A New Westminster and a Surrey city councillor are renewing calls for a snow summit in Metro Vancouver so it can be better prepared for winter weather.
Calls for a snow summit started in November 2022 after the chaos snow caused across the region.
During that storm it took more than 12 hours for some commuters to get home, while others slept in their cars when the Alex Fraser Bridge was shut down.
New Westminster Coun. Daniel Fontaine has been spearheading the calls along with Surrey Coun. Linda Annis.
Fontaine told Global News not much progress has been made on calls for the summit.
“Coun. Annis and I have been calling for the province and Metro Vancouver to get under one roof to have that snow summit, to bring the experts — the road engineers, the first responders — and people who have been impacted by this, small businesses and everyone within the community to learn from these events and prevent them from happening again,” Fontaine said.
“We owe the public answers as to why we’re not providing a regional response to these snow storms.”
Fontaine is hoping a snow summit can find answers to where the region is falling short when it comes to preparation and response during a storm.
“Perhaps we’re not using the right combination of salt or sand on the roads, we’re not perhaps providing the public with advanced notification,” he said. “I’ve openly talked about perhaps using for major snowstorms our cellphone alert system telling people to stay home — there’s a lot of things we could be learning from a snow summit.”
Fontaine says snow response is a public safety issue.
“If we call 911 and we’re looking for a fire truck or ambulance to come to our home, they’re going to be stuck in the same traffic gridlock,” he said. “We’re dodging bullets here…. We may have a separate emergency happening and we may not be able to respond to it so it’s critical our roads are as clear as they can be.”
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