After the completion of a new controlled intersection last year, the City of Winkler is forging ahead on $1.25 million design work to fully four-lane PTH 32.

Winkler Mayor Martin Harder says this will be a year of preparation.

"In 2017 we're certainly expecting to get all the ducks in a row so that when 2018 comes along there are no more excuses," he says.

Harder notes the Provincial government has indicated the four-laning is on their radar and would like to see the project completed.

"It's dragged on way too long," Harder says. "We can finally see the end of the tunnel."

The City expects to complete design and engineering, as well as relocate the necessary utilities this year with a price tag of $1.25 million, "so hopefully we can be ready for them in 2018," Harder says.

Harder says the new controlled intersection has been a welcome addition, "we're very pleased... it's directing the flow of traffic very well."

While some have raised concerns on the time it takes the new traffic lights to change, Harder says the city is unable to make adjustments.

"It's a department of highways issue, their engineers do that part of the design and they control it," he says. "It's out of our hands."

The twinning of PTH 32 has long been on Harder's wish list, and says it's unknown at this point what the four-lane project will cost.

In 2010 a joint study between the Province and the City put price tag of nearly $23 million on twinning Highway 32 from Winkler's Northern to Southern city limits. Ten years before that the same project was estimated at $4 to $6 million.