Councillors want ‘summit’ to uncover why Metro Vancouver wasn’t ready for snow during winter

Two Metro Vancouver councillors want to host a snow summit to make sure the chaos that many drivers in the region faced on Tuesday night doesn’t happen in the future.

Councillors Daniel Fontaine of New Westminster and Linda Annis of Surrey want to bring together all Lower Mainland municipalities, the B.C. government, transit operators and road maintenance contractors.

“The snow that hit us on Tuesday wasn’t a surprise,” Fontaine said. “But the impact was a complete shutdown that closed roads and bridges and really brought much of the Lower Mainland to a complete halt.

“I think it’s important to know why, and to work on a regional plan that does better next time. This has to be a combined effort of the province and local municipalities across the Lower Mainland.”

Hundreds of drivers were stranded in their cars for hours on roadways and bridges after the snow started to fall Tuesday afternoon.

4:21 Why was Metro Vancouver so ill-prepared for the snow?

Some drivers took upwards of 10 or 12 hours to get home due to major roadways being blocked by crashes or impassable due to the snow.

Annis said she left a downtown Vancouver meeting at 7:15 p.m. on Tuesday and did not get home to South Surrey until 4:45 a.m.

“A few inches of snow should not shut down the entire region, but it became clear on Tuesday afternoon when the snow started to fall that things were only going to get worse,” Annis said in a release.

“The gridlock spread so quickly and suddenly that we were all trapped in our cars for hours as the weather and traffic got worse. How do other regions across Canada and the United States that get much more snow than us keep going, and what can we learn going forward? We have to get better at this and we have to do it together.”

2:08 Kindness of strangers help stranded drivers stuck in snow

Fontaine said he heard from a number of people who were stuck for hours on Tuesday evening and the region needs to be better prepared.

The province said it had 30 pieces of equipment working on the Lower Mainland roads during the evening but crews faced some challenges.

“A big piece of what we’re looking at is, if folks don’t need to be out on the road then I think that’s a key piece as well,” Janelle Staite, deputy director of South Coast Region with the B.C. Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure said.

“What we found yesterday was around 1 or 2 o’clock when people saw the snow starting to arrive, they actually started leaving their work or changing their routine a little bit. So the congestion period that we typically see around 4:30, started at 2 p.m. and we weren’t able to clear that congestion until the wee hours of the morning, which did contribute to some very extraordinary commutes for folks.”

1:17 Compilation of videos shows how slippery and dangerous the roads were in Metro Vancouver

Fontaine said they don’t want to play a blame game about how Tuesday’s chaos happened but said people do need to be held accountable.

“We have a number of different layers of folks who are working hard to plan to get prepared for this,” he said.

“So I think what I’d like to look at is things like, you know, when I look at the towing capability in our region, like when we know this is happening, are we putting all the tow trucks on alert? Are we putting them closer to the bridge and the choke points where people typically will have problems? Are we using our emergency alert system more effectively?”

The two councillors would like the regional snow summit to be chaired by Metro Vancouver chair, Mayor George Harvie of Delta, and Rob Fleming, Minister of Transportation and Infrastructure.

They have not yet responded to the suggestion.

Fontaine said he would like to see the snow summit held soon and this should be a wakeup call.

“Coming so early into December, I think people typically in this region, we expect snow to happen in kind of maybe January, February, sometime,” he said.

“But the fact that it’s come so early in the season, unfortunately, I think that doesn’t kind of bode well for the remainder of this winter.”