File photo of the Coquihalla highway in winter.
The Mayor of Barriere is raising concerns about what he called non-existent highway maintenance standards on the Coquihalla this past Tuesday.
Speaking at the TNRD meeting, Ward Stamer, who is also a director on the regional district, says he says five semis that were spun out because of icy conditions between Kamloops and Merritt that day.
“I would like an explanation from the [Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure] on exactly what their maintenance standards are. And again, what are the penalties if those maintenance standards are not being met,” he said. “I’d like to be able to have am opportunity to be able to talk to them at their next available opportunity and tell them that we want to have a copy of the maintenance standards.”
“If they don’t give it to us, we’ll do the freedom of information and find out because quite frankly there was nothing there.”
Stamer says he is hoping to get answers soon as quickly as possible as he says the road conditions were totally unacceptable.
“Lets face it is wasn’t a one-in-a-hundred year event Tuesday morning,” he said. “So if that means that we have to speed variant corridor similar to what they have on the other parts of the Coquihalla where possibly we may have to change the maximum speed limit between Kamloops and Merritt because of road conditions, fair enough.”
Ken Gillis, the Board Chair of the Thompson Nicola Regional District, said he had a similar experience on the highway this Tuesday.
“It was unbelievable and there was a complete absence of any sign of maintenance and if they had scattered a bit of salt, they certainly hadn’t put down any grit,” he said. “It was unbelievably icy.”
“My barber that same day went to Vernon and said she saw innumerable, she didn’t tell me how many, but she made it sound as if every 500 feet there was a car in the ditch. So we have to do something to find out what is going on, I agree.”
TNRD CAO Scott Hildebrand told the board that he will work on getting the Ministry of Transportation to a board meeting as soon as possible.
