E-KNOW Editorial

One single comment.

One single comment sums up how ludicrous it is we are talking about how shoddily our highways are being maintained nowadays.

“There is so much more traffic than there ever used to be,” said City of Fernie Mayor Mary Giuliano shortly after Regional District of East Kootenay board of directors unanimously agreed to take communicative steps to find out what’s up with regional highway maintenance last Friday.

Winter highways maintenance will always be a subjective thing as it depends on who you are speaking with about their conditions.

Hardened and prepared winter drivers know how to slow down for conditions, have proper winter tires and can read traffic with an eye on defensive driving. It isn’t often when those types of people become bitter about road conditions. It’s like a hockey player blaming his/her stick when they miss an open net. In short, you just don’t blame anything else but yourself for failure.

Then there are those who are oblivious to lousy road conditions, a much large cross section of society. They are usually the ones who end up in ditches or in accidents because they are inexperienced, travel too quickly for the conditions and oftentimes don’t even have their vehicles prepared for winter.

Anyone who drives our region’s highways on a regular basis knows exactly about who I am referring to – the rampaging tools hell bent on getting places four minutes faster than everyone else.

Those people are quick on the draw to blame the roads for their foibles.

Naturally, those actually performing the highways maintenance have their own strong views of the work being done.

As a regular user of the region’s highways the past couple of decades, I can honestly report that the highway contractors generally provide earnest service. In short, they do the best they can.

Unfortunately, in our ever more fiscally prudent times, decreased staff numbers means degraded service levels and that isn’t good enough.

So it was heartening to see the email exchange between Mayor Giuliano and Kootenay East MLA Bill Bennett over the state of highways maintenance in the region, with emphasis on the Elk Valley, considered by the regional board during last week’s RDEK meeting. See: https://www.e-know.ca/news/winter-road-maintenance-causing-concerns/ for more on that.

Giuliano has lived in the Elk Valley all her life and knows how roads have been maintained over that time. When she states concerns, they need to be heard.

MLA Bennett knows the mayor well and being a regular user of regional highways, he also knows how winter maintenance has experienced highs and lows over the years. He noted his own frustration in his email to Giuliano.

There was plenty of worry when highways maintenance was privatized by the Gordon Campbell Liberals. It’s only really been the last couple of years when those worries started to materialize into verifiable problems.

Bennett notes in his response to Mayor Giuliano that the regional Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure managers are concerned about what is happening.

The RDEK board, representing on-the-ground, everyday leadership of the East Kootenay, are stating concerns and want answers.

Mainroad Contracting has done yeoman work in some areas over the years, while other areas have suffered. At times it is literally as obvious as leaving one coverage area and entering another to see the discrepancies in how roads are being maintained.

For example, last weekend at Kingsgate border crossing, Highway 95 was snow covered on the B.C. side of the 49^th but clear on the Idaho side. Huh?

There is the fact that our highway maintainers were slammed by a perfect storm mixture of shite weather –starting with snow and rain, depending on elevation, followed by a brief warm spell and melt followed by the start of the deep freeze we are still ‘enjoying.’ As noted before, slack has to be provided for the folks driving the ploughs and graders. More often than not it is management issues that is causing glitches in coverage, as well as budgets that aren’t large enough to cover such a massive rural area.

But hearing Mayor Giuliano note, almost as an aside as discussion waned on inviting MOTI and Mainroad to the January board meeting to explain their side, that “there is so much more traffic than there ever used to be,” really brought the whole picture into focus.

In short – it is disgusting that our highways are not receiving adequate winter maintenance and the attention necessary to ensure public safety.

Never mind the tragic death of a young mother, or two Central Kootenay youngsters killed near Moyie last week, accidents are commonplace along Highway 3 nowadays.

Coverage in the Columbia Valley appears to be holding steady, though Highway 93 through Kootenay National Park still ranks as the best maintained. Go figure. What does it say when a federal government-run entity outshines ‘private enterprise?’

Highway 93 may be a vital link to the Columbia Valley and East Kootenay, but Highway 3 is a vital link into British Columbia.

As City of Cranbrook Mayor Wayne Stetski noted at the Dec. 6 RDEK board meeting, 1.3 million vehicles roll through the Key City every year. That’s a lot of movement of people and goods, which is completely beneficial to this province’s wellbeing.

Our provincial leaders continue to tout tourism as a vital part the economy and rural Rocky Mountain paradise areas are a huge part of that tourism picture.

Our provincial government is so eager to embrace tourism that it completely ignored the wishes of the bulk of the local population and rammed Jumbo Glacier Resort through into the endless holding pattern it seems to be in, though bylaws are being crafted for a jurisdiction of nobody.

Well, Fernie Alpine Resort, Kimberley Alpine Resort, Panorama Mountain Resort and Fairmont Hot Springs Resort – currently the big draws that lure hundreds of thousands of tourists into B.C. each winter – are what should be getting attention in the form of access highways being kept as clear as possible of snow, ice and slush. Shouldn’t the highways be maintained to the Nth degree to ensure those valuable guests have great experiences?
And what about Jumbo? If our government can’t ensure our highways, as they are now, aren’t maintained to the best of abilities, what kind of wild adventure awaits those trekking 55 km west of Invermere to enjoy high alpine fun? Funds will have to be found to deal with that.

Funds should be found NOW to improve the situation that exists– or MOTI has to find a way to ensure its managers can get the best out of the private contractors.

Mayor Giuliano is absolutely correct and the absurdity of the current situation should not be lost on any taxpayer in this province.

Our highways are busier than ever but winter maintenance is being penny pinched and isn’t as effective as it once was – when government ministries held total sway.

Perhaps our provincial government saved a few million dollars by privatizing highway maintenance services. It has spent big dollars upgrading sections of Highway 3 in the last decade so it is aware of the growth of traffic numbers.

Now the real cost of this avoidance of total responsibility is starting to show with more and more white crosses and memorials along the sides of our highways in this region.

Ian Cobb/e-KNOW

---

Article Share

---