 vehicles, only 28 were through traffic”. The ministry “concluded that most Highway 8 traffic was destined for Moosomin, not passing through”. The town questioned how short the count was and asked for a fuller study (World-Spectator, Sept 7, 2016). That is the same argument Steinbach council makes, but tested by counting where vehicles went, and still disputed.

The research on effects is mixed. A 2005 study for New Jersey's transportation department reviewed earlier US and Canadian bypass studies. It found that rural bypasses “generally achieved their goal of diverting truck traffic out of downtown areas, but did not necessarily reduce overall downtown traffic volume.” It also found that “the building of a bypass road has little economic impact on the bypassed community.” One explanation it gives: once through traffic moves to the bypass, drivers who had been using parallel side routes return downtown (Rutgers Voorhees Transportation Center, 2005, executive summary and literature review). That supports council's view that a bypass wouldn't cure congestion caused by local trips. It also suggests the main case for one here would be trucks, which the city doesn't count.

Wisconsin's 1998 study of 17 bypassed communities points the same way. Origin–destination surveys in five of them found “an average of 76% of all vehicles having an origin or destination within the city or village”. In towns over 5,000 people, the old route lost only about 30% of its traffic in the long run, and “nearly all of the medium and larger communities have more traffic on their old highway route than on the bypass” (WisDOT summary). A Texas study found the reverse risk: “the better a relief route works from a traffic standpoint, the greater its adverse impact on local per capita sales” (Srinivasan & Kockelman, 2002). Florida's planning guidance says a bypass “may be appropriate where heavy truck traffic causes continuing unacceptable impacts” or “where a high percentage of trips are just passing through the community” (CUTR for Florida DOT, 2014). No Canadian or Manitoba standard sets a through-traffic share that justifies a bypass.

Peer municipalities

Populations are from the 2021 census.

What “doing all it can” would add

• Ask the province for an origin–destination survey of PTH 12 and 52, on weekdays and a Saturday, with truck counts. This would replace the current inference from turning counts with an actual measure of through traffic.
• Publish the provincial access management plan (2018) and its September 2025 update, which shape where PTH 12 and 52 can be accessed and which roads may close.
• Publish the yearly WSP study on the city website, not only inside agenda packages, and keep sending each year's study to the province, as the 2026 resolution didn't.
• Settle the corridor question in the development plan. Either reserve land for a future ring road or highway corridor as the city grows north and west, or record a decision that the city doesn't want one.
• A transportation master plan that names which city streets are meant to carry cross-town traffic, so residential streets such as Old Tom Rd and Friesen Ave don't become bypasses by accident.
• Review truck routes using counts, and act on complaints about trucks on streets that aren't truck routes.

Sources

Council meetings (official YouTube recordings): Feb 15, 2022 · Sept 6, 2022 · Mar 21, 2023 · Jan 16, 2024 · Mar 5, 2024 · Mar 18, 2025 · Feb 17, 2026 · Jun 2, 2026

• Traffic study: WSP Canada, 2024 Steinbach Annual Traffic Counting Study (Project CA0041884.0650), in the City of Steinbach council agenda package for March 18, 2025, pp. 65–100; WSP Canada, 2025 Steinbach Annual Traffic Count and Analysis Program (January 2026), in the February 17, 2026 agenda package
• City: Official Community Plan, By-law 2244 (2025); Truck routes; Park Road West paving (SteinbachOnline, 2023)
• Provincial plans and data: Multi-year Infrastructure Investment Strategy 2025/26; 2019 truck traffic estimates and highway centrelines
• Map: Leaflet; background map and streets © OpenStreetMap contributors
• Province: No plans for a perimeter highway (SteinbachOnline, 2018); PTH 52 functional design background (EngageMB)
• SteinbachOnline: Traffic growing steadily (2017); 2023 traffic study; 2025 traffic study
• Research: Before-and-After Evaluation of Bypass Roads in New Jersey (Rutgers, 2005); Economic Impacts of Highway Bypasses on Communities (WisDOT, 1998); Srinivasan & Kockelman, Texas relief routes (2002); Bypass Basics (CUTR for Florida DOT, 2014); Moosomin traffic count (World-Spectator, 2016)
• Peers: see the peer table; populations from Census 2021 coverage
• Related reports: Traffic in Steinbach; Steinbach in 10 to 20 years