The town of Altona is making some good progress in negotiating an upgrade to Main Street.

An application has been submitted to Manitoba Infrastructure and Transportation for rehabilitation work to be conducted on a half-kilometre stretch of main street, and it appears officials with M-I-T are listening.

In fact, M-I-T has come up with a proposal to fully finance the re-surfacing of the traffic lanes on Main Street, and split the cost of improving the parking lanes on both sides of the street with the town.

The province is responsible for maintaining Main Street since it's considered a provincial roadway. Under this proposal, that situation would change.

"Once this project is finished, the street would essentially be handed over to the town and they would be responsible for painting lines, snow clearing and street sweeping. All maintenance and repair work would be the town's responsibility, moving forward," said Dan Gagne, Altona's Chief Administrative Officer.

Main Street hasn't seen any significant improvements in several decades, according to Gagne.

"The base of the street is in relatively good shape, but the road surface needs replacement. They (M-I-T) will mill it down by 50 millimetres and then replace that layer with new material."

According to Gagne, that work should keep the street in good shape for the next 15 years or so.

Both the town and province are mulling over the details of the proposal. If both sides agree to the deal, work to rehabilitate Main Street could begin in 2017.