Highway 3 can often be treacherous as it winds through the mountains of southern British Columbia, but East Kootenay residents say that’s no excuse for its current state.
In response to a rash of recent accidents, over a thousand people have joined a Facebook group called “Taking Back East Kootenay Highways”, asking the provincial government to fire the private company contracted to keep the road safe.
“It’s treacherous. It’s a death trap right now,” says Morgan Owen. She lives in Cranbrook and her husband drives to the Sparwood area regularly.
However, Owen says it’s impossible to drive more than 30 kilometres an hour on the highway at the moment and the ditches are littered with vehicles that have slipped off the two-lane road.
“There’s over 4000 people that work on the Teck mines and are forced to drive on these roads every day. What if half of those people called in and said I can’t come to work today, the roads are too bad?
“Unless the roads are closed, we don’t have an option…and that’s not safe.”
The provincial government privatized highway maintenance in 1988, and Mainroad Contracting has the contract for Highway 3. People behind the current movement to strip them of their contract say their work has eroded over the years.
“When the winter roads are still a sheet of ice a week after the storm, it makes it difficult and unsafe for everyone travelling on the roads,” says Chris Inglis, a longtime Fernie resident who says he’s petitioned the government to make changes for years in vain.
“How does a business make money? They cut costs. Manpower, equipment, sand and salt.”
Cranbook RCMP Staff Sgt. Dave Dubnyk confirmed that they’ve received a number of reports of poor conditions on the highway, but said any liability to Mainroad Contracting would be a civil issue.
“I’m not an expert in road clearing, but when it gets this cold, it is difficult for the road crews when the ice gets built up and the salt isn’t working on them,” he said.
“The roads around town and surrounding area are very bad. Please take your time, leave lots of time to where you want to go, and better to arrive late than not arrive at all.”
For their part, the provincial government says warm temperatures and a intense snowfall, followed by rapidly dropping temperatures, made it extremly difficult to remove snow with normal practices. They say temperatures have now warmed to a point where chemicals can be applied to break down the compact snow.
“This has been a challenging week for weather conditions in the East Kootenays,” a government spokesperson conceded in a statement. However, they wouldn’t commit to any concrete action, other than working with Mainroad to see if their are ways of improving their response in the future.
– With files from Nadia Stewart
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