The area director in Little Fort says there are plans but no money for a highway safety project being asked for through the community.

Bill Kershaw is pushing for a left-turn lane from Highway 5 onto Highway 24, something he says has been on the Transport Ministry’s books for several years.

“The plan is there, the drawings are there, everything else is there but money. We just have to try to factor in some money, and I don’t see why it would be all that large an amount in comparison to what other projects cost. Because the land is, on each side, I think there’s lots of room there,” Kershaw says.

“But that’s one of the impediments, they say ‘it shouldn’t be a factor because it’s in a 60-kilometre zone.’ But people aren’t going 60, and people got into this habit, when you’re turning left they pull around you on the right. Well that’s pulling into somebody who’s pulling out of the junction at the other side. So there’s a lot that goes into that.”

Kershaw says traffic is always increasing in the North Thompson, and says a left-turn lane in Little Fort has to be put in at some point.

He says the idea was first floated by then-Kamloops-North MLA Terry Lake in 2013 when a roundabout was put in on the highway in the District of Clearwater.